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In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Politics, Social commentary on June 3, 2020 at 12:25 am
San Francisco has long been one of the most-loved cities in the United States.
Millions of tourists—from both other parts of the United States as well as around the world—visit this city every year to ride its famous cable cars and dine in its magnificent restaurants.
To visit the ruins of its infamous prison, Alcatraz, eat Ghiradelli ice cream in Ghiradelli Square and buy souveniers at nearby Fisherman’s Wharf.
San Francisco Cable car
Thomas Wolf, http://www.foto-tw.de / CC BY-SA (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)
But San Francisco today is not the city it has long been renowned for.
Its major tourist spots are deserted. Its sidewalks are largely free of pedestrians. Many of its best-known stores have been shuttered since mid-March—and many of them may never reopen owing to the financial losses they have incurred.
Its world-famous restaurants no longer offer in-house dining—only take-out or home delivery.
Many of its bus routes have been eliminated. With so many people “sheltering-in-place” in their apartments or houses, the passengers that once carried those routes have largely disappeared.
On March 16, the San Francisco Department of Public Health imposed a shelter-in-place order on city residents. This required them to stay home except for essential needs such as shopping for groceries, getting medications, caring for others and exercising.
The goal of the order: To halt—or at least diminish—the spread of COVID-19.
Coronavirus
The order banned activities considered non-essential: Going to bars, barbers and dinner parties.
Many restaurants offer their fare via Grubhub, Doordash, Caviar or Uber Eats. Some restaurants—notably pizza parlors—use their own employees to deliver food.
This, in turn, demands that potential customers have not only a computer but Internet access. It also demands that they be willing to pay a higher price for food than would be the case if they could dine in.
Another drawback: Choosing what items to order from many restaurants is like choosing what to order in the military: You either accept what they offer—or you do without. Forget about substitutions or additions.
Outdoor exercise is allowed, but gyms are closed.
Some businesses were deemed essential. Among these: Grocery stores, hardware stores, hospitals, drugstores, laundromats, funeral parlors, gas stations, airlines, taxis, rental car companies, childcare facilities, rideshare services.
The effect of the shutdown order on businesses has been devastating.
Walk along Market Street—the city’s best-known site for marches and storefronts—and you’ll find store after store not only closed but boarded up. The same for Powell Street, a major tourist magnet.
The city’s internationally famous cable car lines have all been shut down. With “social distancing” the new Golden Rule, cramming people onto small cable cars is no longer an option.
Taxis are still available—but cab drivers have found business difficult to come by, with so many people staying indoors.
The order allowed most marijuana dispensaries to remain open. Bookstores, on the other hand, were ordered closed—and remain so more than two months later.
So businesses selling toxic “medical marijuana” are considered essential. But if you want to buy a copy of Moby Dick at your local bookstore, you’ll have to do it online.
Many businesses started boarding up in April. The reason: Fears that Coronavirus-inspired shortages of items like toilet paper, meat and hand sanitizer might lead to wholesale looting.
Then, on May 25, as if facing a deadly pandemic wasn’t enough of a threat, a new and unexpected reason for fear emerged: The killing of George Floyd, a former black security guard, in Minneapolis, Minnesota.
While Floyd was handcuffed and lying face down on a city street during an arrest, Derek Chauvin, a white Minneapolis police officer, kept his knee on the right side of Floyd’s neck for eight minutes and 46 seconds.
The death of George Floyd
Across the nation, cities were convulsed by protests—including those in the San Francisco Bay Area. Among these: Oakland, San Jose, Emeryville, Walnut Creek and San Francisco itself.
On May 30, an initially peaceful protest march exploded into looting shortly before 9 p.m. as looters broke off and began smashing shop windows and ransacking stores in Union Square and on Market Street.
Among stores looted: A Sak’s Off Fifth Avenue, Old Navy clothing store, a Cartier Boutique, a Coach store. Looters especially targeted CVS and Walgreens drugstores. Liquor stores and a BevMo were also hit.
“Thirty businesses were looted or destroyed,” said David Perry, from Union Square Business Improvement District. A total of 33 arrests were made for “criminal activity.”
That night, San Francisco Mayor London Breed announced that she would impose a citywide curfew beginning May 31, running from 8:00 p.m to 5 a.m.
On the night of May 31, 87 people were arrested for violating the city’s curfew.
Left unstated by city authorities—within San Francisco and across the nation—was this: With so many people massing in streets, many of them unmasked, would this spread COVID-19 even further?
Northern California—and San Francisco in particular—have closely cooperated with “stay-at-home” orders. As a result, COVID-19 cases have remained relatively stable in those areas.
But the street demonstrations may well reverse the results of those months of self-discipline. The truth will be known only weeks from now.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Politics, Social commentary on June 2, 2020 at 12:05 am
Want to play a new game? Come to San Francisco and play “Count the Stupids.”
Just walk down any major street during a pandemic that’s killed more than 100,000 Americans and count:
- The people who refuse to wear face masks;
- The people wearing face masks below their noses;
- The people wearing face masks around their necks like bandannas.
On some days—depending on how far you walk—you might spot 10 to 60 or more such people.
Those who wear masks below their nose negate the purpose of wearing a mask. If they have COVID-19 and sneeze on someone else who’s not wearing a mask, that person is going to be stricken. And if someone who’s also not wearing a mask sneezes or coughs on them, they will be infected.
Face masks
Many of those wearing masks as bandannas are smoking. Clearly they value getting their intake of cancer as more important than protecting themselves against a deadly virus. Many mask-less men sport heavy beards—which would make a mask impossible to seal properly.
And as for complying with social distancing requirements that put at least six feet between people: Countless people casually pass others only inches away without any apparent concern—for their own safety or that of others.
On May 28, San Francisco Mayor London Breed announced that a new policy would take effect the next day:
San Francisco will enforce the wearing of masks or face coverings when people leave their home and are within 30 feet of anyone that doesn’t live in their household.
That includes when you’re waiting in line to go into a store and when you’re inside shopping. A mask or face covering will not be needed when:
- You’re in a car by yourself;
- You’re with people you live with;
- You’re picnicking with members of your own household and are more than six feet from other groups;
- You’re walking, hiking, running or biking alone or with people you live with.
Even then, you should still have a mask or face covering on hand.
Of course, that will require police to enforce the new ordinance. This in a city where police have refused to crack down on “homeless” encampments—and their piles of feces, hypodermic needles and trash.
For all the kudos offered city residents by Mayor Breed for complying with social distancing, the blunt truth remains that many of them do not. And the fact that Breed felt forced to legally require citizens to wear face masks is a telling point in its own right.
But to return to life in San Francisco in the Age of COVID-19:
Civic Center—which lies directly across from City Hall—might better be renamed COVID-19 Center. Once it housed farmers markets and offered easy access to the Civic Center BART (Bay Area Rapid Transit) station.
Today it is fenced off and serves as shelter for countless “homeless” tents—and all the drugs, trash, alcohol, feces and hypodermic needles that come with this population.
Tent “city” in San Francisco
Of course, Civic Center isn’t the only place in San Francisco where you’ll find huge tents occupied by DDMB’s—Druggies, Drunks, Mentally Ill and Bums.
Walk down almost any major sidewalk and odds are you’ll find your path blocked by one or more huge tents able to house two to four people.
If you’re in a wheelchair or elderly or on crutches, you’ll likely be forced to step into the street or cross the street to continue your journey.
If you call the police on your cell phone, expecting them to remove the tents, you’re in for a big surprise. In bum-loving San Francisco, that sort of action is no longer handled by police.
Instead, they’ll refer you to a “help-the-homeless” agency that specializes in defending the rights of DDMBs over those of law-abiding, tax-paying San Francisco residents.
The “homeless problem” has become so outrageous in San Francisco that Hastings College of the Law—one of the foremost law schools in the nation—recently filed a lawsuit against the city “to end dangerous and illegal conditions in the Tenderloin neighborhood.”
Among its goals: To compel the City
- To clear sidewalks to allow unfettered safe passage for neighborhood residents and workers; and
- To provide healthy and safe solutions for “homeless” people who now use sidewalk encampments as their residence.
And when it comes to public transit: Forget about using the underground stations of the Municipal Railway (MUNI) bus system. Those have been closed since March—allegedly to protect riders and drivers from COVID-19.
MUNI underground station
Pi.1415926535 / CC BY-SA (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)
MUNI, which serves only San Francisco, has 4,800 employees and an annual budget of $1.28 billion.
The Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) system serves 33 cities and has an annual budget of $2.3 billion.
Yet BART, which uses many of the same stations is still providing railway service throughout northern California.
MUNI refuses to say why BART has managed to provide service for its passengers—while MUNI has made transit far more complex and time-consuming for its own.
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In Bureaucracy, Business, History, Politics, Social commentary on May 28, 2020 at 12:05 am
On December 12, 2017, President Donald Trump used Twitter to attack New York United States Senator Kirsten Gillibrand.
Gillibrand was among six Democratic Senators who called for Trump’s resignation after sexual harassment allegations forced three Republican and Democratic members of Congress to resign.
Trump tweeted: “Lightweight Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, a total flunky for Chuck Schumer and someone who would come to my office ‘begging’ for campaign contributions not so long ago (and would do anything for them), is now in the ring fighting against Trump. Very disloyal to Bill & Crooked-USED!”
Kirsten Gillibrand
“I see it as a sexist smear. I mean that’s what it is,” Gillibrand replied in a press conference. “It’s part of the President’s efforts of name calling and it’s not going to silence me, it’s not going to silence me. It’s intended to silence me.”
So how does this behavior apply to “The Twitter Rules”?
Abuse/harassment: You may not engage in the targeted harassment of someone, or incite other people to do so. This includes wishing or hoping that someone experiences physical harm.
On February 17, 2017, Trump tweeted: “The FAKE NEWS media (failing @nytimes, @NBCNews, @ABC, @CBS, @CNN) is not my enemy, it is the enemy of the American People!”
On July 2, 2017, Trump tweeted a video showing him punching a man with the CNN logo superimposed on his head during a WWE wrestling match.
And on August 15, 2017, the President retweeted a cartoon photo of a “Trump Train” running over a CNN reporter.
Yet Twitter’s Terms of Service state:
Violence: You may not threaten violence against an individual or a group of people. We also prohibit the glorification of violence.
In May, 2020, Trump tweeted six times about a decades-old conspiracy theory about MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough. Scarborough has been highly critical of Trump’s actions as President—such as his pushing “scam solutions” to Coronavirus instead of relying on scientific experts.
Trump’s smears about Scarborough center on the 2001 death of Lori Klausutis, who worked in his Florida office when he served in Congress. Scarborough’s opponents and a bevy of internet trolls have tried to blame him for her death, even though he was in Washington at the time.
Trump tweeted that Comcast—which owns MSNBC—“should open up a long overdue Florida Cold Case against Psycho Joe Scarborough.” Since then, he has essentially accused Scarborough of murder.
On May 21, Timothy Klausutis, Lori’s widowed husband, wrote Jack Dorsey, Twitter’s CEO, asking him to delete Trump’s tweets,
Jack Dorsey
“Nearly 19 years ago, my wife, who had an undiagnosed heart condition, fell and hit her head on her desk at work. She was found dead the next morning,” wrote Klausutis. “Her passing is the single most painful thing that I have ever had to deal with in my 52 years and continues to haunt her parents and sister.
“The President’s tweet that suggests that Lori was murdered—without evidence (and contrary to the official autopsy)—is a violation of Twitter’s community rules and terms of service.”
Twitter has refused to delete the tweets.
CNN Business asked Twitter if Trump’s “cold case” tweets violated its rules and if any action would be taken. Twitter refused to comment.
So how do Twitter’s top executives justify allowing these repeated violations of “Twitter Rules”?
On September 25, 2018, the company tweeted:
“We hold all accounts to the same Rules, and consider a number of factors when assessing whether Tweets violate our Rules.
“Among the considerations is ‘newsworthiness’ and whether a Tweet is of public interest. This has long been internal policy and we’ll soon update our public-facing rules to reflect it. We need to do better on this, and will.”
Twitter has never acknowledged publicly that Trump has violated any of its guidelines. It rarely even acknowledges Trump’s tweets.
So what gives?
Money.
Trump’s apologists have fiercely defended his tweetstorms, claiming they allow him to bypass the media and “communicate directly with the American people.”
One of those apologists is Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey, who said: “I believe it’s really important to have these conversations out in the open, rather than have them behind closed doors.”
In April, 2017, Twitter announced that it had added 9,000,000 new users, its largest quarterly jump in two years.
“We believe Twitter is the best at showing you what’s happening in the world and what’s being talked about,” said Anthony Noto, Twitter’s chief financial officer.
“Having political leaders of the world as well as news agencies participating and driving that is an important element to reinforcing what we’re the best at.”
In short: Trump is good at attracting more Twitter users. and if the company needs to overlook his blatant and repeated violations of its “Twitter Rules,” so be it.
Twitter has been so plagued by trolling that potential investors like the Walt Disney Company refused to taint their own reputations by partnering with it.
But high-ranking Twitter executives refuse to end their Faustian pact with the biggest Twitter troll of all.
And, as all devotees of the Faust legend know, there comes a time when the Devil wins the bargain.
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In Bureaucracy, Business, History, Law, Politics, Social commentary on May 27, 2020 at 12:30 am
According to “The Twitter Rules,” posted on the Twitter website:
“Twitter’s purpose is to serve the public conversation. Violence, harassment and other similar types of behavior discourage people from expressing themselves, and ultimately diminish the value of global public conversation. Our rules are to ensure all people can participate in the public conversation freely and safely.”
Among these:
- Violence: You may not threaten violence against an individual or a group of people. We also prohibit the glorification of violence.
- Terrorism/violent extremism: You may not threaten or promote terrorism or violent extremism.
- Abuse/harassment: You may not engage in the targeted harassment of someone, or incite other people to do so. This includes wishing or hoping that someone experiences physical harm.
- Hateful conduct: You may not promote violence against, threaten, or harass other people on the basis of race, ethnicity, national origin, caste, sexual orientation, gender, gender identity, religious affiliation, age, disability, or serious disease.
That’s the official version of what Twitter users can expect from those charged with policing Twitter.
So why hasn’t Twitter policed—and purged—the single greatest abuser of its “Twitter Rules”: Donald Trump?
Consider:
Donald Trump’s tweet-first-and-never-mind-the-consequences approach to life has been thoroughly documented.
From June 15, 2015, when he launched his Presidential campaign, until October 24, 2016, he fired nearly 4,000 angry, insulting tweets at 281 people and institutions. The New York Times needed two full pages of its print edition to showcase them.
Donald Trump
Among these targets were:
- His Democratic rival, Hillary Clinton
- His fellow Republican Presidential candidates
- Actress Meryl Streep
- News organizations
- President Barack Obama
- Comedian John Oliver
- Obamacare
- Singer Neil Young
- The state of New Jersey
- Actor Arnold Schwarzenegger.
His Twitter assaults have often dominated entire news cycles for days on end.
As President-elect, he continued these assaults—such as the one on November 18, 2016.
On that evening, Vice President-elect Mike Pence attended a Broadway performance of the hit musical “Hamilton.”
After the curtain call, the actor Brandon Victor Dixon—who played Aaron Burr—respectfully addressed Pence:
“We are the diverse America who are alarmed and anxious that your new administration will not protect us, our friends, our children, our parents, or defend us and uphold our inalienable rights. But we truly hope that this show has inspired you to uphold our American values and to work on behalf of all of us.”
Dixon—who is black—was rightly alarmed.
Trump had received the open and enthusiastic support of the Ku Klux Klan, American Nazi Party and other white supremacist groups. Since his election, white thugs had assaulted blacks and other non-whites across the country.
Trump’s reaction to Dixon’s plea came in two Twitter rants:
“Our wonderful future V.P. Mike Pence was harassed last night at the theater by the cast of Hamilton, cameras blazing. This should not happen!”
And: “The Theater must always be a safe and special place. The cast of Hamilton was very rude last night to a very good man, Mike Pence. Apologize!”
And during his first two weeks as President, Trump attacked 22 people, places and things on his @realDonaldTrump account.
Then, on March 4, 2017, in a series of unhinged tweets, Trump accused former President Barack Obama of tapping his Trump Tower phones prior to the election.
President Barack Obama
“Terrible! Just found out that Obama had my ‘wires tapped’ in Trump Tower just before the victory. Nothing found. This is McCarthyism!”
“Is it legal for a sitting President to be ‘wire tapping’ a race for president prior to an election? Turned down by court earlier. A NEW LOW!”
“I’d bet a good lawyer could make a great case out of the fact that President Obama was tapping my phones in October, just prior to Election!”
“How low has President Obama gone to tapp my phones during the very sacred election process. This is Nixon/Watergate. Bad (or sick) guy!”
Thus, without offering a shred of evidence to back it up, Trump accused his predecessor—on Twitter—of committing an impeachable offense.
On May 9, 2017, Trump abruptly fired FBI Director James Comey.
Reports soon surfaced that his reason for doing so was that Comey had refused to pledge his personal loyalty to Trump. 
James B. Comey
Just 72 hours after firing Comey, Trump issued a threat to him via Twitter: “James Comey better hope that there are no ‘tapes’ of our conversations before he starts leaking to the press!”
And Twitter’s reaction to such a blatant threat? Silence.
From the start of his Presidency, Trump has put his ambitions, excuses and rants on social media. And this has unnerved foreign leaders as well as Trump’s fellow Americans.As CNN Political Analyst Julian Zelizer outlined in a July 3, 2018 article:
“…The President’s ongoing Twitter storms make all leaders uneasy. The heads of government in most nations prefer a certain amount of predictability and decorum from other heads of state.
“To have one of the most powerful people in the room being someone who is willing to send out explosive and controversial statements through social media, including nasty personal attacks or an edited video of him physically assaulting the media, does not make others….feel very confident about how he will handle deliberations with them.”
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In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Medical, Politics, Social commentary on May 26, 2020 at 12:06 am
The United States Constitution has a surprise for President Donald Trump—provided that Congress has the courage to enforce it.
The surprise comes in Article II, Section III.
Article II lays out the powers and responsibilities of the President of the United States. Section III states that, among these, is: “He shall take care that the laws be faithfully executed….”
Opening page of the United States Constitution
That requirement certainly doesn’t square with the following behavior.
On April 15, Right-wing demonstrators launched “Operation Gridlock”, a protest against strict stay-at-home orders by Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer to curb the spread of Coronavirus. A host of demonstrators—many of them armed with high-powered weaponry—descended on the state capitol building in Lansing.
A group stood on the capitol steps brandishing signs that stated “Trump/Pence”, “Recall Whitmer”, “Heil Whitmer” and “Stop the Tyranny”, and chanted “Lock her up!”
On April 17, with governors across the nation implementing “stay-at-home” orders to curtail the spread of Coronavirus, Trump tweeted:
“LIBERATE MINNESOTA!”
“LIBERATE MICHIGAN!”
“LIBERATE VIRGINIA, and save your great 2nd Amendment. It is under siege!”
It’s no coincidence that all of these states have Democratic governors. And his incendiary remarks followed Right-wing demonstrations against stay-at-home orders in Michigan, Ohio, North Carolina, Virginia and other states.
Some protesters carried guns, wore Trump MAGA caps and brandished Confederate flags. They claimed to be defending constitutional freedoms. Egging them on have been Right-wing pundits on Fox News.
“These are people expressing their views,” Trump said at his April 17 White House Coronavirus task force briefing. “I see where they are and I see the way they’re working. They seem to be very responsible people to me, but they’ve been treated a little bit rough.”
He dismissed fears that, by crowding together, the protesters could become infected and spread COVID-19 to others.
“I think some things are too tough,” said Trump. “And if you look at some of the states you just mentioned, it’s too tough, not only in reference to this but what they’ve done in Virginia with respect to the Second Amendment is just a horrible thing … When you see what other states have done, I think I feel very comfortable.”
Jay Inslee, the Democratic governor of Washington, responded on Twitter: “The president’s statements this morning encourage illegal and dangerous acts. He is putting millions of people in danger of contracting Covid-19. His unhinged rantings and calls for people to ‘liberate’ states could also lead to violence. We’ve seen it before.”
And Beto O’Rourke, a former Texas congressman, said: “Republicans will turn a blind eye [and] too many in the press will focus on ‘tone’. But history books will say: in April of 2020, when the pandemic had already claimed 35,000 lives, the President of the United States incited people to storm their statehouses with AR-15s and AK-47s.”
On May 1, demonstrators—many of them heavily armed—again descended on the state capital in Lansing, protesting Whitmer’s extension of her emergency declaration that kept some businesses closed amidst the plague. And, once again, Trump sided with the protesters.
Gretchen Whitmer
“The Governor of Michigan should give a little, and put out the fire,” Trump tweeted. “These are very good people, but they are angry. They want their lives back again, safely! See them, talk to them, make a deal.”
Trump has two hidden agendas for ending “stay-at-home” orders.
First, from the moment he took office on January 20, 2017, he has claimed credit for a booming economy—even though this was largely the work of his predecessor, Barack Obama.
Now, with thousands of businesses shut down because of Coronavirus, that economy is essentially dead.
Coronavirus
Trump knows that Presidents who preside over faltering economies usually don’t win a second term. And Trump not only lusts to win a second term but—as he has repeatedly “joked”—become “President-for-Life.”
Second, Trump is desperate to return to his Nuremberg-style rallies. There he can hurl insults at virtually everyone and bask in the fanatical worship of his followers. These rallies act as fuel to his campaign.
His “White House Coronavirus briefings” have served as a watered-down substitute for those rallies. He must pretend they aren’t purely political. Worse, he must share the podium with others who know far more about the plague than he does.
So now he’ll go to any lengths to “reopen” the country–including the solicitation of violent resistance to the laws of governors he doesn’t like.
Earlier this year, Trump escaped removal from office because Senate Republicans refused to hold him accountable for abuse of power and obstruction of Congress.
But as Coronavirus continues to kill Americans in record numbers—almost 100,000 by May 26—even Republican members of Congress may decide to hold Trump accountable. Especially as the virus moves from Democratic states like New York and Illinois to Republican ones like Florida and South Carolina.
Encouraging violent resistance to the legally established laws of the United States is a crime. If enough Republicans decide to uphold the law rather than ignore it, the Trump Era will become in history what it has in politics: A dirty stain on the American memory.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Politics, Social commentary, Uncategorized on May 25, 2020 at 2:31 am
Donald Trump began his administration with a “Me, first!” attitude. And he has held to it ever since.
On January 21, 2017—the day after he was inaugurated as President—Donald Trump visited the CIA’s headquarters in Langley, Virginia.
Officially, he was there to pay tribute to the men and women who serve on the front lines of America’s Intelligence community.
The men and women who dedicate their lives to finding out when and where America’s enemies are planning to strike. And to countering those threats.
And now Trump was appearing before what, to CIA employees, was the agency’s most sacred site: The star-studded memorial wall honoring the 117 CIA officers who had fallen in the line of duty.
Donald Trump at the CIA
So what did Trump spend much of his time talking about?
Himself, of course.
Here are the major excerpts:
“….You know, when I was young and when I was — of course, I feel young. I feel like I’m 30, 35, 39. Somebody said, are you young? I said, I think I’m young. You know, I was stopping — when we were in the final month of that campaign, four stops, five stops, seven stops. Speeches, speeches, in front of 25,000, 30,000 people, 15,000, 19,000 from stop to stop. I feel young….”
“And I was explaining about the numbers. We did a thing yesterday at the speech. Did everybody like the speech? I’ve been given good reviews.”
“So a reporter for Time magazine — and I have been on their cover, like, 14 or 15 times. I think we have the all-time record in the history of Time Magazine. I’ve been on it for 15 times this year. I don’t think that’s a record….that can ever be broken. Do you agree with that? What do you think?”
Fast forward more than three years later—to an America largely self-locked indoors. The reason: To avoid a deadly plague known as COVID-19, otherwise known as Coronavirus. An America where 1.68 million men, women and children have been diagnosed with the disease. And where 98,035 citizens have so far died.
And, true to form, Trump has shown no sympathy for those who have suffered. Instead, he has turned the tragedy into a celebration of his own ego.
February 28: “One of my people came up to me and said, ‘Mr. President, they tried to beat you on Russia, Russia, Russia’….They couldn’t do it. They tried the impeachment hoax….It’s all turning, they lost….And this is their new hoax.”
March 6: “I like this stuff. I really get it. People are surprised that I understand it. Every one of these doctors said, ‘How do you know so much about this?’ Maybe I have a natural ability. Maybe I should have done that instead of running for President.”
March 12: “I mean, think of it: The United States, because of what I did and what the administration did with China, we have 32 deaths at this point. Other countries that are smaller countries have many, many deaths.”
March 27: “Nobody has done anything like we’ve been able to do And everything I took over was a mess. It was a broken country in so many ways. In so many ways.”
March 29: “President Trump is a ratings hit. Since reviving the daily White House briefing Mr. Trump and his coronavirus updates have attracted an average audience of 8.5 million on cable news, roughly the viewership of the season finale of ‘The Bachelor.’ Numbers are continuing to rise…”
April 26: “I work from early in the morning until late at night, haven’t left the White House in many months (except to launch Hospital Ship Comfort) in order to take care of Trade Deals, Military Rebuilding etc., and then I read a phony story in the failing @nytimes about my work….”
On April 26, The New York Times ran a story entitled: “Self-praise, hubris and self-pity: Examining 260,000 words about the Coronavirus from President Trump.” Summing up the image that Trump has tried to present of himself to the world, the Times concluded:
“The self-regard, the credit-taking, the audacious rewriting of recent history to cast himself as the hero of the pandemic rather than the president who was slow to respond: Such have been the defining features of Trump’s use of the bully pulpit during the coronavirus outbreak….
“By far the most recurring utterances from Trump in the [White House] briefings are self-congratulations, roughly 600 of them, which are often predicated on exaggerations and falsehoods….
“Trump’s attempts to display empathy or appeal to national unity (about 160 instances) amount to only a quarter of the number of times he complimented himself or a top member of his team.”
In 1946, Albert Speer, Adolf Hitler’s architect and minister of armaments, was sentenced to 20 years’ imprisonment for war crimes.
Albert Speer
In Albert Speer: His Batle With Truth, Gitty Sereny wrote: “This was an erudite and solitary man who, recognizing his deficiencies in human relations, had read 5,000 books in prison to try to understand the universe and human beings….Empathy is finally a gift, and cannot be learned. So, essentially returning into the world after 20 years, he remained alone.”
What Sereny says of Speer applies—in spades—to Donald Trump: Empathy is finally a gift, and cannot be learned.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Politics, Social commentary on May 22, 2020 at 12:39 am
…A truly great man is ever the same under all circumstances. And if his fortune varies, exalting him at one moment and oppressing him at another, he himself never varies, but always preserves a firm courage, which is so closely interwoven with his character that everyone can readily see that the fickleness of fortune has no power over him.
The conduct of weak men is very different. Made vain and intoxicated by good fortune, they attribute their success to merits which they do not possess. And this makes them odious and insupportable to all around them. And when they have afterwards to meet a reverse of fortune, they quickly fall into the other extreme, and become abject and vile.
—Niccolo Machiavelli, The Discourses
Niccolo Machiavelli
When Donald Trump—as a businessman and President—has been confronted by men and women who can’t be bribed or intimidated, he has reacted with rage and frustration.
- Trump boasted that he “never” settled cases out of court. But New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman pressed fraud claims against the real estate mogul’s counterfeit Trump University—and Trump settled the case out of court rather than take the stand.
- “Today’s $25 million settlement agreement is a stunning reversal by Donald Trump,” said Schneiderman on November 18, 2016, “and a major victory for the over 6,000 victims of his fraudulent university.”
- On May 17, 2017, Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein appointed former FBI Director Robert S. Mueller to investigate links between Russian Intelligence agents and the 2016 Trump Presidential campaign.
- Upon learning of his appointment, Trump wailed: “Oh my God. This is terrible. This is the end of my Presidency. I’m fucked.”
- “How could you let this happen, Jeff?” Trump demanded of Jeff Sessions, his Attorney General. “You were supposed to protect me. Everyone tells me if you get one of these independent counsels, it ruins your presidency. It takes years and years and I won’t be able to do anything. This is the worst thing that ever happened to me.”
- Throughout Mueller’s probe, Trump hurled repeated insults at him via Twitter and press conferences. He also called on his shills within Fox News and the Republican party to attack Mueller’s integrity and investigative methods.
- But aides convinced him that firing Mueller would be rightly seen as obstruction of justice—and thus grounds for impeachment. So he never dared go that far.
Robert Mueller
Perhaps the key to Trump’s innermost fear can be found in a work of fiction—in this case, the 1996 historical novel, The Friends of Pancho Villa, by James Carlos Blake.
The book depicts the Mexican Revolution (1910 – 1920) and its most famous revolutionary, Francisco “Pancho” Villa. it’s told from the viewpoint of Rodolfo Fierro, Villa’s most feared executioner. In one day, for example, Fierro—using two revolvers—executed 300 captured Federale soldiers.
As in history, Blake’s Fierro presides over the execution of David Berlanga, a journalist who had dared criticize the often loutish behavior of Villa’s men.
On Villa’s command, Fierro approaches Berlanga in a Mexico City restaurant and orders: “Come with me.”
Standing against a barracks wall, Berlanga lights a cigar and requests permission to finish it. He then proceeds to smoke it with such a steady hand that its unbroken ash extends almost four inches.
The cigar finished, the ash still unbroken, Berlanga drops the butt to the ground and says calmly: “I’m ready.”
Then the assembled firing squad does its work.
Later, Fierro is so shaken by Berlanga’s sheer fearlessness that he seeks an explanation for it. Sitting in a cantina, he lights a cigar and tries to duplicate Berlanga’s four-inch length.
But the best he can do is less than three inches. He concludes that Berlanga used a trick—but he can’t figure it out.
Rodolfo Fierro
It had to be a trick, Fierro insists, because, if it wasn’t, there were only two other explanations for such a calm demeanor in the face of impending death.
The first was insanity. But Fierro rules this out: He had studied Berlanga’s eyes and found no madness there.
That leaves only one other explanation (other than a trick): Sheer courage.
And Fierro can’t accept this, either—because it’s disturbing.
“The power of men like me does not come solely from our ability to kill….No, the true source of our power is so obvious it sometimes goes unnoticed for what it is: our power comes from other men’s lack of courage.
“There is even less courage in this world than there is talent for killing. Men like me rule because most men are faint of heart in the shadow of death.
“But a man brave enough to control his fear of being killed, control it so well that no tremor reaches his fingers and no sign shows in his eyes…well. Such a man cannot be ruled, he can only be killed.”
Throughout his life, Trump has relied on bribery and intimidation. He well understands the power of greed and fear over most people.
What he doesn’t understand—and truly fears—is that some people cannot be bought or frightened.
People like Elliot Ness. Like Robert Mueller. And like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Politics, Social commentary on May 21, 2020 at 12:54 am
On July 14, 2019, President Donald Trump unleashed a brutal Twitter attack on four Democratic members of the House of Representatives who had harshly criticized his anti-immigration policies:
“So interesting to see “Progressive” Democrat Congresswomen, who originally came from countries whose governments are a complete and total catastrophe, the worst, most corrupt and inept anywhere in the world (if they even have a functioning government at all), now loudly……
“….and viciously telling the people of the United States, the greatest and most powerful Nation on earth, how our government is to be run. Why don’t they go back and help fix the totally broken and crime infested places from which they came. Then come back and show us how….
“….it is done. These places need your help badly, you can’t leave fast enough. I’m sure that Nancy Pelosi would be very happy to quickly work out free travel arrangements!”
Donald Trump
The Democrats—all female, and all non-white—were:
- Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York;
- Rashida Tlaib of Michigan;
- Ilhan Omar of Minnesota and
- Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts.
Of the Congresswomen that Trump singled out:
- Cortez was born in New York City.
- Tlaib was born in Detroit, Michigan.
- Pressley was born in Cincinnati, Ohio.
Only Omar was born outside the United States—in Somalia. And she became an American citizen in 2000 when she was 17 years old.
Critics have assailed Trump as racist for implying that these women were not United States citizens.
Moreover, as members of Congress, they had a legal right to declare “how our government is to be run.” Republicans in the House and Senate vigorously—and often viciously—asserted that right during the Presidency of Barack Obama.
Ocasio-Cortez quickly struck back on Twitter on the same day: “You are angry because you don’t believe in an America where I represent New York 14, where the good people of Minnesota elected , where fights for Michigan families, where champions little girls in Boston.
“You are angry because you can’t conceive of an America that includes us. You rely on a frightened America for your plunder.
“You won’t accept a nation that sees healthcare as a right or education as a #1 priority, especially where we’re the ones fighting for it. Yet here we are.”
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez
But then followed the most significant part of Cortez’ reply:
“But you know what’s the rub of it all, Mr. President? On top of not accepting an America that elected us, you cannot accept that we don’t fear you, either.
“You can’t accept that we will call your bluff & offer a positive vision for this country. And that’s what makes you seethe.”
“You cannot accept that we don’t fear you, either.”
For all his adult life, Donald Trump—as a businessman, Presidential candidate and now President—has trafficked in bribery and coercion.
First bribery:
- 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.
- Paxton’s office issued a cease and desist letter to former Deputy Chief of Consumer Protection John Owens after he made public copies of a 14-page internal summary of the state’s case against Donald Trump for scamming millions from students of his now-defunct real estate seminar.
- 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.
Now coercion:
- Throughout his career as a businessman, Trump forced his employees to sign Non-Disclosure Agreements, threatening them with lawsuits if they revealed secrets of his greed and/or criminality.
- In 2016. USA Today found that Trump was involved in over 3,500 lawsuits during the previous 30 years: “At least 60 lawsuits, along with hundreds of liens, judgments, and other government filings” were from contractors claiming they got stiffed.
- On March 16, 2016, as a Republican Presidential candidate, Trump warned Republicans that if he didn’t win the GOP nomination in July, his supporters would literally riot: “I think you’d have riots. I think you would see problems like you’ve never seen before. I think bad things would happen, I really do. I wouldn’t lead it, but I think bad things would happen.”
- An NBC reporter summed it up as: “The message to Republicans was clear: ‘Nice convention you got there. Shame if something happened to it.'”
- Speaking with Bob Woodward, the legendary Washington Post investigative reporter, Trump confessed: “Real power is—I don’t even want to use the word—fear.”
- During his Presidential campaign he encouraged Right-wing thugs to attack dissenters at his rallies, even claiming he would pay their legal expenses.
But when he has confronted men and women who can’t be bribed or intimidated, Trump has reacted with rage and desperation.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Medical, Politics, Social commentary on May 20, 2020 at 12:05 am
For all his ruthlessness and duplicity, it’s almost a certainty that Donald Trump has never read the works of Niccolo Machiavelli, the father of modern political science.
Machiavelli (1469 – 1527) is widely thought of as the personification of Satan.
In fact, Machiavelli was a passionate Republican, who spent most of his adult life in the service of his beloved city-state, Florence.
Florence, for all its wealth, lacked a strong army, and thus lay at the mercy of powerful enemies, such as Cesare Borgia. Machiavelli often had to use his wits to keep them at bay.
Niccolo Machiavelli
Contrary to popular belief, Machiavelli did not advocate evil for its own sake.
Rather, he recognized that sometimes there is no perfect solution to a problem. He realized that men—and nations—are not always masters of their fates. And he warned that there is no course of action that is guaranteed safe or successful.
Donald Trump, on the other hand, is a man of simplistic “solutions” for simplistic audiences.
By early April, he opposed the issuing of a national “stay-at-home” order to contain the spread of the Coronavirus. But, one by one, states began issuing shutdown orders of their own. Since then, he has railed against those orders and demanded that “we need to reopen the country.”
Donald Trump
What lies behind this demand are two hidden agendas:
First, throughout his Presidency, Trump has claimed sole credit for a booming economy—even though this was largely the result of the administration of President Barack Obama.
Second, Trump wants to return to his Nuremberg-style rallies, where he can slander anyone he wants while basking in the worship of thousands of his fanatical followers.
His White House “Coronavirus briefings” have been his pale substitute for dispensing propaganda under the guise of sharing reliable medical information.
Which is why he has clearly missed this warning, offered in Machiavelli’s masterwork, The Discourses:
“…I shall speak here only of those dangers to which those expose themselves who counsel a republic or a prince to undertake some grave and important enterprise in such a manner as to take upon themselves all the responsibility of the same.
“For as men only judge of matters by the result, all the blame of failure is charged upon him who first advised it, while in case of success he receives commendations. But the reward never equals the punishment….
“Certainly those who counsel princes and republics are placed between two dangers. If they do not advise what seems to them for the good of the republic or the prince, regardless of the consequences to themselves, then they fail of their duty….
“I see no other course than to take things moderately, and not to undertake to advocate any enterprise with too much zeal, but to give one’s advice calmly and modestly.
“If either then the republic or the prince decides to follow it, they may do so, as it were, of their own will, and not as though they were drawn into it by your importunity.
“In adopting this course it is not reasonable to suppose that either the prince or republic will manifest any ill will towards you on account of a resolution not taken contrary to the wishes of the many.”
Right now, more Americans are wary of “reopening the country” than they are rushing to do so.
On the May 15 edition of The PBS Newshour, New York Times columnist David Brooks noted:
“If you look at actual behavior, people locked themselves down before any politician took a move. And even in those states where the politicians are opening up, people are still locking down….
“You look at the movement based on cell phone tracking. Red and blue states have the same amount of movement. The same number of people basically in state after state are staying home. And red and blue states, there’s no correlation between whether it’s a red and blue state and whether people are doing better or worse.
“And so I think the key decisions right now are not being made in statehouses and certainly not the White House. They’re being made in living rooms, as people decide, is it safe? Can I go out?”
Coronavirus
By pushing his mantra—“America needs to reopen NOW!”—Trump is risking the lives of millions of Americans. But he is also risking the future of his Presidency.
Several states—such as Wisconsin and Pennsylvania—that have re-opened have seen swarms of people flooding into bars and restaurants. They weren’t wearing masks or practicing “social distancing.” Packed together like sardines, they offered themselves like a sacrifice to Coronavirus.
If a new wave of COVID-19 breaks out after America “reopens,” Trump will be seen—as Machiavelli warns—as the primary instigator of that “reopening.” He will also be seen as the primary cause of that re-infection.
Herbert Hoover did not create the Great Depression. But he presided over the first three years of it. And that was enough to elect Franklin D. Roosevelt for 12 years and give Harry S. Truman another eight.
Trump—unintentionally—is offering Democrats another chance to own the Presidency for a generation.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Medical, Politics, Social commentary on May 19, 2020 at 12:06 am
“He was President, OK? Blame him or don’t blame him, but he was President. The World Trade Center came down during his reign.”
—Donald Trump, Presidential candidate, on the failure of George W. Bush to prevent 9/11
“I don’t take responsibility at all.”
—Donald Trump, on whether he feels responsible for the lack of COVID-19 test kits
At his March 27 press briefing, President Donald Trump echoed French King Louis X1V’s infamous remark—“I am the State”: “When they’re [governors] not appreciative to me, they’re not appreciative to the Army Corps, they’re not appreciative to FEMA [Federal Emergency Management Agency]. It’s not right.”
On that same day, Trump attacked Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer on Right-wing Fox News’ “Sean Hannity Show”: “I don’t know if she knows what’s going on, but all she does is sit there and blame the Federal Government.”
On March 27, Whitmer told a Michigan radio station: “What I’ve gotten back is that vendors with whom we’ve procured contracts—they’re being told not to send stuff to Michigan. It’s really concerning. I reached out to the White House last night and asked for a phone call with the president, ironically at the time this stuff was going on.”
Gretchen Whitmer
A March 29 story in the Washington Monthly sheds light on what lay behind Whitmer’s inability to secure desperately-needed ventilators from her longtime vendors. Its headline ran: “What If Trump Decides to Save Republicans But Not Democrats?”
A sub-headline read: “He’s providing vital resources to red states and ignoring blue states.”
Florida submitted a request to FEMA on March 11 for 430,000 surgical masks, 180,000 N95 respirators, 82,000 face shields and 238,000 gloves—and received a shipment with everything three days later.
On Fox News, Rudy Giuliani, Trump’s personal lawyer, bluntly told governors: “Take the blame when you have to. When you play with your boss, sometimes it’s better when you don’t win the golf game. He’s the boss, he’s got all the resources.”
The mentality of the Black Hand has come to the Oval Office.
The Black Hand
Trump isn’t simply refusing to provide states with vitally-needed medical supplies—he’s illegally seizing those supplies that states have ordered.
An April 20 Forbes story offers frightening insight into the tyrannical reach of the Trump administration. Entitled, “Maryland Gov. Hogan Takes Extraordinary Steps to Keep Feds From Confiscating COVID Tests,” the story unfolds like a spy thriller.
Governor Larry Hogan had heard reports that the federal government had confiscated crucial medical supplies from other states—like Massachusetts.
After obtaining 500,000 test kits from South Korea, Hogan ordered them flown into Baltimore–Washington International Airport rather than the larger Dulles International Airport in Virginia. From there they were escorted under guard to a secret location and constantly protected by the National Guard.
As they were sent out for distribution across the state, the tests remained under protection by the National Guard and state police.
The precautions were absolutely necessary. Hospitals in Florida and California reported that FEMA had seized their supplies without explanation.
Massachusetts ordered three million masks that were confiscated by the Federal Government at the Port of New York. This forced the state to ask New England Patriots’ owner Robert Kraft to use his team plane to fly in one million N95 masks from China.
N95 mask
When Trump learned that Hogan had obtained test kits from South Korea, he said: “I don’t think he needed to go to South Korea. I think he needed to get a little knowledge.”
Hogan responded: “The president said the governors are on their own and they should really focus on getting their own tests, and that’s exactly what we did.”
The Federal Government has seized vitally-needed medical supplies in at least seven states. FEMA is not publicly reporting the thefts, despite the outlay of millions of dollars of taxpayer money. Nor has the administration explained how it decides which supplies to seize and where to reroute them.
The Federal Government has not informed states whose supplies it seized if they will receive the materials they ordered and paid for. That has fueled concerns about whether the Trump administration is fairly distributing scarce medical supplies.
“We can’t get any answers,” said a California hospital official who asked not to be identified for fear of retaliation from the White House.
Trump has said it’s the states’ responsibility to obtain critically-needed medical supplies. But when they aren’t outbid by the Federal Government, hospital systems and states find their shipments of medical supplies seized with no explanation.
Where are those supplies going?
To China?
To Trump’s private warehouses?
To Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law, for sale on the black market?
No one as yet knows.
The Washington Monthly story concludes ominously: “What if the White House simply gives all the masks and ventilators to red states and counties, leaving blue ones to struggle? What mechanisms of accountability are left?
“U.S. democracy wasn’t set up to deal with a president openly behaving like a James Bond villain while being protected by a political party behaving more like a mafia than a civic institution.”
Bureaucracybuster's Blog 
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THE CHANGED FACE OF SAN FRANCISCO: PART TWO (END)
In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Politics, Social commentary on June 3, 2020 at 12:25 amSan Francisco has long been one of the most-loved cities in the United States.
Millions of tourists—from both other parts of the United States as well as around the world—visit this city every year to ride its famous cable cars and dine in its magnificent restaurants.
To visit the ruins of its infamous prison, Alcatraz, eat Ghiradelli ice cream in Ghiradelli Square and buy souveniers at nearby Fisherman’s Wharf.
San Francisco Cable car
Thomas Wolf, http://www.foto-tw.de / CC BY-SA (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)
But San Francisco today is not the city it has long been renowned for.
Its major tourist spots are deserted. Its sidewalks are largely free of pedestrians. Many of its best-known stores have been shuttered since mid-March—and many of them may never reopen owing to the financial losses they have incurred.
Its world-famous restaurants no longer offer in-house dining—only take-out or home delivery.
Many of its bus routes have been eliminated. With so many people “sheltering-in-place” in their apartments or houses, the passengers that once carried those routes have largely disappeared.
On March 16, the San Francisco Department of Public Health imposed a shelter-in-place order on city residents. This required them to stay home except for essential needs such as shopping for groceries, getting medications, caring for others and exercising.
The goal of the order: To halt—or at least diminish—the spread of COVID-19.
Coronavirus
The order banned activities considered non-essential: Going to bars, barbers and dinner parties.
Many restaurants offer their fare via Grubhub, Doordash, Caviar or Uber Eats. Some restaurants—notably pizza parlors—use their own employees to deliver food.
This, in turn, demands that potential customers have not only a computer but Internet access. It also demands that they be willing to pay a higher price for food than would be the case if they could dine in.
Another drawback: Choosing what items to order from many restaurants is like choosing what to order in the military: You either accept what they offer—or you do without. Forget about substitutions or additions.
Outdoor exercise is allowed, but gyms are closed.
Some businesses were deemed essential. Among these: Grocery stores, hardware stores, hospitals, drugstores, laundromats, funeral parlors, gas stations, airlines, taxis, rental car companies, childcare facilities, rideshare services.
The effect of the shutdown order on businesses has been devastating.
Walk along Market Street—the city’s best-known site for marches and storefronts—and you’ll find store after store not only closed but boarded up. The same for Powell Street, a major tourist magnet.
The city’s internationally famous cable car lines have all been shut down. With “social distancing” the new Golden Rule, cramming people onto small cable cars is no longer an option.
Taxis are still available—but cab drivers have found business difficult to come by, with so many people staying indoors.
The order allowed most marijuana dispensaries to remain open. Bookstores, on the other hand, were ordered closed—and remain so more than two months later.
So businesses selling toxic “medical marijuana” are considered essential. But if you want to buy a copy of Moby Dick at your local bookstore, you’ll have to do it online.
Many businesses started boarding up in April. The reason: Fears that Coronavirus-inspired shortages of items like toilet paper, meat and hand sanitizer might lead to wholesale looting.
Then, on May 25, as if facing a deadly pandemic wasn’t enough of a threat, a new and unexpected reason for fear emerged: The killing of George Floyd, a former black security guard, in Minneapolis, Minnesota.
While Floyd was handcuffed and lying face down on a city street during an arrest, Derek Chauvin, a white Minneapolis police officer, kept his knee on the right side of Floyd’s neck for eight minutes and 46 seconds.
The death of George Floyd
Across the nation, cities were convulsed by protests—including those in the San Francisco Bay Area. Among these: Oakland, San Jose, Emeryville, Walnut Creek and San Francisco itself.
On May 30, an initially peaceful protest march exploded into looting shortly before 9 p.m. as looters broke off and began smashing shop windows and ransacking stores in Union Square and on Market Street.
Among stores looted: A Sak’s Off Fifth Avenue, Old Navy clothing store, a Cartier Boutique, a Coach store. Looters especially targeted CVS and Walgreens drugstores. Liquor stores and a BevMo were also hit.
“Thirty businesses were looted or destroyed,” said David Perry, from Union Square Business Improvement District. A total of 33 arrests were made for “criminal activity.”
That night, San Francisco Mayor London Breed announced that she would impose a citywide curfew beginning May 31, running from 8:00 p.m to 5 a.m.
On the night of May 31, 87 people were arrested for violating the city’s curfew.
Left unstated by city authorities—within San Francisco and across the nation—was this: With so many people massing in streets, many of them unmasked, would this spread COVID-19 even further?
Northern California—and San Francisco in particular—have closely cooperated with “stay-at-home” orders. As a result, COVID-19 cases have remained relatively stable in those areas.
But the street demonstrations may well reverse the results of those months of self-discipline. The truth will be known only weeks from now.
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