Posts Tagged ‘STORMY DANIELS’
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In Bureaucracy, Business, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Military, Politics, Social commentary on July 9, 2024 at 12:10 am
The Supreme Court has spoken. And Donald Trump, who tried to treasonously overturn the 2020 Presidential election and make himself “President-for-Life,” is now armed with the almost total immunity he has long sought.
As Trump and his entrenched Right-wing allies move ever closer to establishing an absolute dictatorship, this is an apt time to discover—or rediscover—the frighteningly real world of The Profession, a 2011 futuristic novel by bestselling author Steven Pressfield.
Steven Pressfield
Pressfield had previously made his mark as an author of historical novels—primarily set in ancient Greece.
In Gates of Fire (1998) he explored the rigors and heroism of Spartan society—and the famous last stand of its 300 picked warriors at Thermopylae.
In The Virtues of War (2004) Pressfield adopted the identity of Alexander the Great, explaining what it was like to command invincible armies that swept across the known world.
Finally, in The Afghan Campaign (2006) he chronicled—from the viewpoint of a lowly Greek soldier—Alexander’s brutal, three-year anti-guerrilla campaign in Afghanistan.
But in The Profession, Pressfield created a seemingly plausible world set in the future. The book’s dust jacket offers an excellent summary of its plot-line:
“The year is 2032. Everywhere military force is for hire. Oil companies, multi-national corporations and banks employ powerful, cutting-edge mercenary armies to control global chaos and protect their riches.
“Even nation states enlist mercenary forces to suppress internal insurrections, hunt terrorists, and do the black bag jobs necessary to maintain the new New World Order.
“Force Insertion is the world’s merc monopoly. Its leader is the disgraced former United States Marine General James Salter, stripped of his command by the president for nuclear saber-rattling with the Chinese and banished to the Far East.
“A grandmaster military and political strategist, Salter plans to take vengeance on those responsible for his exile and then come home…as Commander in Chief.”
Salter appears as a hybrid of World War II General Douglas MacArthur and Iraqi War General Stanley McCrystal. Like MacArthur, Salter has butted heads with his President—and paid dearly for it. Now his ambition—like MacArthur—is to become President himself by popular acclaim.
Douglas MacArthur
And like McCrystal, he is a pure warrior who leads from the front and is revered by his men. Salter seizes Saudi oil fields and strategically rigs them with explosives to be used if threatened.
Then he offers them as a gift to America. By doing so, he makes himself the most popular man in the country—and a guaranteed occupant of the White House.
Stanley McCrystal
And in 2032 the United States is a far different nation from the one its Founding Fathers created in 1776.
“Any time that you have the rise of mercenaries…society has entered a twilight era, a time past the zenith of its arc,” says Salter. “The United States is an empire…but the American people lack the imperial temperament. We’re not legionaries, we’re mechanics. In the end the American Dream boils down to what? ‘I’m getting mine and the hell with you.'”
Americans, asserts Salter, have come to like mercenaries: “They’ve had enough of sacrificing their sons and daughters in the name of some illusory world order. They want someone else’s sons and daughters to bear the burden….
“They want their problems to go away. They want me to make them go away.”
Yet unlike Donald Trump, who infamously shouted, “I love the poorly educated!” Salter is a highly intellectual man. He feels himself a tragic figure, lamenting that the United States has abandoned its longstanding political values even as he prepares to extinguish the most basic one by becoming dictator.
“The moment compels me to seize it. If I don’t someone or something worse will step in. But if I perform the bidding of Necessity, I violate the code of the republic to which all of us have sworn allegiance. I cross a line, beyond which there can be no return.
“But what, I ask, is the alternative? The nation has lost its way and is struggling desperately, merely to hang on. The nation can’t go on as it is, and everyone knows it. If not me, who? If not me, what?
“So, yes, I will go home. And yes, I will accept whatever crown, of paper or gold, that my country wants to press upon me. Not because I believe such a coronation will make any difference in the long run.
“But maybe in the short run, it’s better that my hand be on the wheel rather than some other self-aggrandizing sonofabitch whose motives might not be as well-intentioned or whose consciousness so painfully evolved.”
At a nationally televised press conference, Salter hands a loaded pistol to a longtime friend and disciple who now fears his dictatorial ambitions.
“Go ahead,” says Salter. “You’ll be saving the republic. And me, too.”
But the former disciple cannot bring himself to kill his longtime idol: “Now I’m guilty with you,” he says.
Steven Pressfield, in a work of fiction, has given us a nightmarish vision of a futuristic America.
Donald Trump and his Right-wing disciples may soon make that vision a reality.
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In Bureaucracy, Business, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Medical, Politics, RELIGION, Social commentary on July 2, 2024 at 12:10 am
Why aren’t Republicans—allegedly the party of “family values”—morally outraged at Donald Trump for his adulterous tryst with a porn “star” and his hush money payment to conceal it during the 2016 Presidential campaign?
Why are they instead outraged at Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, at President Joseph Biden, at the criminal justice system itself?
Republican party logo
Simple: They see Trump as their best chance to not only reclaim the White House but establish a permanent Right-wing dictatorship.
Under this, the Republican party will become—in fact, if not officially—the only recognized political party in the nation.
Democratic candidates—for the House, Senate and Presidency—will be prevented from taking office by gerrymandering or false claims that they committed election fraud.
These—and other goals—have been enshrined in Project 2025, also known as the Presidential Transition Project. This is a collection of policy proposals to fundamentally reshape the U.S. federal government in the event of a Republican victory in the 2024 Presidential election.
Established in 2022 by the Right-wing Heritage Foundation, the project aims to recruit tens of thousands of radical Right-wingers to the District of Columbia to replace existing federal civil servants.
Under Project 2025:
- Republicans consider federal employees to be subversives who comprise the “deep state.”
- Replacing tenured civil servants with thousands of political hacks will arm Republicans with the power to establish an absolute dictatorship under the next Republican president.
- The Department of Justice has “forfeited the trust” of the American people by investigating Donald Trump’s proven collaboration with Russia to win the 2016 Presidential election.
- As a result, the DOJ must be thoroughly “reformed” and tightly overseen by the White House. The director of the FBI must be personally accountable to the President—just as the head of the KGB is personally accountable to Vladimir Putin.
Seal of the Justice Department
- Federal employees could be instantly fired for not obeying illegal orders, or on mere whim—including the whim of the President.
- Funding for the Department of Justice would be slashed.
- The FBI would be dismantled.
- The Department of Homeland Security would be abolished.
- The Environmental Protection Agency would be stripped of its authority to protect the air, water and soil.
- States would be prevented from adopting stricter regulations on vehicular emissions, like California has done.
- The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), which the project calls “one of the main drivers of the climate change alarm industry,” would be abolished.
- Fossil fuels—the leading cause of global warming—would be favored and environmental regulations to combat climate change abolished.
- Federal funding for all public transit systems across the country would be eliminated.
- Traditionally independent federal agencies such as the Department of Justice, Federal Communications Commission and the Federal Trade Commission would be placed under Presidential control.
- The wealthiest 1% would receive massive tax cuts at the expense of the poor and middle class.
- Conception would be designated as the point where life begins.
- Abortion would be outlawed.
- Access to birth control would be sharply restricted, if not banned.
- Christianity would be designated as the official religion of the United States.
- The use of capital punishment would be revived and expanded—and the right of appeals sharply restricted.
* * * * *
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:
“Ultimately, the responsibility for the rise of Hitler lies with the German people, who 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. This despite Trump’s legacy of:
- 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 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.
Fortunately, 80 million Americans braved the COVID-19 pandemic and efforts by Republicans to overturn their voting rights—and elected Joseph Biden President of the United States.
Only time will tell if the country proves so lucky in 2024.
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In Bureaucracy, Business, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Medical, Military, Politics, RELIGION, Social commentary on July 1, 2024 at 12:10 am
The May 31, 2024 episode of Washington Week With the Atlantic raised the question: Why were Republicans so obsessed with Bill Clinton’s adulterous affair with Monica Lewinsky but are furiously supporting Donald Trump’s tryst with Stormy Daniels?
Moderator Jeffrey Goldberg opened with: “Donald Trump isn’t a convicted felon yet. Sorry to be pedantic here, but he technically acquires that status only at sentencing come July 11th.
“But a New York jury has spoken, finding him guilty of engaging in a financial scheme to keep the porn star, Stormy Daniels, quiet about their sexual encounter, one that occurred shortly after Trump’s wife gave birth to their son.
“Trump, in addition to this guilty verdict, was recently found liable for sexual abuse in a civil case. In total, more than 25 women have accused him of sexual assault and sexual harassment.
Donald Trump and Stormy Daniels
“The reaction of the Republican Party leaders to the verdict was to rally around Trump. Evangelical leaders, including Franklin Graham, also doubled down on their support. Graham, writing on X, said, ‘What we saw today has never happened before, and I think for the majority of Americans, it raises questions about whether our legal system can be trusted….’
“[In] the 1990s…. when Bill Clinton was president and Republicans were outraged and many other people were legitimately outraged that the president of the United States was having sexual relations with a White House intern. Explain to us, if you can, the different dynamics here, the party of family values.”
McKay Coppins, staff writer at the Atlantic: “Well, Donald Trump has fundamentally changed the way the Republican party, the conservative movement, think about morality and public leadership.
“Something that I always think about when issues like this come up is that before Donald Trump came on the scene, I can’t remember, it was 2013, 2014, if you surveyed Republican voters and asked them how important is public — it is personal morality in an elected leader to you.
“Something like two-thirds of them would say it’s very important, that I would rather have somebody of high moral character than somebody with policies I agree with.
“A couple years into the Trump presidency, that had flipped and it was only a third of voters said that that was the case, if you were a Republican.
McKay Coppins
“And it just shows kind of the sea change in evangelical ethics and social conservative ethics. I think a lot of conservatives now, because of negative partisanship and polarization….they want to, you know, line up with their team right?
“They want to be with their guy, and then they kind of create a moral architecture around being able to do that.
“But, you know, [he] cheated on his wife with a porn star, and then….is now been convicted of committing fraud to cover it up.
“[It’s] almost a cliché to say if a Democrat had done that, we know what we would be hearing from social conservatives and evangelicals, but they want Donald Trump to be elected.
“And so they are pivoting away from the specifics of the case and the underlying facts of the case to [say] this is a rigged system, this is a legal persecution, Donald Trump is a victim, and we need to back him because they’re going to come after us next.”
There is unquestionably a great deal of truth in the foregoing. But there is also a great deal of truth in a statement that was not made:
Republicans’ professed outrage at Bill Clinton’s infidelities and their furious defense of those by Donald Trump actually share a common link.
In 1981, President Ronald Reagan, once the poster boy for Republican values, best described the current mindset of the Republican party. Ironically enough, at the time, he was assailing the leaders of the Soviet Union:
“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
In January, 1998, when the public learned of President Bill Clinton’s affair with White House intern Monica Lewinsky, Republicans gushed moral outrage.
They portrayed Lewinsky—who had had a seven-year extramarital affair with her former high school drama instructor and flashed her thong at Clinton, signaling her readiness for an affair—as a Vestal Virgin, and Clinton as Grigori Rasputin incarnate.
By 1992, Republicans had come to regard the White House as theirs by Divine Right. Anyone who ran against them automatically became—for them—a traitor. And anyone who won against them became—for them—an usurper.
Thus, Clinton’s true “crime” had been defeating, first, President George H.W. Bush, in 1992, and then Kansas Senator Bob Dole, in 1996.
Fast-forward to the May 30 conviction of Donald Trump on 34 counts of falsifying business records to conceal a sexual tryst with porn “star” Stormy Daniels.
Suddenly, Republicans aim their cries of moral outrage not at Trump but at Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, at President Joseph Biden, at the criminal justice system itself.
The reason: They see Trump as their best chance for not simply reclaiming the White House but for establishing a permanent Right-wing dictatorship.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Politics, Social commentary on June 5, 2024 at 12:16 am
Commentators have long speculated on why millions of Americans remain fanatically committed to Donald Trump.
There has been far less speculation on why so many law enforcers have turned a blind eye to Trump’s decades of criminality, if not treason.
Among those guilty:
- The Justice Department did not indict Trump for the series of threats he made—directly and indirectly—against Republicans and Democrats throughout the 2016 Presidential campaign.
- The United States Secret Service did not charge him with threatening the life of Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton: “Hillary [Clinton] wants to abolish, essentially abolish, the Second Amendment. If she gets to pick her [Supreme Court] judges, nothing you can do folks. Although the Second Amendment people, maybe there is, I don’t know.”
- The Justice Department did not prosecute Trump for treason, even though he solicited aid from Russia, a nation hostile to the United States. On July 27, 2016. Trump publicly invited “Russia”—i.e., Vladimir Putin—to hack Hillary Clinton’s emails: “I will tell you this, Russia: If you’re listening, I hope you’re able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing. I think you will probably be rewarded mightily by our press.”
There are at least two reasons why Trump has been allowed to insult and even threaten prosecutors and judges without facing the punishment an ordinary citizen would:
Cowardice: They fear Trump will slander them by claiming he’s the victim of a “witch hunt” to remove him from the 2024 Presidential race.
And/or they fear physical attack from his legions of fanatical followers.
Awe of the Presidency: They fear their careers will be tainted by prosecuting or judging a man who won the votes of 70 million Americans.
There are, however, remedies for both cowardice and awe:
Cowardice: Prosecutors and judges should expect threats and slanders from Trump. This is how he has traditionally responded to attempts to hold him legally accountable.
If judges and prosecutors fear violence from Trump’s fanatical followers, they can easily obtain round-the-clock protection by local and/or federal law enforcement agencies.
Awe: Trump is no longer President. He no longer commands Presidential immunity nor the powers of that office—such as being able to cite “executive privilege” to prevent the release of documents or testimony.
His refusals to accept this reality should be bluntly ignored.
More importantly, as President, he:
- Took no action to protect Americans from the deadly COVID-19 virus;
- Constantly sided with Russian dictator Vladimir Putin against the United States;
- Attacked the independent judiciary and free press;
- Praised Nazis and Ku Klux Klansmen;
- Fired FBI Director James Comey for refusing to pledge his personal loyalty to Trump and turn the agency into Trump’s private police force;
- Used his position as President to further enrich himself in violation of the Emoluments Clause of the Constitution;
- Attacked and alienated America’s oldest democratic allies, such as Canada and Great Britain;
- Refused to accept the results of a legitimate Presidential election; and
- Incited a deadly attack on Congress so he could illegally remain in office.
Those are only some of the despicable actions he took while in office.
The Presidency has long held most Americans in awe. This is largely because the man (and it’s always been a man) who holds it is elected by all Americans, and not just those of a particular city or state.
And he alone has control of America’s enormous military—the Army, Navy, Marines and Air Force—as well as a nuclear arsenal that can literally destroy all life on Earth.
Americans have long assumed that a victorious Presidential candidate has been blessed by God, and thus automatically commands a respect—if not reverence—denied to ordinary mortals.
But respect must be earned. And anyone guilty of even a small number of the crimes committed by Donald Trump long ago forfeited any right to such regard.
Once a President leaves office, he should be treated as any other American citizen—and held to the same standards as an ordinary citizen.
Niccolo Machiavelli
Niccolo Machiavelli, the Florentine statesman and father of modern political science, has eloquently warned of the dangers of ignoring this truth:
…No well-ordered republic should ever cancel the crimes of its citizens by their merits. But having established rewards for good actions and penalties for evil ones, and having rewarded a citizen for conduct who afterwards commits a wrong, he should be chastised for that without regard to his previous merits. And a state that properly observes this principle will long enjoy its liberty, but if otherwise, it will speedily come to ruin.
For if a citizen who has rendered some eminent service to the state should add to the reputation and influence which he has thereby acquired the confident audacity of being able to commit any wrong without fear of punishment, he will in a little while become so insolent and overbearing as to put an end to all power of the law.
Putting an end to “all power of the law” and setting himself up as “The Law” is precisely what Donald Trump tried to do after losing the 2020 Presidential election—and is still trying to do.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Politics, Social commentary on June 4, 2024 at 12:13 am
Donald Trump has lost the Presidential immunity shielding him from a wide range of civil lawsuits and criminal prosecutions.
He now faces unprecedented challenges from a legal system that had long ignored his rampant criminality.
Thus, regaining that Presidential immunity is arguably the biggest reason why he wants to become President again.
Although he no longer holds the Presidency, Trump repeatedly acts as though he does. He has asserted “executive privilege” on behalf of former members of his administration to block their testimony before courts, grand juries and even the office of Special Counsel Jack Smith.
He hid behind layers of Secret Service protection while attacking Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg and even New York Supreme Court Justice Juan Merchan, who presided over his arraignment and trial in the Stormy Daniels hush money payment case.
Juan Merchan
“The criminal is the district attorney because he illegally leaked massive amounts of grand jury information,” Trump told supporters at Mar-a-Lago. “For which he should be prosecuted, or at a minimum he should resign.”
As for Merchan: “I have a Trump-hating judge with a Trump-hating wife and family whose daughter work[ed] for Kamala Harris.”
In Trump’s vocabulary, “Trump-hating” is the absolute worst sin/crime that can be committed.
Another man he has attacked as a “Trump hater” is Special Counsel Jack Smith, who’s also investigating Trump’s role in inciting his followers to attack Congress on January 6, 2021.
Jack Smith
The purpose of that attack: To stop the Electoral College vote count that would certify former Vice President Joseph Biden as the actual winner of the 2020 Presidential election.
In a July 4, 2023 post on his website, Truth Social, Trump falsely claimed:
“As my Poll numbers go higher & higher, the Communists, Marxists, & Fascists get more & more CRAZY with their ridiculous Indictments & Election Interference plans & plots, all controlled by an out of control, & very corrupt, DOJ/FBI. They have WEAPONIZED Law Enforcement in America at a level not seen before.”
Trump’s reference to “Communists, Marxists, & Fascists” as his enemies is particularly noteworthy.
He was, after all, the President who:
- Defended Russian dictator Vladimir Putin against findings by the FBI, CIA and National Security Agency that Russia had interfered in the 2020 Presidential election;
- Boasted that he and North Korean dictator Kim Jong-Un “fell in love” after an exchange of letters; and
- Praised Chinese strongman Xi Jinping for making himself “President-for-Life: “No, he’s great. And look, he was able to do that. I think it’s great. Maybe we’ll have to give that a shot some day.”
Given his subsequent efforts to remain in office despite losing the 2020 Presidential election, it’s clear that he had himself in mind when he “joked” about “giving that a shot some day.”
In his post, Trump continued: “Deranged Jack Smith, who is a sick puppet for A.G. Garland & Crooked Joe Biden, should be DEFUNDED & put out to rest. Republicans must get tough or the Dems will steal another Election. MAGA!”
By “A.G. Garland” Trump meant Attorney General Merrick Garland. By “put out to rest,” he meant that his followers should assassinate Smith.
Despite all this, Trump’s millions of Right-wing followers remain fanatically loyal to him.
Why?
On August 30, 2017, an article in Salon examined why Donald Trump’s base supports him so fanatically: “Most Americans Strongly Dislike Trump, But the Angry Minority That Adores Him Controls Our Politics.”
It described these voters as representing about one-third of the Republican party:
“These are older and more conservative white people, for the most part, who believe he should not listen to other Republicans and should follow his own instincts….
“They like Trump’s coarse personality, and approve of the fact that he treats women like his personal playthings. They enjoy it when he expresses sympathy for neo-Nazis and neo-Confederate white supremacists.
Supporters giving the Nazi “Sieg Heil” salute to Trump
“They cheer when he declares his love for torture, tells the police to rough up suspects and vows to mandate the death penalty for certain crimes. (Which of course the president cannot do.)
“…This cohort of the Republican party didn’t vote for Trump because of his supposed policies on trade or his threat to withdraw from NATO. They voted for him because he said out loud what they were thinking. A petty, sophomoric, crude bully is apparently what they want as a leader.”
What is harder to explain is why so many law enforcers have turned a blind eye to Trump’s decades of criminality, if not treason. Among those who have:
- Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi personally solicited a political contribution from Donald Trump around the same time her office deliberated joining an investigation of alleged fraud at Trump University and its affiliates. After Bondi dropped the Trump University case, he wrote her a $25,000 check for her re-election campaign. The money came from the Donald J. Trump Foundation.
- Republican Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton moved to muzzle a former state regulator who says he was ordered in 2010 to drop a fraud investigation into Trump University for political reasons. After the Texas case was dropped, Trump cut a $35,000 check to the gubernatorial campaign of then-attorney general and now Texas Governor Greg Abbott.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Politics, Social commentary on June 3, 2024 at 1:09 am
On May 30, 2024 former President Donald Trump was convicted by a Manhattan jury of all 34 charges of falsifying business records He thus became the first current or former president to be convicted of a felony.
He’s also the first major-party presidential nominee to be convicted of a crime in the midst of a campaign for the White House.
On April 1, CNN reported/editorialized: “The Manhattan district attorney’s office has been investigating Trump in connection with his alleged role in a hush money payment scheme and cover-up involving adult film star Stormy Daniels that dates to the 2016 presidential election.”
Throughout the trial—which began on April 15—Trump aggressively attacked Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg as pursuing a leftist agenda to prevent him from running for President in 2024.
“If they can do this to me,” he has thundered in countless fund-raising appeals to his Right-wing followers, “they can do this to you.”
Which raises the question: How many others have tried to illegally pay hush-money to a porn “actress” to silence her during a Presidential campaign?
Nor is that the end of Trump’s prosecutorial troubles.
On June 13, 2023, he became the first ex-President to be formally booked by the Justice Department on federal charges.
Seal of the Department of Justice
He’s now facing 40 felony charges based on his retaining and hiding classified government documents from authorities.
These charges include:
- Willfully retaining national defense information: Storing 31 classified documents at his estate at Mar-a-Lago, in Palm Beach, Florida.
- Conspiring to obstruct justice: Conspiring to keep those documents from the grand jury.
- Withholding a document or a record: Misleading one of his attorneys by moving boxes of classified documents so the attorney could not find or introduce them to the grand jury.
- Concealing a document in a federal investigation: Hiding Trump’s possession of classified documents at Mar-a-Lago from the FBI and causing a false certificate to be submitted to the FBI.
- Scheme to conceal: Hiding his continued possession of documents from the FBI and the grand jury.
Donald Trump
Each charge carries a maximum fine of $250,000, with maximum prison sentences between five and 20 years.
According to Trump, facing 40 felony charges is “an honor because I’m doing it for you, I’m doing it for our country, to show how evil and sinister a place it has become. Make America great again! We’re not going to let them get away with it.”
In short: To save America, Trump has volunteered for this indictment. He isn’t the one who illegally removed and tried to retain almost 300 highly classified documents.
You did.
And he, like Jesus, is taking your sins upon himself.
Trump has repeatedly tried to make himself appear the victim of “a Democratic-led witch hunt.” But if politics has tainted the dispensing of justice in Trump’s case, it’s been on his behalf.
As President, he had immunity from criminal and civil lawsuits. He couldn’t be tried at local, state and federal levels.
And he had good reason to avoid facing trial at any level. He was facing at least five cases while he held office:
- The Manhattan District Attorney’s criminal case against the Trump Organization: For falsifying New York business records to conceal his hush money payoff to porn “star” Stormy Daniels for his extramarital tryst with her.
- The New York Attorney General’s civil investigation into the Trump Organization: For engaging in years of financial fraud to obtain a host of economic benefits.
- The E. Jean Carroll defamation lawsuit: For calling her a liar after she claimed he raped her in the 1990s.
- The Mary Trump lawsuit: For defrauding his niece out of millions of dollars.
- The Trump Tower lawsuit: Five people claim that Keith Schiller, the Trump Organization’s then chief of security, hit one of them on the head when they were protesting outside the company’s Manhattan headquarters in 2015.
Since leaving the White House, Trump has seen additional cases pile up against him. Among these:
- The Justice Department’s criminal investigation into Trump’s efforts to illegally overturn the 2020 presidential election.
- The Justice Department’s criminal investigation into Trump’s inciting an attack on Congress on January 6, 2021.
- The Justice Department’s criminal investigation into Trump’s illegally taking classified documents to his Mar-a-Lago estate and refusing to return them to the government.
- The House of Representatives’ January 6 lawsuit for trying to prevent Congress from certifying the Electoral College votes on January 6, 2021.
- The Eric Swalwell lawsuit by the California Representative for trying to block the Electoral College vote count.
- The Capitol Police January 6 lawsuits for emotional and physical injuries sustained by officers during the January 6, 2021 attack by Trump’s followers.
- The Michael Cohen lawsuit by Trump’s former attorney and fixer. He claims Trump retaliated against him after he said he was writing a tell-all about his years working for Trump.
- The Class Action lawsuit against the Trumps [Donald, Don Jr., Ivanka and Eric] and their business. This alleges that “the defendants used their brand name to defraud thousands of working-class individuals by promoting numerous businesses in exchange for ’secret payments.’”
Now his Presidential immunity is gone and he faces unprecedented challenges from a legal system that had long ignored his rampant criminality.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Medical, Politics, Social commentary on May 23, 2024 at 12:36 am
The upcoming 2024 Presidential election has raised serious issues which demand addressing.
Unfortunately, it’s too late to apply such remedies to this election. But they could 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 has 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 is 77 and will turn 78 on June 14. Joseph Biden is 81 and will turn 82 on November 20.
If Trump wins, he will be 82 in 2028, his last year in office (assuming he doesn’t stage another—and successful—coup attempt). If Biden wins re-election, in 2028 he will be 86 (assuming he’s still alive by then).
Funeral for Soviet dictator Leonid Brezhnev – 1982
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 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.
In the United States, having two geriatric Presidential candidates has become comic fodder for late-night TV hosts. Yet voters fear that neither candidate can 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 has corrupted this phrase, as he has so much else in American life. Since losing the 2020 Presidential election, he has continued to insist that he is the legitimate President of the United States, and Joseph Biden is a usurper.
When his fanatical followers refer to him as “President Trump,” that is what they mean—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 Secret Service protection.
Every ex-President since Dwight D. Eisenhower—even Jimmy Carter—has been a 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, Politics, Social commentary on April 25, 2024 at 12:11 am
No well-ordered republic should ever cancel the crimes of its citizens by their merits….For if a citizen who has rendered some eminent service to the state should add to the reputation and influence which he has thereby acquired the confident audacity of being able to commit any wrong without fear of punishment, he will in a little while become so insolent and overbearing as to put an end to all power of the law.
—Niccolo Machiavelli, “The Discourses”
When the Justice Department declared war on John Gotti, “Boss of all Bosses” of the most powerful Mafia family in the nation, no holds were barred.
The FBI employed wiretaps, electronic bugs, informants, round-the-clock surveillance and pretrial detention against the so-called “Teflon Don.”
John Gotti
Now consider the DOJ’s approach to the criminality of former President Donald J. Trump.
On January 6, 2021, Trump incited thousands of his fanatical supporters to attack Congress, where Electoral College votes for the 2020 Presidential election were being counted.
About 140 police officers were assaulted; many lawmakers’ offices were vandalized; frightened lawmakers huddled in a barricaded room.
Yet Trump was allowed to remain in office for the next two weeks until the election’s victor—Joseph Biden—legally took office.
Donald Trump
Not until November 18, 2022, did Attorney General Merrick Garland appoint Jack Smith Special Counsel to prosecute Trump for his attempted coup.
To date, there is no evidence that the agency has employed wiretaps, electronic bugs and/or round-the-clock surveillance against Trump. Nor has Trump been held in pretrial detention as a continuing threat to democratic rule.
When Trump left the White House on January 20, 2021, he illegally took hundreds of highly classified documents—and stored them at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, Florida.
He then refused to return them when asked by the Justice Department—forcing the agency to send in an FBI force to retrieve them.
In March, 2023, Trump threatened “death and destruction” if he were criminally charged in New York for making “hush money” payments to porn “actress” Stormy Daniels. Trump shared an image of himself threatening Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg with a baseball bat on his Truth Social platform.
Not even Mafia bosses like Charles “Lucky” Luciano and Albert “The Executioner” Anastasia dared issue such a threat.
Yet Trump has not been arrested, let alone jailed, for an act that would have gotten anyone else charged with a felony.
Nor has Trump limited himself to attacking local New York authorities.
He has branded Jack Smith “a deranged lunatic” and “psycho” for indicting him for his theft of national security documents. He has also attacked Smith’s wife, Katy Gale Chevigny, thus exposing her to possible violence from his fanatical supporters.
Specifically: “His wife is a Trump Hater, just as he is a Trump Hater—a deranged ‘psycho’ that shouldn’t be involved in any case having to do with ‘Justice,’ other than to look at Biden as a criminal, which he is!”
Jack Smith
Trump’s attacks on Smith have led to an increase in security for the Special Counsel. Yet Smith has not moved to have Trump remanded to federal custody for actions that would have put anyone else behind bars.
History warns us of the consequences of allowing a ruthless dictator to pursue his goals with impunity.
On November 9, 1923, Nazi Party Fuhrer Adolf Hitler tried to overthrow the government in Munich, Bavaria.
About 2,000 Nazis marched to the center of Munich, where they confronted heavily-armed police. A shootout erupted, killing 16 Nazis and four policemen.
Hitler was injured during the clash, but managed to escape. Two days later, he was arrested and charged with treason.
Put on trial, he found himself treated as a celebrity by a judge sympathetic to Right-wing groups. He was allowed to brutally cross-examine witnesses and even make inflammatory speeches.
At the end of the trial, he was convicted of treason and sentenced to five years’ imprisonment.
Serving time in Landsberg Prison, in Bavaria. he was given a huge cell, allowed to receive unlimited visitors and gifts, and treated with deference by guards and inmates.
Nine months later, he was released on parole—by authorities loyal to the authoritarian Right instead of the newly-created Weimar Republic.
Adolf Hitler leaving Landsberg Prison, December, 20, 1924
Hitler immediately began rebuilding the shattered Nazi party—and deciding on a new strategy to gain power. Never again would he resort to armed force. He would win office by election—or intrigue.
Writes historian Volker Ullrich, in his monumental new biography, Hitler: Ascent 1889 – 1939: “Historians have perennially tried to answer the question of whether Hitler’s rise to power could have been halted….
“There were repeated opportunities to end Hitler’s run of triumphs. The most obvious one was after the failed Putsch of November 1923. Had the Munich rabble-rouser been forced to serve his full five-year term of imprisonment in Landsberg, it is extremely unlikely that he would have been able to restart his political career.”
The democratic Weimar Republic of Germany (1919 – 1933) found itself menaced by ruthless Fascists, betrayed by its supposed allies, and defended by liberals unwilling to forcefully defeat its enemies.
The same combination of forces is now on full display in the United States.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Politics, Social commentary on April 24, 2024 at 12:12 am
On December 11, 1990, FBI agents and NYPD detectives raided the Ravenite Social Club in Manhattan.
They had arrest warrants for John Gotti, boss of the Gambino Mafia Family, and his two lieutenants: Sammy “The Bull” Gravano, his underboss, or second-in-command, and Frankie Locascio, his Consigliere, or adviser.
Federal prosecutors charged Gotti with five murders, conspiracy to murder, loansharking, illegal gambling, obstruction of justice, bribery and tax evasion.
From the date of his arrest to the date of his conviction on all charges on April 2, 1992, Gotti remained in pre-trial detention at the Metropolitan Correctional Center in New York City.
Although he had never threatened prosecutors or judges, he had bribed juries and ordered the murders of gangland associates. The Justice Department considered him too dangerous to be allowed outside confinement.
Gotti had become boss of the Gambino Family in December, 1985—by arranging the execution of its then-boss, Paul “Big Paul” Castellano, on December 16.
Since then, he had moved his headquarters from Queens to the Ravenite. And, like a king holding court, he had ordered all of his captains to report to him at the Ravenite once a week.
Word quickly reached the FBI—and agents in vans shot video as they staked out Prince Street.
Gotti had handed the FBI a mob organization chart.
FBI Seal
It was only a matter of time before the FBI’s Technical Surveillance Squad (TSS) breached the security of the Ravenite.
In 1989, the TSS planted a hidden microphone in an apartment above the Ravenite where Gotti held his secret meetings. Tape recorders were running when he bragged that he had ordered three murders—and was running a criminal enterprise: The Gambino Mafia Family.
When he wasn’t bragging, Gotti was badmouthing virtually everyone—past and present—in the Mafia: Paul Castellano, Carlo Gambino, Vincent “The Chins” Gigante. And, most fatally, his own underboss: Sammy “The Bull” Gravano.
John Gotti
On December 12, 1989, the electronic bug picked up the following conversation between Gotti and his Consigliere, or adviser, Frankie Locascio.
The subject: The murders of three former Gambino Family mobsters: Robert “Deebee” DiBernardo, Louis Milito and Louis DiBono.
DiBernardo had been murdered over Gravano’s objections. A fellow mobster had told Gotti that DiBernardo had made “subversive” comments behind Gotti’s back.
But that wasn’t the way Gotti told it.
GOTTI: “Deebee, did he ever talk subversive to you?”
LOCASCIO: “Never.”
GOTTI: “Never talked it to Angelo, never talked it to [Joseph Armone] either. I took Sammy’s word that he talked about me behind my back….I was in jail when I whacked him. I knew why it was being done. I done it anyway. I allowed it to be done anyway.”
Next Gotti focused on the murders of Louis Milito and Louis DiBono. Milito had been “whacked” for questioning Gotti’s judgment. And DiBono had been hit because he refused to answer a Gotti summons.
But Gotti was determined to lay the blame on Gravano. He claimed that both men had been killed because Gravano had asked for permission to remove his business partners.
Sammy “The Bull” Gravano
And there was more: Gotti accused Gravano of excessive greed—and hoarding money for himself at the expense of the Family.
GOTTI: “That’s Sammy….Every fucking time I turn around there’s a new company poppin’ up. Building. Consulting. Concrete. Where the hell did all these new companies come from? Where did five new companies come from?”
He accused Gravano of creating “a fuckin’ army inside an army,” adding: “You know what I’m saying, Frankie? I saw that shit and I don’t need that shit.”
At a pretrial hearing following the arrests of Gotti, Gravano and Locascio, prosecutors played the FBI’s tapes of Gotti’s unintended confessions—including his badmouthing of Gravano.
Gravano suddenly realized that his future in the Mafia was nil.
Gravano, Gotti and Locascio were all facing life imprisonment as targets of RICO—the Racketeer Influenced Corrupt Organizations Act.
And if the Feds didn’t send him to prison, mob gunmen—sent by Gotti—would eventually get him. Gotti clearly planned to make him the fall guy—in court or in a coffin—for murders that Gotti himself had ordered.
Only John Gotti was shocked when Gravano agreed to testify against him—and other Mafiosi—in exchange for a five-year prison sentence.
Gravano, as Gotti’s second-in-command, had literally been at the seat of power for five years. He knew the secrets of the Gambino Family—and the other four Mafia families who ruled New York.
On April 2, 1992, a jury convicted Gotti of five murders, conspiracy to murder, loansharking, illegal gambling, obstruction of justice, bribery and tax evasion. He drew a life sentence, without possibility of parole.
Gotti was incarcerated at the United States Penitentiary at Marion, Illinois, in virtual solitary confinement. He died of throat cancer on June 10, 2002, at the age of 61.
Donald Trump resembles his fellow New Yorker, John Gotti, in more ways than he would like to admit: In his greed, arrogance, egomania, love of publicity and vindictiveness.
But there is a huge difference between the no-nonsense way that federal prosecutors and judges treated Gotti—and the way they have cringed before Trump.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Medical, Politics, Social commentary on April 5, 2024 at 12:13 am
To understand Republicans’ behavior, you need to understand the word “projection.”
As defined by psychologists, “projection” means unconsciously taking unwanted emotions or traits you don’t like about yourself and attributing them to someone else.
Except that, with Republicans, there is nothing unconscious about attributing their own evil intentions and/or actions to those they hate.
To cite a current example: “Weaponizing” is a word now in vogue among Republicans. As in: “By appointing a Special Counsel to investigate former President Donald Trump, the Department of Justice (DOJ) proves that Democrats have weaponized Federal law enforcement.”
Republicans conveniently refuse to say why the Justice Department appointed former DOJ official Jack Smith to that position: Because, before leaving the White House, Trump shipped more than 300 highly classified documents in 15 boxes to his estate in Mar-a-Lago.
Jack Smith
As an ex-President, he had no right to possess any of these documents.
Moreover, he not only illegally took these documents, he lied to government investigators that he had done so. It took an August 8, 2022 FBI raid on Mar-a-Lago to retrieve them.
Then there’s the matter of the January 6, 2021 defendants.
They are so named because, on that date, Trump incited his followers to violently attack the United States Capitol Building. Their goal: To prevent Republicans and Democrats from counting the Electoral Votes cast in the 2020 Presidential election.
Trump fully understood that an accurate count of those votes would reveal his loss to former Vice President Joe Biden: 306 votes for Biden, compared with 232 for Trump.
The Stormtrumpers marched to the United States Capitol—and quickly brushed aside Capitol Police, who made little effort to arrest or shoot them.
Capitol Police facing off with Stormtrumpers
- Approximately 140 police officers were assaulted.
- A gallows was erected in front of the Capitol.
- Members of the mob attacked police with chemical agents or lead pipes.
- Improvised explosive devices were found in several locations in Washington, D.C.
- A Capitol Hill police officer was knocked off his feet, dragged into the mob surging toward the building, and beaten with the pole of an American flag.
- Several rioters carried plastic handcuffs, possibly intending to take hostages.
- Others carried treasonous Confederate flags.
- Blue-and-white TRUMP flags floated above the crowd.
- Shouts of “Hang [Vice President Mike Pence!” often rang out.
- Many of the lawmakers’ office buildings were occupied and vandalized—including that of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, a favorite Right-wing target.
Stormtrumpers inside the Capitol Building
More than three hours passed before police—using riot gear, shields and batons—retook control of the Capitol.
By December, 2023, 728 participants in the coup attempt had pleaded guilty. Another 166 defendants had been convicted at trial; a total of 745 defendants have been sentenced.
Yet Republicans—most notably Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA)—have depicted these coup supporters as persecuted martyrs.
On March 24, 2022, members of the Republicans’ House Oversight Committee toured a Washington, D.C. jail where some of these defendants were held.
“Their due process rights are being violated. And they have been mistreated and treated as political prisoners,” Greene told reporters after the tour.
Marjorie Taylor Greene
Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-CO), another member of the tour, exchanged hugs with with Micki Witthoeft, the mother of Ashli Babbitt. Babbitt had been shot by police as she forced her way into the House Chamber where members of Congress were sheltering in place.
Republicans‘ fixation on “weaponization” centers on the Trump’s facing 91 criminal offenses in four criminal cases.
These relate to Trump’s
- Attempts to overturn the results of the 2020 election
- Election interference in Georgia
- Falsifying business records in New York, and
- Mishandling classified records after leaving the presidency.
Donald Trump is the first former president in American history to be criminally indicted.
For Republicans, prosecutors’ daring to hold Trump accountable for his litany of crimes amounts to “election interference.” As if winning office through the efforts of Russian dictator Vladimir Putin has conferred “untouchable” status upon him.
As a result, Republicans have made unprecedented efforts to undermine these prosecutions.
Rep. Andrew Clyde, R-Ga., a Trump ally who sits on the Appropriations Committee, introduced two amendments to eliminate federal funding for all three of Trump’s prosecutors—Special Counsel Jack Smith, Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis and Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg.
Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., is also trying to cut off funding for Smith’s office.
Republicans have in the past championed “states’ rights” against “federal overreach.” But now that their former President finds himself facing the consequences of his own criminality, they are eager to abort state-level prosecutions.
At the same time, they slander President Joseph Biden as “weaponizing” the Justice Department against his political rival.
In George Orwell’s classic novel, 1984, the dictatorship ruling Oceania offers the following slogan for its citizens:
WAR IS PEACE
FREEDOM IS SLAVERY
IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH
Republicans would have Americans believe
- The attempted overturning of a legitimate Presidential election was an act of patriotism;
- An ex-President taking classified materials to which he had no right was entirely justified; and
- Donald Trump has an absolute right to commit any crime he desires.
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A TRAGIC DESTINY–IN FICTION AND REALITY: PART ONE (OF TWO)
In Bureaucracy, Business, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Military, Politics, Social commentary on July 9, 2024 at 12:10 amThe Supreme Court has spoken. And Donald Trump, who tried to treasonously overturn the 2020 Presidential election and make himself “President-for-Life,” is now armed with the almost total immunity he has long sought.
As Trump and his entrenched Right-wing allies move ever closer to establishing an absolute dictatorship, this is an apt time to discover—or rediscover—the frighteningly real world of The Profession, a 2011 futuristic novel by bestselling author Steven Pressfield.
Steven Pressfield
Pressfield had previously made his mark as an author of historical novels—primarily set in ancient Greece.
In Gates of Fire (1998) he explored the rigors and heroism of Spartan society—and the famous last stand of its 300 picked warriors at Thermopylae.
In The Virtues of War (2004) Pressfield adopted the identity of Alexander the Great, explaining what it was like to command invincible armies that swept across the known world.
Finally, in The Afghan Campaign (2006) he chronicled—from the viewpoint of a lowly Greek soldier—Alexander’s brutal, three-year anti-guerrilla campaign in Afghanistan.
But in The Profession, Pressfield created a seemingly plausible world set in the future. The book’s dust jacket offers an excellent summary of its plot-line:
“The year is 2032. Everywhere military force is for hire. Oil companies, multi-national corporations and banks employ powerful, cutting-edge mercenary armies to control global chaos and protect their riches.
“Even nation states enlist mercenary forces to suppress internal insurrections, hunt terrorists, and do the black bag jobs necessary to maintain the new New World Order.
“Force Insertion is the world’s merc monopoly. Its leader is the disgraced former United States Marine General James Salter, stripped of his command by the president for nuclear saber-rattling with the Chinese and banished to the Far East.
“A grandmaster military and political strategist, Salter plans to take vengeance on those responsible for his exile and then come home…as Commander in Chief.”
Salter appears as a hybrid of World War II General Douglas MacArthur and Iraqi War General Stanley McCrystal. Like MacArthur, Salter has butted heads with his President—and paid dearly for it. Now his ambition—like MacArthur—is to become President himself by popular acclaim.
Douglas MacArthur
And like McCrystal, he is a pure warrior who leads from the front and is revered by his men. Salter seizes Saudi oil fields and strategically rigs them with explosives to be used if threatened.
Then he offers them as a gift to America. By doing so, he makes himself the most popular man in the country—and a guaranteed occupant of the White House.
Stanley McCrystal
And in 2032 the United States is a far different nation from the one its Founding Fathers created in 1776.
“Any time that you have the rise of mercenaries…society has entered a twilight era, a time past the zenith of its arc,” says Salter. “The United States is an empire…but the American people lack the imperial temperament. We’re not legionaries, we’re mechanics. In the end the American Dream boils down to what? ‘I’m getting mine and the hell with you.'”
Americans, asserts Salter, have come to like mercenaries: “They’ve had enough of sacrificing their sons and daughters in the name of some illusory world order. They want someone else’s sons and daughters to bear the burden….
“They want their problems to go away. They want me to make them go away.”
Yet unlike Donald Trump, who infamously shouted, “I love the poorly educated!” Salter is a highly intellectual man. He feels himself a tragic figure, lamenting that the United States has abandoned its longstanding political values even as he prepares to extinguish the most basic one by becoming dictator.
“The moment compels me to seize it. If I don’t someone or something worse will step in. But if I perform the bidding of Necessity, I violate the code of the republic to which all of us have sworn allegiance. I cross a line, beyond which there can be no return.
“But what, I ask, is the alternative? The nation has lost its way and is struggling desperately, merely to hang on. The nation can’t go on as it is, and everyone knows it. If not me, who? If not me, what?
“So, yes, I will go home. And yes, I will accept whatever crown, of paper or gold, that my country wants to press upon me. Not because I believe such a coronation will make any difference in the long run.
“But maybe in the short run, it’s better that my hand be on the wheel rather than some other self-aggrandizing sonofabitch whose motives might not be as well-intentioned or whose consciousness so painfully evolved.”
At a nationally televised press conference, Salter hands a loaded pistol to a longtime friend and disciple who now fears his dictatorial ambitions.
“Go ahead,” says Salter. “You’ll be saving the republic. And me, too.”
But the former disciple cannot bring himself to kill his longtime idol: “Now I’m guilty with you,” he says.
Steven Pressfield, in a work of fiction, has given us a nightmarish vision of a futuristic America.
Donald Trump and his Right-wing disciples may soon make that vision a reality.
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