Posts Tagged ‘THE VILLAGE VOICE’
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In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Medical, Politics, Social commentary on May 7, 2024 at 12:10 am
Voters often have hazy memories of the ex-Presidents they—or their opponents—had elected. One reason for this: Ex-Presidents can no longer affect the lives of Americans—or non-Americans.
When Donald Trump left the White House on January 20, 2021, his approval rating was 34%.
For most Americans—including even many Republicans—his inciting a violent attack on the Capitol Building so he could become “President-for-Life” was simply too much. He seemed to have forfeited any chance at a political future.
Yet today he’s the guaranteed Republican nominee for President—and may well win a second term in office this November against President Joseph Biden.
“What’s been clear for a while, especially among swing voters, is that Biden is just more front and center,” said Sarah Longwell, a Republican consultant. “They know about what they don’t like about Biden, and they have forgotten what they don’t like about Trump.”
Millions of Americans have forgotten the infamies and crimes Trump committed during his four years as President—such as:
- Repeatedly attacking the nation’s free press as “the enemy of the American people” for daring to report his growing list of crimes and disasters.
- Publicly siding with Russian dictator Vladimir Putin against American Intelligence agencies—such as the FBI, CIA and National Security Agency—which unanimously agreed that Russia had interfered with the 2016 Presidential election.
- Giving highly classified CIA Intelligence to Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak.
- Using his position as President to further enrich himself, in violation of the Emoluments Clause of the Constitution.
- Firing FBI Director James Comey for refusing to pledge his personal loyalty to Trump—and continuing to investigate Russian subversion of the 2016 election.
Donald Trump
- Shutting down the Federal Government on December 22, 2018, because Democrats refused to fund his useless “border wall” between the United States and Mexico. An estimated 380,000 government employees were furloughed and another 420,000 were ordered to work without pay for 35 days.
- Allowing the deadly COVID-19 virus to ravage the country, killing 400,000 Americans by the time he left office.
- Attacking medical experts and governors who urged Americans to wear masks and socially distance to protect themselves against the deadly COVID-19 virus.
- Repeatedly lying—while still in office and afterward—that the 2020 election had been “stolen” from him by massive voter fraud.
- Illegally trying to pressure state legislatures and governors to stop the certification of the vote that had made Joe Biden the president-elect.
- Inciting his followers to attack the Capitol Building where Senators and Representatives were meeting to count the Electoral Votes won by himself and Joe Biden. His objective: Stop the count, which he knew would prove him the loser.
But concentrating on the major event of 2020—the last year of his White House tenure—should stir up enough frightening memories.
For 2020 was the year of COVID-19—a new and deadly virus that originated in Wuhan, China, in December, 2019. By January 19, the first Coronavirus case appeared in the United States.
On February 7, Trump shared his thoughts—and the latest medical Intelligence—about the Coronavirus with Washington Post editor/investigative reporter Bob Woodward:
“It goes through air, Bob. That’s always tougher than the touch. The touch, you don’t have to touch things, right? But the air, you just breathe the air and that’s how it’s passed. And so that’s a very tricky one. That’s a very delicate one. It’s also more deadly than even your strenuous flues. People don’t realize, we lose 25,000, 30,000 people a year here. Who would ever think that, right?”
Yet from January to early March, Trump and his allies within the Republican party and Fox News Network repeatedly assured Americans they had nothing to fear.
Coronavirus
In addition, Trump pitted cities and states against each other. He made it clear that each state was responsible for securing its needed supply of Personal Protective Equipment (PPEs) for its doctors and nurses aiding Coronavirus patients.
This resulted in a dog-eat-dog atmosphere of cutthroat competition and scarcity, with Americans not only fighting the virus but each other.
Even worse: Trump and Republicans used the deadly plague as a weapon against those Americans they hated.
On March 26, during an interview on Fox News, Trump blamed the failures of his administration’s response to Coronavirus on Democratic state governors like Andrew Cuomo (NY), Jay Inslee (WA), and Gretchen Whitmer (MI).
On March 27, during his press briefing, Trump said he told Vice President Mike Pence—officially in charge of the White House’s response effort—to not call Inslee and Whitmer because they weren’t “appreciative” enough of his efforts.
Gretchen Whitmer
Trump said this even as hospitals in each of their states were being overwhelmed with Coronavirus patients:
“I tell him—I mean I’m a different type of person—I say, ‘Mike, don’t call the governor in Washington, you’re wasting your time with him. Don’t call the woman in Michigan. If they don’t treat you right, I don’t call.”
At his March 27 press briefing, 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.”
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In Business, History, Military, Politics, Social commentary on May 6, 2024 at 12:12 am
Bill O’Reilly, the former host of the Fox News Channel program The O’Reilly Factor, has offered his own solution to fighting terrorism: A multinational mercenary army, based on a NATO coalition and trained by the United States.
“We would select them, special forces would train them—a 25,000-man force to be deployed to fight on the ground against worldwide terrorism. Not just ISIS,” O’Reilly said on “CBS This Morning” on September 24, 2014.
Bill O’Reilly
Actually, O’Reilly’s idea is the subject of The Profession, a 2011 novel by bestselling author Steven Pressfield.
Pressfield made his literary reputation with four classic novels about classical 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 Tides of War (2000) Pressfield depicted the rise and fall of Alcibiades, Athens’ greatest general, as he shifted his loyalties from that city to its arch-enemy, Sparta, and then to Persia, the enemy of both.
In The Virtues of War (2004) he took on the identity of Alexander the Great, explaining to his readers what it was like to command armies that swept across the known world, destroying all who dared oppose them.
Finally, in The Afghan Campaign (2006) Pressfield—this time from the viewpoint of a lowly Greek soldier—refought Alexander’s brutal, three-year anti-guerrilla campaign in Afghanistan.
Steven Pressfield
But in The Profession, Pressfield created a seemingly plausible world set into the future of 2032. The book’s own dust jacket offers the best summary of its plot-line:
“The year is 2032. The third Iran-Iraq war is over. The 11/11 dirty bomb attack on the port of Long Beach, California is receding into memory. Saudi Arabia has recently quelled a coup. Russians and Turks are clashing in the Caspian Basin.
“Iranian armored units, supported by the satellite and drone power of their Chinese allies, have emerged from their enclaves in Tehran and are sweeping south attempting to recapture the resource rich territory that had been stolen from them, in their view, by Lukoil, BP, and ExxonMobil and their privately-funded armies.
“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.”
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 is no less than to become President himself—by popular acclaim.
And like McCrystal, he is a pure warrior who leads from the front and is revered by his men. Salter seizes Saudi oil fields, then 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.
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 to make them go away.”
And so Salter will “accept whatever crown, of paper or gold, that my country wants to press upon me.”
More than 500 years ago, Niccolo Machiavelli warned of the dangers of relying on mercenaries:
“Mercenaries…are useless and dangerous. And if a prince holds on to his state by means of mercenary armies, he will never be stable or secure; for they are disunited, ambitious, without discipline, disloyal; they are brave among friends; among enemies they are cowards.
Niccolo Machiavelli
“They have neither the fear of God nor fidelity to men, and destruction is deferred only so long as the attack is. For in peace one is robbed by them, and in war by the enemy.”
Centuries ago, Niccolo Machiavelli issued a warning against relying on men whose first love is their own enrichment.
Steven Pressfield, in a work of fiction, has given us a nightmarish vision of a not-so-distant America where “Name your price” has become the byword for an age.
Both warnings are well worth heeding.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Law Enforcement, Military, Politics, Social commentary on May 3, 2024 at 12:15 am
On May 25, 2020, George Floyd, a black unemployed restaurant security guard, was murdered by Derek Chauvin, a white Minneapolis police officer.
While Floyd was handcuffed and lying face down on a city street during an arrest, Chauvin kept his knee on the right side of Floyd’s neck for eight minutes and 46 seconds.
Cities across the United States erupted in mass protests over Floyd’s death—and police killings of black victims generally.
Most of these demonstrations proved peaceful. But cities such as Los Angeles, San Francisco and New York City saw stores looted, vandalized and/or burned.
In response, President Donald Trump called for harsh policing, telling governors in a nationwide conference call that they must “dominate” protesters or be seen as “weak.”
Death of George Floyd
To drive home his point, on June 1, Trump ordered police, Secret Service agents and National Guard troops to violently remove peaceful protesters from Lafayette Square, which borders St. John’s Church near the White House.
The purpose of the removal: To allow Trump to have a photo opportunity outside the church.
“I imposed a curfew at 7pm,” tweeted Washington, D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser. “A full 25 minutes before the curfew & w/o provocation, federal police used munitions on peaceful protestors in front of the White House, an act that will make the job of @DCPoliceDept officers more difficult. Shameful!”
Video of the assault spread quickly on social media and news outlets, sparking outrage. The next day, the US Park Police (USPP) responded to the criticisms: “No tear gas was used by USPP officers or other assisting law enforcement partners to close the area at Lafayette Park.”
But the agency admitted that, while it hadn’t used tear gas, it had used smoke canisters and pepper balls. In addition, police used horses, shields and batons to beat back the demonstrators.
While the protesters were being cleared from the area, Trump appeared in the White House Rose Garden and said: “I will fight to protect you—I am your president of law and order and an ally of all peaceful protesters.”
This from the man who had been impeached by the House of Representatives in December, 2019, for abuse of power and obstruction of Congress. Only a majority-Republican Senate—fearful of losing their seats if they convicted Trump on the overwhelming evidence presented against him—had saved him from ouster.
On June 3, 2020, White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany compared Trump’s photo-op in front of St. John’s Episcopal Church to former British Prime Minister Winston Churchill’s visits to bombed British cities during World War II:
“Through all of time, we have seen presidents and leaders across the world who have had leadership moments and very powerful symbols that were important for a nation to see at any given time to show a message of resilience and determination.
“Like Churchill, we saw him inspecting the bombing damage. It sent a powerful message of leadership to the British people.”
Kayleigh McEnany
Comparing Trump to Churchill proved a huge leap of propaganda on McEnany’s part.
For starters, Churchill was an avowed and relentless opponent of Fascism—and especially its most infamous exponent, German Chancellor Adolf Hitler.
During the 1930s, as Europe’s democracies ignored or quailed before Nazi threats, Churchill demanded that England arm for the coming war against Nazi Germany.
Trump, a Fascistic dictator by nature, tries to rule by fiat and identifies with dictators—most notably Communist ones, such as Russia’s Vladimir Putin and North Korea’s Kim Jong-Un.
Second, throughout World War II, Churchill had only one bodyguard—Inspector Walter Thompson, of Scotland Yard’s Special Branch.
Winston Churchill (testing a submachinegun); Walter Thompson (in black fedora)
During bombing raids, Churchill often climbed atop London buildings to watch the bombardment—or raced to cities he had just learned were under attack.
Trump, on the other hand, is a coward who is constantly protected by scores of Secret Service agents who are supplemented by hundreds of local police.
Moreover, Trump turned the normally well-protected White House into an armed fortress. Block after block of tall, black reinforced fencing was erected. Tan military vehicles roll along Pennsylvania Avenue and camo-clad troops patrolled the corner where tourists used to buy red, white and blue USA sweatshirts.
Lafayette Square, across from the White House—normally full of selfie-taking tourists—was blocked off by a steel fence perimeter and filled with heavily-armed National Guard troops and Secret Service agents.
Third, as a young man, Churchill had served his country as a second lieutenant in the Fourth Queen’s Own Hussars regiment of the British Army. He volunteered to campaign against Islamic rebels in the Swat Valley of north-west India. In Egypt, he joined the 21st Lancers and subsequently saw action in the Battle of Omdurman.
Trump, on the other hand, used his father’s influence to win five draft deferments to sit out the Vietnam war—four allowing him to complete college and one for “bone spurs.”
In a 1997 interview, he equated avoiding STDs as the same as military courage: “It’s like Vietnam, sort of. It is my personal Vietnam. I feel like a great and very brave solider.”
There is a lesson here for Kayleigh McEnany—and all future Trump apologists: Do your homework before you make easily-debunked claims on his behalf.
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In Bureaucracy, Entertainment, History, Law Enforcement, Military, Politics, Social commentary on May 2, 2024 at 12:11 am
There’s a scene in the classic 1956 Western, The Searchers, that counterterrorism experts should study closely.
John Wayne—in the role of Indian-hating Ethan Edwards—and a party of Texas Rangers discover the corpse of a Comanche killed during a raid on a nearby farmhouse.
One of the Rangers–a teenager enraged by the Indians’ killing of his family—picks up a rock and bashes in the head of the dead Indian.
Wayne, sitting astride his horse, asks: “Why don’t you finish the job?”
He draws his revolver and fires two shots, taking out the eyes of the dead Comanche—although the mutilation is not depicted onscreen.
John Wayne as Ethan Edwards in The Searchers
The leader of the Rangers, a part-time minister, asks: ”What good did that do?”
“By what you preach, none,” says Wayne/Edwards. “But by what that Comanche believes—ain’t got no eyes, he can’t enter the Spirit land. Has to wander forever between the winds. You get it, Reverend.”
Now, fast forward to May 1, 2011: U.S. Navy SEALS descend on a compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan, and kill Osama bin Laden, the Al Qaeda chieftain.
Among the details of the raid that most titillates the media and public: The commandos were accompanied by a bomb-sniffing dog, a Belgian Malinois.
The canine was strapped to a member of the SEAL team as he lowered himself and the dog to the ground from a hovering helicopter near the compound.
A Belgian Malinois SEAL dog
Heavily armored dogs–equipped with infrared night-sight cameras–have been used in the past by the top-secret unit.
The cameras on their heads beam live TV pictures back to the troops, providing them with critical information and warning of ambushes.
The war dogs wear ballistic body armor that is said to withstand damage from single and double-edged knives, as well as protective gear which shields them from shrapnel and gunfire.
Some dogs are trained to silently locate booby traps and concealed enemies such as snipers. The dogs’ keen senses of smell and hearing makes them far more effective at detecting these dangers than humans.
The animals will attack anyone carrying a weapon and have become a pivotal part of special operations as they crawl unnoticed into tunnels or rooms to hunt for enemy combatants.
Which brings us to the ultimate of ironies: Osama bin Laden may have been killed through the aid of an animal Muslims fear and despise.
Osama bin Laden
Muslims generally cast dogs in a negative light because of their ritual impurity. Muhammad did not like dogs according to Sunni tradition, and most practicing Muslims do not have dogs as pets.
It is said that angels do not enter a house which contains a dog. Though dogs are not allowed for pets, they are allowed to be kept if used for work, such as guarding the house or farm, or when used for hunting.
Because Islam considers dogs in general to be unclean, many Muslim taxi drivers and store owners have refused to accommodate customers who have guide dogs.
In 2003, the Islamic Sharia Council, based in the United Kingdom, ruled that the ban on dogs does not apply to those used for guide work.
But many Muslims continue to refuse access, and see the pressure to allow the dogs as an attack upon their religious beliefs.
Counterterror specialists have learned that Muslims’ dread of dogs can be turned into a potent weapon against Islamic suicide bombers.
In Israel, use of bomb-sniffing dogs has proven highly effective—but not simply because of the dogs’ ability to detect explosives through their highly-developed sense of smell.
Muslim suicide-bombers fear that if they blow themselves up near a dog, they might kill the animal—and its unclean blood might be mingled with their own. This would make them unworthy to ascend to Heaven and claim those 72 willing virgins.
Similarly, news in 2009 that bomb-sniffing dogs might soon be patrolling Metro Vancouver’s buses and SkyTrains as a prelude to the 2010 Olympics touched off Muslims’ alarms.
“If I am going to the mosque and pray, and I have this saliva on my body, I have to go and change or clean,” said Shawket Hassan, vice president of the British Columbia Muslim Association.
Hassan said that he wanted the transit police to develop guidelines that would keep the dogs about one foot away from passengers.
What are the lessons to be learned from all this? They are two-fold:
- Only timely tactical intelligence will reveal Islamic terrorists’ latest plans for destruction.
- But no matter how adept such killers prove at concealing their momentary aims, they cannot conceal the attributes and long-term objectives of the religion, history and culture which have scarred and molded them.
American police, Intelligence and military operatives must constantly ask themselves: “How can we turn Islamic religion / history / culture into weapons against the Islamic terrorists we face?”
These institutions must become intimately knowledgeable about the mindset of our Islamic enemies—just as the best frontier Army scouts and officers did about the mindset of their Indian enemies.
These institutions must become intimately knowledgeable about the mindset of our Islamic enemies, just as the best frontier Army scouts and officers became knowledgeable about the mindset of the Indians they fought.
And then they must ruthlessly apply that knowledge against the weaknesses of those sworn enemies.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Politics, Social commentary on May 1, 2024 at 12:10 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
Donald Trump gives daily proof that Niccolo Machiavelli’s warning remains as timely as ever.
Trump constantly brags about how tough he is, and what he will do to his enemies and those of his version of America.
Among his threats:
- Threatening to appoint a special prosecutor to target President Joe Biden and his family if he’s reelected.
- Saying that Mark Miley, the former chairman of the Joint Chief of Staff, deserves execution. Miley’s “crime”: Ensuring that war did not erupt between China and the United States during Trump’s last months in office.
- Repeatedly attacking prosecutors and judges, their families, former officials and political opponents.
- Calling for the jailing of former Wyoming Republican Representative Liz Cheney and the other members of the House panel that investigated his inciting a violent mob to attack the United States Capitol.
Yet when he has been confronted with men and women who can’t be bribed or intimidated, Trump has reacted with rage, frustration—and outbursts of whining self-pity.
Among these:
- “If I announced that I was not going to run any longer for political office the persecution of Donald Trump would immediately stop,” Trump said at a rally in Prescott Valley, Arizona. “But that is not what I do. I can’t do that, I can’t do that. Can’t do that. Because I love this country and I love you.”
- Facing trial for defrauding New York in taxes, Trump addressed Judge Arthur F. Engoron: “What’s happened here, sir, is a fraud on me. They want to make sure that I don’t win again, and this is partially election interference.”
- “I am a victim,” Trump said in his speech announcing his presidential run. “I will tell you I’m a victim. We will be attacked. We will be slandered. We will be persecuted just as I have been.”
- Accused of raping and defaming writer E. Jean Carroll, Trump said in a deposition: “She said that I did something to her that never took place. There was no anything. I know nothing about this nutjob. She’s accusing me of rape, a woman that I have no idea who she is.”
Donald Trump
- At his New York fraud trial in January, Trump whined: “This is a political witch-hunt that was set aside by – should be set aside. We should receive damages for what we’ve gone through, for what they’ve taken this company through.”
- Of New York Attorney General Letitia James, who is prosecuting him for engaging in years of financial fraud and illegal conduct, Trump said: “We have a situation where I’m an innocent man. I’ve been persecuted by somebody running for office. They want to make sure that I don’t win again, that this is partially election interference. But, in particular, the person in the room right now hates Trump and uses Trump to get elected.”
- Of Special Counsel Jack Smith, Trump said: “The prosecutor in the case, I will call our case, is a thug. I have named him ‘Deranged Jack Smith….He does political hit jobs. He’s a raging and uncontrolled Trump hater, as is his wife, who happened to be the producer of that Michelle Obama puff piece. This is the guy I’ve got.”
- Speaking of the FBI’s raid on Mar-a-Lago to recover hundreds of highly classified documents Trump had illegally taken upon leaving the White House, Trump said: “The political persecution of President Donald J. Trump has been going on for years, with the now fully debunked Russia, Russia, Russia Scam, Impeachment Hoax No 1, Impeachment Hoax No 2, and so much more, it just never ends. It is political targeting at the highest level!”
In his masterwork, The Discourses, published in 1531, Florentine statesman Niccolo Machiavelli laid out his advice for preserving liberties within a republic. Among this was the foregoing description of the difference between great leaders and weak ones.
Donald Trump likes to portray himself as a courageous leader. But he is “brave” only when facing those far weaker than himself.
He feels most compatible with ruthless dictators—such as Vladimir Putin, Kim Jong-Un and Xi Jinping. He envies their life-or-death power over their subjects. And he lusts to possess the same.
He is a coward, who demands total immunity for all his actions—most importantly, his criminal ones.
No other President—not even Richard Nixon—has ever made such a demand. Or faced prosecution for so many crimes.
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In History, Politics, Social commentary on April 30, 2024 at 12:11 am
The ancient historian Plutarch warned:
“And the most glorious episodes do not always furnish us with the clearest discoveries of virtue or vice in men.
“Sometimes a matter of less moment, an expression or a jest, informs us better of their characters and inclinations than the most famous sieges, the greatest armaments, or the bloodiest battles.”
Those needing a modern demonstration of this truth need only turn to the story now igniting the Internet—especially X: South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem’s proud confession of shooting her 14-month-old wirehair pointer named “Cricket.”
Kristi Noem
The confession (“I hated that dog”) comes in her new book, No Going Back: The Truth on What’s Wrong with Politics and How We Move America Forward, which will be published in May.
The British newspaper, The Guardian, obtained an advance copy and published excerpts from it. And that’s when the firestorm erupted.
Cricket’s “crimes”: Being disobedient, being a poor hunter during a pheasant hunting trip and later attacking and killing a neighbor’s chickens.
According to Noem, she hoped to calm the young dog down. But Cricket had other ideas, ruining the hunt and “going out of her mind with excitement, chasing all those birds and having the time of her life.”
Cricket
Noem called Cricket, which didn’t lead to the desired response. So she tried an electronic “shock” collar. That didn’t work, either.
Then, on the way home after the hunt, Noem stopped to talk to a local family. And that was when Cricket became the hunter Noem wanted her to be.
She leaped out of Noem’s truck and attacked the farmer’s chickens—“grabbing one chicken at a time, crunching it to death with one bite, then dropping it to attack another.”
For Noem, Cricket—who didn’t want to kill pheasants—now behaved like “a trained assassin.” Noem grabbed Cricket, but the dog “whipped around to bite me.”
As the chickens’ owner wept, Noem apologized and wrote the family a check “for the price they asked, and helped them disposes of the carcasses littering the scene of the crime.”
Through it all, writes Noem, Cricket was “the picture of pure joy.”
For Noem, Cricket’s “crimes” were unforgivable—and utterly deserving of the death penalty: She was
- “untrainable”
- “dangerous to anyone she came in contact with” and
- “less than worthless…as a hunting dog.”
So Noem got her shotgun and led Cricket to a gravel pit.
“It was not a pleasant job, but it had to be done. And after it was over, I realized another unpleasant job needed to be done.”
Her family also owned a male goat—unnamed in the book—that was “nasty and mean” because it hadn’t been castrated. Worse, it smelled “disgusting, musty, rancid” and “loved to chase” Noem’s children, knocking them down and ruining their clothing.
She dragged the goat to the same gravel pit. But just as she pulled the trigger on her shotgun the animal jumped and was only wounded. Noem went back to her truck, got another shell, then “hurried back to the gravel pit and put him down.”
At that point a school bus dropped off Noem’s children. “Hey, where’s Cricket?” her seven-year-old daughter, Kennedy, asked.
Most responses to the slaughters were furious and unforgiving:
- Rick Wilson, a member of the anti-Trump Lincoln Project, called Noem “deliberately cruel” and “trash.”
- Ryan Busse, the Democratic candidate for Governor of Montana, said: “Anyone who has ever owned a birddog knows how disgusting, lazy and evil this is. Damn.”
- Meghan McCain, daughter of former U.S. Senator John McCain: “You can recover from a lot of things in politics, change the narrative etc – but not from killing a dog.”
- Podcaster Tommy Vietor called Noem “Jeffrey Dahmer with veneers”, a reference to a famous serial killer and a recent scandal over Noem’s cosmetic dentistry treatment.
In March, she posted a laudatory video about cosmetic dental surgery that she had received in Texas. She claimed that a team of cosmetic dentists had given her a smile she can be proud of.
She’s being sued for not stating she had a financial interest in the product she was hustling.
In a post to X (formerly Twitter) Noem wrote: “What I learned from my years of public service, especially leading South Dakota through Covid, is people are looking for leaders who are authentic, willing to learn from the past, and don’t shy away from tough challenges.
“My hope is anyone reading this book will have an understanding that I always work to make the best decisions I can for the people in my life.”
Among the “tough challenges” Noem wants to take on is becoming Vice President nominee to Donald Trump. Trump has already wrapped up the Republican nomination for President. And this has set off a scramble among Republican politicians to become his running mate.
It may be that Noem expected her admission of killing a defenseless dog and goat as the best way to prove to Trump that she can be as ruthless as himself. She might even be hinting that she would be willing to attack his opponents as brutally as she dealt with Cricket.
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In Bureaucracy, Entertainment, History, Military, Politics, Social commentary on April 29, 2024 at 2:03 am
On October 7, the Hamas terrorist organization which governs Gaza invaded Israel, killing 1,139 soldiers and civilians, and kidnapping another 253—including women and children.
Since then, Israel has pounded Gaza with bombs, missiles. tanks and soldiers. About 62% of all homes have been destroyed. More than a million residents have been rendered homeless. Damages have been estimated at over $13 billion.
To date, more than 31,184 Palestinians have been killed and 72,889 injured, according to the local health authorities.
Across the nation, scores of university students have protested Israel’s retaliation against Gaza.
Among the universities targeted: Columbia, Harvard, Yale, the University of Texas at Austin, the University of Southern California, Emory University in Atlanta, Boston’s Emerson College.
Clashes have erupted between pro-Palestinian and pro-Israeli students. Jewish students have been threatened with death. And several universities—such as USC—have been forced to cancel upcoming graduation ceremonies for fear of violence.
This has forced universities to call on police to clear pro-Palestinian encampments and arrest demonstrators who make it impossible for serious-minded students to get an education.
Aftermath of an Israeli air strike in Gaza
Palestinian News & Information Agency (Wafa) in contract with APAimages, CC BY-SA 3.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0>, via Wikimedia Commons
As a result, it’s time for a commonsense update on the war—and the terrorism-supporting questions that go with it.
“Why are the Israelis bombing Gaza?”
Because they don’t like having their men, women and children slaughtered and kidnapped.
“Why does the United States allow Israel to bomb Gaza?”
Israel is a sovereign country and does not take its orders from the United States.
“Hamas only slaughtered 1,139 Israelis. But Israelis have killed over 31,000 Palestinians. That’s so unfair.”
Under this logic, Israel should be allowed to kill only 1,139 Palestinians: “I smacked you in the mouth once, so you should be allowed to smack me in the mouth once. Actually, you shouldn’t be allowed to smack me back at all.”
“Israel is waging war on civilians—not Hamas.”
Hamas has deliberately embedded itself among a civilian population: “Ha, ha, you’ll have to kill all these innocent people in order to kill us.” For Israel to accept such sanctuary would be to confer immunity on Hamas and guarantee ceaseless future attacks.
Emblem of Hamas
“Palestinians didn’t attack Israel—Hamas did.”
Hamas is overwhelmingly supported by Palestinians. A man who shelters a known killer is by definition an accessory to that killer’s crimes. Yet Hamas refuses to allow civilians to take shelter in its tunnels. Nor does it use its underground network to supply much-needed food and resources for Gazans.
“Israel is fighting a war of genocide against Gaza!”
The universal rallying cry among Gaza residents—and their Islamic and non-Islamic allies—is: “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free.” Which means: When Israel is destroyed and its citizens are slaughtered.
For Hamas, no “two-state solution” will do.
According to CNN, several videos are circulating online that “show Israeli soldiers in Gaza behaving in offensive and disrespectful ways toward the civilian population. Other videos show soldiers ransacking private homes, destroying civilian property and using racist and hateful language.”
Soldiers are universally notorious for showing disrespect for their enemies, whether civilian or military.
During the Civil War, Union General William Tecumseh Sherman set out on his legendary “March to the Sea” through Georgia in 1864. His soldiers ravaged the countryside, destroyed all sources of food and forage and left behind hungry and demoralized Southerners.
Sherman’s March
As for Israeli soldiers “using racist and hateful language”: During World War II, GIs referred to Germans as “krauts” and to Japanese as “Japs.” During the Vietnam war, grunts called Vietcong and North Vietnamese soldiers “gooks.” In Afghanistan and Iraq, Americans used “ragheads” and “Hajiis” to describe their enemies.
War is, by its nature, destructive—of lives, of property, of feelings for humanity.
William Tecumseh Sherman minced no words in describing its evil: “You cannot qualify war in harsher terms than I will. War is cruelty, and you cannot refine it….You might as well appeal against the thunder-storm as against these terrible hardships of war….
“They are inevitable, and the only way the people of Atlanta can hope once more to live in peace and quiet at home, is to stop the war….”
Sherman’s words—which appeared in a September 12, 1864 letter to Atlanta Mayor James M. Calhoun—could be addressed to Hamas and the Gaza residents who support it:
“Now that war comes home to you, you feel very different. You depreciate its horrors, but did not feel them when you sent car-loads of soldiers and ammunition, and moulded shells and shot, to carry war into Kentucky and Tennessee, to desolate the homes of hundreds of thousands of good people who only asked to live in peace at their old homes, and under the Government of their inheritance.”
“The Holy Land.”
There is no “holy land.” There is only desert claimed by two warring religions. Both sides believe “God is on our side.” So there will never be peace, only eternal war—until global warming finally makes the Middle East so hot that no one can live there.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Law Enforcement, Politics, Social commentary on April 26, 2024 at 12:07 am
“One man with courage,” said the frontier general (and later President) Andrew Jackson, “makes a majority.”
Yet many “heroes” come out of the woodwork only after danger is safely past.
One such “hero” was Rex Tillerson, the former Secretary of State under President Donald Trump.
On May 16, 2018, he addressed graduates of the Virginia Military Institute:
“If we do not as Americans confront the crisis of ethics and integrity in our society among our leaders in both public and private sector, and regrettably at times in the nonprofit sector, then American democracy as we know it is entering its twilight years.”
Rex Tillerson
Tillerson’s remarks were widely seen as a not-so-veiled criticism of his former boss, President Trump.
Tillerson had served as Secretary of State from January 20, 2017, until Trump abruptly fired him on March 13, 2018. There had been increasing tensions between the two, as Tillerson struggled to run foreign policy without interference by Trump.
It was during a visit to Chad and Nigeria that Tillerson learned of his firing—via a Trump tweet.
Tillerson’s remarks on the importance of truth would carry far greater weight had he shared them publicly while Secretary of State.
On May 9, 2017, the Washington Post’s Fact-Checker blog noted: During Trump’s 466 days in office, he had made 3,000 false or misleading statements. That works out to 6.5 falsehoods each day.
“I was never courageous,” the Russian poet, Yevgeny Yevtushenko, wrote in his poem, “Conversation With an American Writer.” “I simply felt it unbecoming to stoop to the cowardice of my colleagues.”
During the 1950s, many Americans found it easy to stoop to the cowardice of their colleagues.
From 1950 to 1954, United States Senator Joseph R. McCarthy (R-Wis.) terrorized the nation, accusing anyone who disagreed with him of being a Communist—and leaving countless ruined lives in his wake.
Joseph R. McCarthy
Among those civilians and government officials slandered as Communists were:
- President Harry S. Truman
- President Dwight D. Eisenhower
- Actor Orson Welles
- Playwright Arthur Miller
- Broadcast journalist Edward R. Murrow
- Columnist Drew Pearson
Finally, in 1954, McCarthy overreached himself and accused the U.S. Army of being a hotbed of Communist traitors. Joseph Welch, counsel for the Army, destroyed McCarthy’s credibility in a now-famous retort:
“Senator, may we not drop this?….You’ve done enough. Have you no sense of decency, sir? At long last, have you left no sense of decency?”
Later that year, the Senate censured McCarthy, and he rapidly declined in power and health:
- Senatorial colleagues who had once courted his support now avoided him.
- They left the Senate when he rose to speak.
- Reporters who had once fawned on him for his latest sensational slander now ignored him.
- Eisenhower had sought McCarthy’s support during his 1952 race for President. He had even refused to criticize McCarthy for a totally slanderous attack on former Secretary of State George C. Marshall. As Chief of Staff of the United States Army, Marshall had advanced Eisenhower’s military career, even picking him as Supreme Commander of Allied Forces during World War II.
- Now Eisenhower joked that “McCarthyism” was “McCarthywasm.”
Nor did mass cowardice end with the McCarthy era.
On July 12, 2012, former FBI Director Louie Freeh released a damning report on serial pedophile Jerry Sandusky.
Freeh had been hired by Penn State University (PSU) to discover the truth about its former superstar faculty member.
As the assistant football coach at PSU from 1969 to 1999, he had used the football facilities to sexually attack numerous young boys.
Jerry Sandusky
But Sandusky was regarded as more than a second-banana. He received Assistant Coach of the Year awards in 1986 and 1999, and authored several books about his coaching experiences.
In 1977, Sandusky founded The Second Mile, a non-profit charity serving underprivileged, at-risk youth.
“Our most saddening and sobering finding is the total disregard for the safety and welfare of Sandusky’s child victims by the most senior leaders at Penn State,” Freeh stated.
College football is a $3.3 billion-a-year business. And Penn State is one of its premiere brands, with revenue of $181 million in 2023.
PSU’s seven-month internal investigation, headed by Freeh, revealed:
- Joe Paterno, head coach of the Penn State Nittany Lions, was aware of a 1998 criminal investigation of Sandusky.
- So was president Graham Spanier, athletic director Tim Curley and vice president Gary Schultz.
- In 2001, then-graduate assistant Mike McQueary reported to Paterno that he’d seen Sandusky attacking a boy in the shower.
- Paterno, Spanier, Curley and Schultz then conspired to cover up for Sandusky.
- The rapes of these boys occurred in the Lasch Building—where Paterno had his office.
- A janitor who had witnessed a rape in 2000 said he had feared losing his job if he told anyone about it. “It would be like going against the President of the United States,” Freeh said at a press conference.
In 2011, Sandusky was arrested and charged with sexually abusing young boys over a 15-year period. On June 22, 2012, he was convicted on 45 of the 48 charges. He will likely spend the rest of his life in prison.
On the day the Freeh report was released, Nike—a longtime sponsor for Penn State—announced that it would remove Paterno’s name from the child care center at its world headquarters in Beaverton, Oregon.
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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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TIME TO REFRESH OUR MEMORIES OF EVIL: PART ONE (OF TWO)
In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Medical, Politics, Social commentary on May 7, 2024 at 12:10 amVoters often have hazy memories of the ex-Presidents they—or their opponents—had elected. One reason for this: Ex-Presidents can no longer affect the lives of Americans—or non-Americans.
When Donald Trump left the White House on January 20, 2021, his approval rating was 34%.
For most Americans—including even many Republicans—his inciting a violent attack on the Capitol Building so he could become “President-for-Life” was simply too much. He seemed to have forfeited any chance at a political future.
Yet today he’s the guaranteed Republican nominee for President—and may well win a second term in office this November against President Joseph Biden.
“What’s been clear for a while, especially among swing voters, is that Biden is just more front and center,” said Sarah Longwell, a Republican consultant. “They know about what they don’t like about Biden, and they have forgotten what they don’t like about Trump.”
Millions of Americans have forgotten the infamies and crimes Trump committed during his four years as President—such as:
Donald Trump
But concentrating on the major event of 2020—the last year of his White House tenure—should stir up enough frightening memories.
For 2020 was the year of COVID-19—a new and deadly virus that originated in Wuhan, China, in December, 2019. By January 19, the first Coronavirus case appeared in the United States.
On February 7, Trump shared his thoughts—and the latest medical Intelligence—about the Coronavirus with Washington Post editor/investigative reporter Bob Woodward:
“It goes through air, Bob. That’s always tougher than the touch. The touch, you don’t have to touch things, right? But the air, you just breathe the air and that’s how it’s passed. And so that’s a very tricky one. That’s a very delicate one. It’s also more deadly than even your strenuous flues. People don’t realize, we lose 25,000, 30,000 people a year here. Who would ever think that, right?”
Yet from January to early March, Trump and his allies within the Republican party and Fox News Network repeatedly assured Americans they had nothing to fear.
Coronavirus
In addition, Trump pitted cities and states against each other. He made it clear that each state was responsible for securing its needed supply of Personal Protective Equipment (PPEs) for its doctors and nurses aiding Coronavirus patients.
This resulted in a dog-eat-dog atmosphere of cutthroat competition and scarcity, with Americans not only fighting the virus but each other.
Even worse: Trump and Republicans used the deadly plague as a weapon against those Americans they hated.
On March 26, during an interview on Fox News, Trump blamed the failures of his administration’s response to Coronavirus on Democratic state governors like Andrew Cuomo (NY), Jay Inslee (WA), and Gretchen Whitmer (MI).
On March 27, during his press briefing, Trump said he told Vice President Mike Pence—officially in charge of the White House’s response effort—to not call Inslee and Whitmer because they weren’t “appreciative” enough of his efforts.
Gretchen Whitmer
Trump said this even as hospitals in each of their states were being overwhelmed with Coronavirus patients:
“I tell him—I mean I’m a different type of person—I say, ‘Mike, don’t call the governor in Washington, you’re wasting your time with him. Don’t call the woman in Michigan. If they don’t treat you right, I don’t call.”
At his March 27 press briefing, 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.”
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