Posts Tagged ‘TREASON’
ABC NEWS, ABRAHAM LINCOLN, ALTERNET, ANDREW JACKSON, AP, BARACK OBAMA, BREITBART NEWS, BUZZFEED, CBS NEWS, CIVIL WAR, CNN, CROOKS AND LIARS, DAILY KOZ, DONALD TRUMP, FACEBOOK, HILLARY CLINTON, HUFFINGTON POST, JOHN C. CALHOUN, MARCHING THROUGH GEORGIA, MIKE PENCE, MOTHER JONES, MOVEON, MSNBC, NBC NEWS, NEWSWEEK, NPR, POLITICO, RAW STORY, REPUBLICAN PARTY, REUTERS, ROBERT E. LEE, ROBERT HAYNE, ROGER STONE, SALON, SEATTLE TIMES, SECCESSION, SLATE, THE ATLANTIC, THE CHICAGO SUN-TIMES, THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE, THE DAILY BEAST, THE GUARDIAN, THE HILL, THE HUFFINGTON POST, THE LOS ANGELES TIMES, THE NATION, THE NEW YORK TIMES, THE WALL STREET JOURNAL, THE WASHINGTON POST, THOMAS HART BENTON, TIME, TREASON, TWITTER, U.S. NEWS & WORLD REPORT, UP, UPI, USA TODAY, WILLIAM TECUMSEH SHERMAN
In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Military, Politics, Social commentary on October 26, 2016 at 12:19 am
They cannot be made to love us, but they may be made to fear us.
–William Tecumseh Sherman speaking of the Southern Confederacy
If Hillary Clinton is elected President, she may soon face the same crisis that confronted Abraham Lincoln more than a century ago: Mass treason.
Americans haven’t even voted yet. But, already, hard-core supporters of Republican Presidential nominee Donald Trump believe a sinister international cabal has “rigged” the 2016 election for Clinton.
There is absolutely no evidence for this–other than what Trump himself has loudly and repeatedly told them: That there is a massive conspiracy to take him down.
At one town hall meeting where his Vice Presidential running mate, Mike Pence, appeared, a woman named Rhonda stood up and announced: “One of the things that I can tell you that a lot of us are scared of is this voter fraud.
“There’s a lot of out here saying that when we vote, we’re going to wear red. Our lives depend on this election. Our kids’ futures depend on this election.
“For me personally, if Hillary Clinton gets in, I myself am ready for a revolution.”
In Cincinnati, a Trump supporter threatened to forcibly remove Clinton from the White House if she won the Presidential race: “I feel like Hillary needs to be taken out if she gets in the government. I’ll do everything in my power to take her out of power–which, if I have to be a patriot, I will.”
When asked if he was physically threatening Clinton, Dan Bowman, 50, told CNN: “I don’t know, is it?”
Officially, the Trump campaign claimed: “We reject violence in any form and will not allow it to be a part of our campaign.”
But on August 9, Trump told a rally in Wilmington, North Carolina that Clinton intended to abolish the Second Amendment: “If she gets to pick her judges, there’s nothing you can do, folks. Although the Second Amendment people–maybe there is, I don’t know.”
The Clinton camp instantly saw it as a “dog-whistle” solicitation for political assassination. The Trump campaign issued a statement denying that he had meant any such thing.
On July 19, Trump clinched the Republican Presidential nomination. By early August, Roger Stone, a longtime Right-wing political consultant and now Trump strategist, was already predicting “widespread voter fraud” in the coming election.
This despite the fact that a 2014 Washington Post analysis of 14 years of voter fraud found 31 possible incidents of in-person voter fraud, comprised of approximately 241 fraudulent ballots.
In an interview with the Right-wing Breitbart News website, Stone said:
“The first thing that Trump needs to do is begin talking about [voter fraud] constantly. If there’s voter fraud, this election will be illegitimate, the election of the winner will be illegitimate, we will have a constitutional crisis, widespread civil disobedience, and the government will no longer be the government.”
_(cropped).jpg)
Roger Stone
Stone added that Trump should keep drumming up his supporters against the “rigged” system, and promise that the government would be shut down if Clinton was pronounced the victor in November.
“I think he’s gotta put them on notice that their inauguration will be a rhetorical, and when I mean civil disobedience, not violence, but it will be a bloodbath… We will not stand for it.”
Yet no official in Washington, D.C.–from President Barack Obama on down–has so far dared to openly acknowledge–let alone confront–this menace.
If Hillary Clinton is elected President, she would do well to review how Andrew Jackson, America’s seventh President from 1829 to 1837, reacted to threats of secession.
Andrew Jackson
In 1830, South Carolina was threatening to secede from the Union. A South Carolina Congressman who was returning home visited Jackson and asked: “Do you have a message you want me to give to your friends in the state?”
Jackson questioned him about the recent mass meetings in Charleston.
The friend warned him that South Carolina’s fire-eaters believed “the Army and Navy aren’t big enough to collect a penny” of Federal taxes.
“Do they realize what their words mean?” asked Jackson.
“I’m afraid they do, General.”
“Then tell them from me that they can talk and write resolutions and print threats to their hearts’ content.
“But if one drop of blood is shed there in opposition to the laws of the United States, I will hang the first man I can lay my hands on engaged in such treasonable conduct, from the first tree I can reach.”
News of Jackson’s threat quickly spread throughout Washington, D.C.
Senator Robert Hayne of South Carolina told his fellow Senator, Thomas Hart Benton, of Missouri, that he couldn’t believe that Jackson would send an army to invade a sovereign state.
Benton replied: “I tell you, Hayne, when Jackson starts talking about hanging, they can begin to look for the ropes.”
Jackson later issued a proclamation to the people of South Carolina and threatened to hang Hayne’s successor, Senator John C. Calhoun. He also warned that he would himself lead an army into the state to enforce Federal law.
The treasonous rumblings stopped–for the moment.
2012 PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION, 2016 PRESIDENTIAL RACE, ABC NEWS, AL GORE, ALTERNET, AMERICABLOG, ANDREW JACKSON, AP, BABY BOOMER RESISTANCE, BARACK OBAMA, BBC, BC NEWS, BLOOMBERG, BLUESKY, BUZZFEED, CBS NEWS, CNN, CROOKS AND LIARS, DAILY KOS, DONALD TRUMP, ELECTORAL COLLEGE, FACEBOOK, FIVETHIRTYEIGHT, GEORGE W. BUSH, HARPER’S MAGAZINE, HUFFINGTON POST, JOHN C. CALHOUN, MEDIA MATTERS, MITT ROMNEY, MOTHER JONES, MOVEON, MSNBC, NBC NEWS, NEW REPUBLIC, NEWSDAY, NEWSWEEK, NPR, PBS NEWSHOUR, POLITICO, POLITICUSUSA, RAW STORY, REPUBLICANS, REUTERS, SALON, SEATTLE TIMES, SLATE, TALKING POINTS MEMO, THE ATLANTIC, THE CHICAGO SUN-TIMES, THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE, THE DAILY BEAST, THE DAILY BLOG, THE GUARDIAN, THE HILL, THE HUFFINGTON POST, THE INTERCEPT, THE LOS ANGELES TIMES, THE NATION, THE NEW REPUBLIC, THE NEW YORK TIMES, THE NEW YORKER, THE VILLAGE VOICE, THE WALL STREET JOURNAL, THE WASHINGTON POST, THINKPROGRESS, TIME, TREASON, TRUTHDIG, TRUTHOUT, TWITTER, TWO POLITICAL JUNKIES, U.S. NEWS & WORLD REPORT, UPI, USA TODAY, X
In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Military, Politics, Social commentary on September 1, 2016 at 12:07 am
As the 2016 Presidential race gets ever closer to the finish, it’s well to consider Donald Trump’s ideas about democracy.
In 2011, as the 2012 Presidential race began heating up, Trump didn’t have a very high opinion of Mitt Romney, the man who then seemed the likely Republican nominee for President.
On April 17, 2011, toying with the idea of entering the Presidential race himself, the always self-promoting Trump said this about Romney, the former Massachusetts governor and GOP candidate:
“He’d buy companies. He’d close companies. He’d get rid of jobs. I’ve built a great company. I’m a much bigger businessman and have a much, much bigger net worth. I mean my net worth is many, many, many times Mitt Romney.
Donald Trump
“Mitt Romney is a basically small-business guy, if you really think about it. He was a hedge fund. He was a funds guy. He walked away with some money from a very good company that he didn’t create. He worked there. He didn’t create it.”
Trump added that Bain Capital, the hedge fund where Romney made millions of dollars before running for governor, didn’t create any jobs. Whereas Trump claimed that he—Trump—had created “hundreds of thousands of jobs.”
So Romney himself may have been puzzled when Trump announced, on February 2, 2012: “It’s my honor, real honor, and privilege to endorse Mitt Romney” for President.
“Mitt is tough, he’s smart, he’s sharp, he’s not going to allow bad things to continue to happen to this country that we all love. So, Governor Romney, go out and get ‘em. You can do it,” said Trump.
And Romney, in turn, had his own swooning-girl moment: “I’m so honored to have his endorsement….There are some things that you just can’t imagine in your life. This is one of them.”
Mitt Romney
Throughout the 2012 Presidential race, Trump continued to “help” Romney—by repeatedly accusing President Barack Obama of not being an American citizen.
Had that been true, Obama would not have had the right to be President—since the Constitution says that only an American citizen can hold this position.
Of course, that was entirely what Trump wanted people to believe—that Obama was an illegitimate President, and deserved to be thrown out.
Come election night—and disaster for Romney. And Trump.
When it became clear that Romney was not going to be America’s 45th President, Trump went ballistic on Twitter. Among his tweets:
- More votes equals a loss…revolution!
- Lets fight like hell and stop this great and disgusting injustice! The world is laughing at us.
- We can’t let this happen. We should march on Washington and stop this travesty. Our nation is totally divided!
- The phoney electoral college made a laughing stock out of our nation. The loser one!
- He lost the popular vote by a lot and won the election. We should have a revolution in this country!
To put Trump’s rants into real-world perspective:
- According to Trump, the electoral process works when a Republican wins the Presidency. It only doesn’t work when a Democrat wins.
- “We should march on Washington” conjures up images of another Fascist–Benito Mussolini–marching on Rome at the head of his Blackshirts to seize power. Which, in a democracy, is treason.
- “The phoney electoral college made a laughing stock out of our nation. The loser one!”
This last is startling, on three counts:
First, the 2012 Republican Platform spoke lovingly about the need for preserving the Electoral College:
“We oppose the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact or any other scheme to abolish or distort the procedures of the Electoral College.
“We recognize that an unconstitutional effort to impose ‘national popular vote’ would be a mortal threat to our federal system and a guarantee of corruption as every ballot box in every state would become a chance to steal the presidency.”
Second, the loser didn’t win: He lost. With votes still being counted (as of November 8) Obama got 60,652,238. Romney got 57,810,407.
Third, in 2000, Al Gore won the popular vote (50,999,897) to George W. Bush’s 50,456,002. But Bush trounced Gore in the Electoral College (271 to 266).
Still, that meant Bush—not Gore—would head the country for the next eight years. And that was perfectly OK with right-wingers like Trump.
It was only when Obama won the Electoral College count by 332 to 206 that this was—according to Trump–a “travesty.”
And Trump’s solution if voters dare to elect someone other than Trump’s pet choice: “Revolution!”
This comes perilously close to advocating violent overthrow of the government. Otherwise known as treason–a crime traditionally punished by execution, or at least lengthy imprisonment.
When former President Andrew Jackson was close to death, he asked his doctor: What act of my administration will be most severely condemned by future Americans?
Andrew Jackson
The doctor threw out a couple of guesses.
“Not at all!” replied Jackson. “Posterity will condemn me more because I was persuaded not to hang John C. Calhoun [the South Carolina Senator who created the doctrine of “secession” that ultimately led to the Civil War] as a traitor than for any other act in my life!”
If Donald Trump inherits control of America’s nuclear weapons, future historians—if there are any—may feel that Barack Obama should have done the same for Trump.
2008 PRESIDENTIAL RACE, 9/11, ABC NEWS, ADOLF HITLER, ANDERSON COOPER, ANTI-COMMUNISM, BARACK OBAMA, BILL CLINTON, BIRTHERS, CBS NEWS, CITIZENSHIP, CNN, DONALD TRUMP, FACEBOOK, JOSEPH ARPAIO, LAURENCE TRIBE, MSNBC, MUSLIMS, NAZI GERMANY, NAZI PARTY, NBC NEWS, RAFAEL "TED" CRUZ, REPUBLICAN PARTY, REPUBLICANS, SS, THE BOSTON GLOBE, THE CHICAGO SUN-TIMES, THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE, THE HUFFINGTON POST, THE LOS ANGELES TIMES, THE NEW YORK TIMES, THE WALL STREET JOURNAL, THE WASHINGTON POST, TREASON, TWITTER, UNITED STATES SUPREME COURT, USA TODAY
In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Politics, Social commentary on August 16, 2016 at 12:42 am
“All revolutions,” said Ernst Rohem, leader of Adolf Hitler’s brown-shirted thugs, the S.A., “devour their own children.”
Ernst Rohem
Fittingly, he said this as he sat inside a prison cell awaiting his own execution.
On June 30, 1934, Hitler had ordered a massive purge of his private army, the S.A., or Stormtroopers. The purge was carried out by Hitler’s elite army-within-an-army, the Schutzstaffel, or Protective Squads, better known as the SS.
The S.A. Brownshirts had been instrumental in securing Hitler’s rise to Chancellor of Germany on January 30, 1933. They had intimidated political opponents and organized mass rallies for the Nazi Party.
But after Hitler reached the pinnacle of power, they became a liability.
Ernst Rohem, their commander, urged Hitler to disband the regular German army, the Reichswehr, and replace it with his own legions as the nation’s defense force.
Frightened by Rohem’s ambitions, the generals of the Reichswehr gave Hitler an ultimatum: Get rid of Rohem–or they would get rid of him.
So Rohem died in a hail of SS bullets–as did several hundred of his longtime S.A. cronies.
SS firing squad
At least one member of the Republican Party has now learned that an apparently useful weapon can become a liability.
Ever since Barack Obama became a Presidential candidate in 2008, Republicans have accused him of being ineligible to hold office.
Without a political scandal (such as Bill Clinton’s affair with Monica Lewinsky) to fasten on, the Republican Party opted for slander: Obama had been born in Kenya–and thus was not an American citizen.
From this there could be only one conclusion: That he would be an illegitimate President–and should be removed from office if elected.
And this smear campaign continued after he won the election. Right-wingers like real estate billionaire Donald Trump insisted that Obama had been born in Kenya, not Honolulu.
During his first two years in office, Obama tried to ignore the charge.
But polls repeatedly showed that large segments of the country believed it. Finally, even Obama’s closest advisers warned him: You must address this and put it to rest.
So, on April 27, 2011, the President released the long-form of his Hawaii birth certificate.
The long-form version of President Obama’s birth certificate
For the vast majority of Americans, this settled the issue. In 2012, they re-elected Obama to a second, four-year term.
Nevertheless, for many Right-wingers, even the release of Obama’s long-form birth certificate meant nothing.
Joseph Arpaio, the Right-wing sheriff of Maricopa County, Arizona, claimed that his “investigators” were certain that Obama’s birth certificate was fraudulent.
Responding to Arpaio’s claims, Joshua A. Wisch, a special assistant to Hawaii’s attorney general, said: “President Obama was born in Honolulu, and his birth certificate is valid. Regarding the latest allegations from a sheriff in Arizona, they are untrue, misinformed and misconstrue Hawaii law.”
Fast forward to 2015.
Donald Trump, who had threatened to run for President in 2012, announced his candidacy on June 16. He quickly became–and remained–the front-runner for Republican voters.
But then Texas’ United States Senator Rafael “Ted” Cruz entered the race. As radical and ruthless as Trump, he quickly became the billionaire’s most dangerous competitor.
Rafael “Ted” Cruz
What to do?
Then Trump–or someone in his campaign–had an inspiration. Why not use against Cruz the same “he’s-not-an-American” charge that had been used against Obama?
Cruz, born in Calgary, Alberta, Canada, was not a natural-born American citizen–and was thus ineligible to be President. His mother was an American, but his father was Cuban.
The U.S. Constitution states specifically that “No person except a natural born Citizen …shall be eligible to the Office of President.”
Cruz argued that because his mother was an American, he became an American citizen at birth.
But courts have never ruled on the issue of what constitutes a “natural-born” citizen.
At first, the issue seemed confined to Republican politicians and those likely to vote for them. But then others outside the Right began investigating it.
Mary McManamon, a constitutional law professor at Widener University’s Delaware Law School, concluded in an Open Editorial for The Washington Post:
“Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.) is not a natural-born citizen and therefore is not eligible to be president or vice president of the United States.”
Cruz got an even bigger slap in the face from Laurence Tribe, the celebrated professor of Constitutional law at Harvard University. He has argued before the United States Supreme Court 36 times.
Writing in The Boston Globe, Tribe stated:
“…The kind of judge Cruz says he admires and would appoint to the Supreme Court is an ‘originalist,’ one who claims to be bound by the narrowly historical meaning of the Constitution’s terms at the time of their adoption.
“To his kind of judge, Cruz ironically wouldn’t be eligible, because the legal principles that prevailed in the 1780s and ’90s required that someone actually be born on US soil to be a “natural born” citizen.” [Italics added.]
So long as Cruz stayed in the race, Trump continued to use the “birther” charge against him. And it continued to dog him, as it did Obama.
Thus, the evil that politicians do lives after them.
2016 ELECTION, ABC NEWS, BARACK OBAMA, BILL CLINTON, CBS NEWS, CHIANG KAI-SHEK, CHINA, CNN, CUBAN MISSILE CRISIS, DEMOCRATIC PARTY, DONALD TRUMP, DWIGHT D. EISENHOWER, FOX NEWS, GEORGE H.W. BUSH, GEORGE W. BUSH, HARRY S. TRUMAN, HILLARY CLINTON, JOHN F. KENNEDY, JOSEPH MCCARTHY, MAO TSE-TUNG, MITT ROMNEY, NAVY SEALS, NBC NEWS, NO EASY DAY, OSAMA BIN LADEN, PENTAGON, REPUBLICAN PARTY, RICHARD NIXON, Ronald Reagan, THE CHICAGO SUN-TIMES, THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE, THE LOS ANGELES TIMES, THE NEW YORK TIMES, THE NEW YORKER, THE WASHINGTONPOST, TREASON, U.S. NAVY SEALS, VLADIMIR PUTIN, WIKILEAKS
In Bureaucracy, History, Military, Politics, Social commentary on July 28, 2016 at 12:08 am
“Russia, if you’re listening, I hope you’re able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing. I think you will probably be rewarded mightily by our press.”
The speaker was Donald Trump, holding a July 27 press conference in Doral, Fla.
Donald Trump
And he was urging a foreign leader to hack into the private email server of his Presidential rival, Hillary Clinton.
Five days earlier, Wikileaks had released 19,252 emails and 8,034 attachments hacked from computers of the highest-ranking officials of the Democratic National Committee (DNC).
Cyber-security experts believe the hacking originated from Russia–and that Russian President Vladimir Putin may have authorized it.
Politicians on the Left and Right expressed outrage at Trump’s remarks.
But this is not the first time the Right has jeopardized American security.
During the 2012 Presidential campaign, supporters of Mitt Romney accused President Barack Obama of leaking top-secret details of the U.S. Navy SEALs raid on Osama bin Laden’s compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan.
The raid, launched on May 1, 2011, resulted in the death of the 9/11 mastermind and the capture of a treasury of highly sensitive Al Qaeda documents.
According to Right-wingers, Obama wanted to provide Hollywood screenwriters with material for a movie to glorify his role in authorizing the raid.
In August, 2012, the Right found its own secrets-leakers. And they operated under the name of the Fox News Network.
Their motive: To promote a book–No Easy Day: The Firsthand Account of the Mission That Killed Osama Bin Laden. It was slated to hit bookstores on September 11–the 11th anniversary of Al Qaeda’s attacks on the Pentagon and World Trade Center.
It had been penned under the pseudonym “Mark Owen.” But the real name of the author–a 36-year-old former Navy SEAL Team Six member who took part in the raid–was Matt Bissonnette, of Wrangell, Alaska.
Bissonnette’s real name became public after multiple sources leaked it to Fox News–who revealed it on August 23.
The Navy SEALs who killed bin Laden had previously been left unidentified.
Fox News had repeatedly accused President Obama and members of his administration of treasonously leaking military secrets to the media to glorify the President.
Many former and current SEAL members feared that the book would release information that could compromise future missions.
U.S. Navy SEALs insignia
One Navy SEAL told Fox News, “How do we tell our guys to stay quiet when this guy won’t?” Some SEALs called Bissonnette a “traitor.”
And Colonel Tim Nye, a Special Operations Command spokesman, said the author “put himself in danger” by writing the book.
“This individual came forward. He started the process. He had to have known where this would lead. He’s the one who started this, so he bears the ultimate responsibility for this.”
But Bissonnette placed more than his own life in jeopardy. He endangered the lives of every one of the men who participated in the bin Laden raid.
If Bissonnette fell into the hands of Al Qaeda terrorists or sympathizers, he could conceivably be tortured into revealing at least some of the names and locations of his former team members.
And Fox News not only revealed his true name but the town where he lived.
Even the liberal Nation magazine was appalled at the recklessness of this Right-wing propaganda outlet. Jeremy Scahill, a writer for Nation, tweeted:
“Why on earth would FOX News publish the alleged identity of one of the ST6 members who was in the OBL raid? Seriously.”
Millions of Right-wing Americans have been conditioned by decades of Fascistic propaganda to believe that:
- Democrats are all traitors–or at least potential traitors.
- Even those Democrats who aren’t traitors are too weak-kneed to protect the nation from its sworn enemies.
- Democrats (have betrayed) (are betraying) (intend to betray) national security secrets to the Soviet/Chinese Communists.
- Democrats have (betrayed/) (are betraying) (intend to betray) national security secrets to Islamic Jihadists.
- Only Republicans can be trusted to protect the nation.
Republicans blamed President Harry S. Truman for “losing China” to the forces of Mao Tse Tung in 1949. America could not have prevented a corrupt and incompetent Chiang Kai-Shek from being driven off the Chinese mainland by Mao’s overwhelmingly powerful armies.
Then, in 1950, Senator “Tail Gunner Joe” McCarthy charged that the State Department was infested by Communists–and that the Truman administration knew it but refused to take action. The charges were false.
Joseph R. McCarthy
During the 2008 Presidential campaign, Republicans charged that Barack Obama was really a Muslim non-citizen who intended to sell out America’s security to his Muslim “masters.”
Attacking the patriotism of their opponents has repeatedly elected Republicans:
- It elected Dwight Eisenhower President and turned Congress Republican in 1952 and 1956.
- It elected Richard Nixon President in 1968 and 1972.
- It elected Ronald Reagan President in 1980 and 1984.
- It elected George H.W. Bush President in 1988.
- It gave Republicans control of the Congress in 1994 (although Bill Clinton had been elected President in 1992).
- It elected George W. Bush President in 2000 and 2004.
- It gave control of the House to Republicans in 2010 and the Senate in 2014.
And now Republicans hope this appeal will elect a man who has openly called on Vladimir Putin to hack into American computers.
2008 PRESIDENTIAL RACE, ABC NEWS, ANN COULTER, BARACK OBAMA, BILL CLINTON, CBS NEWS, CNN, COMMUNISM, EDWARD R. MURROW, FRANKLIN D. ROOSEVELT, GEORGE W. BUSH, GLENN BECK, HARRY S. TRUMAN, IRVING WALLACE, JOHN MCCAIN, JOSEPH MCCARTHY, MICHELLE BACHMANN, NBC NEWS, NEWT GINGRICH, OSAMA BIN LADEN, REPUBLICANS, RICHARD NIXON, RUSH LIMBAUGH, Sarah Palin, SEAN HANNITY, SPIRO AGNEW, THE LOS ANGELES TIMES, THE MAN, THE NEW YORK TIMES, THE WASHINGTON POST, TREASON
In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Politics, Social commentary on January 18, 2016 at 12:35 am
In 1964, bestselling novelist irving Wallace dared to imagine the then-unthinkable: The elevation of the first black President of the United States.
Wallace’s hero is Douglas Dilman, a moderate who tries to rule as a color-blind President. But he is repeatedly confronted with the brutal truth about himself–and his critics: He is black, and they cannot forgive him for it.
Southern Senator Watson, upon learning that Dilman has succeeded to the Presidency, says: “The White House isn’t going to be white enough from now on.”
And Kay Eaton, who lusts for her husband, the Secretary of State, to become President, blames him for not pushing hard enough for it: “You’re just a kingmaker to a jigaboo.”
Dilman’s fictional Presidency is marked by white racists, black political activists, and an attempted assassination. Later, he is impeached on false charges for firing the racist Secretary of State.
The novel was turned into a 1972 movie starring James Earl Jones as President Dillman.
Click here: The Man (1972) – IMDb
Wallace’s 1964 novel, The Man, appeared 44 years before Barack Obama’s election.
Fast-forward to the Presidency of Barack Obama and you find:
- In September, 2009, Joe Wilson (R-SC) yelled “You lie!” during Obama’s health care speech to Congress.
- In January, 2010, an effigy of President Barack Obama was found hanging from a building in Plains, Georgia.
- In December, 2011, Brent Bozell, who runs the Right-wing Media Research Center, called Obama “a skinny, ghetto crackhead.”
- In December, 2011, Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner (R-Wisc.), said of Michelle Obama: “She lectures us on eating right while she has a large posterior herself.”
- In January, 2012, Mitt Romney’s son, Matt, said his father might release his tax returns “as soon as President Obama releases his grades and birth certificate and sort of a long list of things.”
- In February, 2012, Right-wing columnist Ann Coulter offered: “Voters with forty years of politically correct education are ecstatic to have the first Black president. They just love the idea even if we did get Flavor Flav instead of Thomas Sowell.”
- In May, 2012, a flatbed truck drove through New York holding a trailer with eight mannequin-like bodies hanging on nooses. One of the figures resembled President Obama, with a sign on the truck reading: “Obama Is Onboard, Find Out Why. Visit YouTube.com And Search Keyword PatriotPhipps.”
- In May, 2012, Patrick Lanzo, a bar owner in Paulding County, Georgia, posted a sign reading: “I do not support the nigger in the White House.” In 2009 he posted a sign that read, “Obama’s plan for health-care: nigger rig it.” Lanzo advertises his establishment as a “Klan bar.”
- Throughout the 2012 Presidential campaign, Newt Gingrich repeatedly called Obama “the greatest food stamp President in American history.” [According to the Department of Agriculture, 40.2% of food stamp recipients are white, 25.7% are black.]
- Obama has been portrayed as a shoeshine man, an Islamic terrorist and a chimp. The image of his altered face has been shown on a product called Obama Waffles in the manner of Aunt Jemima and Uncle Ben. He has been repeatedly depicted with a Hitler forelock and mustache.
- Among the protest signs brandished by Tea Party members: “Obama’s Plan: White Slavery,” “The American Taxpayers are the Jews for Obama’s Ovens” and “Obama was Not Bowing [to the Saudi King] he was Sucking Saudi Jewels.”
- Other Tea Party posters: “Imam Obama Wants to Ban Pork” and “The Zoo Has An African Lion, and the White House Has a Lyin’ African.”
- Tea Partiers have chanted at Obama: “Bye, bye, Blackbird” and “Kenyan go home!”
- During the Republican-imposed government shutdown–October 1-17, 2013, Rep. Pete Sessions (R-Texas) told Obama: “I cannot even stand to look at you,” The incident occurred when Obama met with lawmakers to try to find a resolution to the shutdown.
- On October 13, 2013, anti-Obama protesters gathered at the World War II memorial in Washington, D.C. They weren’t protesting the government shutdown but the President who had refused to cave in to Republican demands to de-fund the Affordable Care Act.
- On October 14, 2013, while Republicans were threatening to drive the country into bankruptcy by refusing to raise the debt ceiling, Sarah Palin posted on Facebook her “secret plan” to impeach President Obama:
- “It’s time for the president to be honest with the American people for a change. Defaulting on our national debt is an impeachable offense, and any attempt by President Obama to unilaterally raise the debt limit without Congress is also an impeachable offense.”
- In short: If the Republicans force the country into default, Obama should be impeached. And if the President finds a way to avoid default, he should be impeached.
- In October, 2013, Rep. Doug Lamborn (R-Colorado) said that being associated with President Obama would be similar to touching a “tar baby.” Specifically:
- “Even if some people say, well, the Republicans should have done this or they should have done that, they will hold the president responsible. Now I don’t want to even have to be associated with him. It’s like touching a tar baby….”.
Perhaps Irving Wallace believed that, by the millennium, America would be ready for a black President. If so, he sadly proved to be a far better author than prophet.
2008 PRESIDENTIAL RACE, ABC NEWS, ANN COULTER, BARACK OBAMA, BILL CLINTON, CBS NEWS, CNN, COMMUNISM, EDWARD R. MURROW, FRANKLIN D. ROOSEVELT, GEORGE W. BUSH, GLENN BECK, HARRY S. TRUMAN, IRVING WALLACE, JOHN MCCAIN, JOSEPH MCCARTHY, MICHELLE BACHMANN, MITT ROMNEY, NBC NEWS, NEWT GINGRICH, OSAMA BIN LADEN, REPUBLICANS, RICHARD NIXON, RUSH LIMBAUGH, Sarah Palin, SEAN HANNITY, SPIRO AGNEW, THE LOS ANGELES TIMES, THE MAN, THE NEW YORK TIMES, THE WASHINGTON POST, TREASON
In Bureaucracy, History, Politics, Social commentary on January 15, 2016 at 12:08 am
Since the end of World War II in 1945, Republicans have regularly hurled the charge of “treason” against anyone who dared to run against them for office or think other than Republican-sponsored thoughts.
Republicans had been locked out of the White House from 1933 to 1952, during the administrations of Franklin D. Roosevelt and Harry S. Truman.
Determined to regain the Presidency by any means, they found that attacking the integrity of their fellow Americans a highly effective tactic.
During the 1950s, Wisconsin Senator Joseph R. McCarthy rode a wave of paranoia to national prominence. On February 9, 1950, he claimed:
“The State Department is infested with communists. I have here in my hand a list of 205—a list of names that were made known to the Secretary of State as being members of the Communist Party and who nevertheless are still working and shaping policy in the State Department.”
Joseph McCarthy
After four years of such frenzied attacks on Congress, the State Department and respected journalists such as Edward R. Murrow, McCarthy finally overstepped himself. He accused the United States Army of being an active hotbed for Communists.
At the Army-McCarthy hearings, McCarthy’s credibility was forever destroyed. He was finally censured by his fellow Senators and disappeared into anonymity, alcoholism and death in 1957.
But Right-wingers ignored the truth that McCarthy never uncovered one actual case of treason.
And today, right-wing columnists like Ann Coulter try to rehabilitate his memory–just as right-wingers in Russia still try to rehabilitate the memory of Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin.
The reason: Republicans have found that attacking the patriotism of their opponents is an effective vote-getter:
- It elected Dwight Eisenhower President and turned Congress Republican in 1952 and 1956.
- It elected Richard Nixon President in 1968 and 1972.
- It elected Ronald Reagan President in 1980 and 1984.
- It elected George H.W. Bush President in 1988.
- It gave Republicans control of the Congress in 1994 (although Bill Clinton had been elected President in 1992).
- It elected George W. Bush President in 2000 and 2004.
- It gave control of the House to Republicans in 2010 and the Senate in 2014.
The election of Barack Obama pushed the “treason chorus” to new heights of infamy. With no political scandal (such as Bill Clinton’s affair with Monica Lewinsky) to fasten on, the bureaucracy of the Republican Party deliberately promoted the slander that Obama was not an American citizen.
From this there could be only one conclusion: That he was an illegitimate President, and should be removed from office.
During the 2008 Presidential campaign, Republicans charged that Obama was really a Muslim non-citizen who intended to sell out America’s security to his Muslim “masters.”
And this smear campaign continued throughout his Presidency.
To the dismay of his enemies, Obama–in the course of a single week–dramatically proved the falsity of both charges.
On April 27, 2011, he released the long-form of his Hawaii birth certificate.
The long-form version of President Obama’s birth certificate
“We do not have time for this kind of silliness,” said Obama at a press conference, speaking as a father might to a roomful of spiteful children. “We have got big problems to solve….
“We are not going to be able to do it if we are distracted, we are not going to be able to do it if we spend time vilifying each other…if we just make stuff up and pretend that facts are not facts, we are not going to be able to solve our problems if we get distracted by side shows and carnival barkers.”
And on May 1, he announced the solving of one of those “big problems”: Osama bin Laden, mastermind of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, had been tracked down and shot dead by elite U.S. Navy SEALS in Pakistan.
Since the 2008 election of Barack Obama as President, Republicans have coupled their traditional “Treason!” slander with both subtle and outright appeals to racism.
Most Republicans refuse to acknowledge this, but author Will Bunch does so in his 2010 book, The Backlash:
“…The year that had [conservatives] so terrified was 2050. In that year, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, the U.S. population would grow to some 399 million people–but only 49.8% would be white….”
Then came the 2008 election of Barack Obama.
“The Democratic upstart–and his legion of supporters among the nonwhite as well as the young–was a 9/11-sized jolt to the white masses already so worried about the cultural implications of immigration.
“The year 2050 suddenly wasn’t two generations away but right here knocking on the front door, with a dark face and that scary name: Barack Hussein Obama.
“Like a fire spreading across dry sagebrush, it took no effort for fear of The Other to leap from the Mexicans in front of the Wal-Mart to the man now inside the Oval Office.”
A fictional author who predicted this very scenario was the best-selling novelist, Irving Wallace.
His 1964 novel, The Man, positing the ascent of the first black President, appeared 44 years before Obama’s election.
The plot: The President and Speaker of the House are killed in an overseas building collapse, and the Vice-President declines the office due to age and ill-health. As a result, Senate President pro tempore Douglas Dilman suddenly becomes the first black man to occupy the Oval Office.
2008 PRESIDENTIAL RACE, 9/11, ABC NEWS, ADOLF HITLER, ANDERSON COOPER, ANTI-COMMUNISM, BARACK OBAMA, BILL CLINTON, BIRTHERS, CBS NEWS, CITIZENSHIP, CNN, DONALD TRUMP, FACEBOOK, JOSEPH ARPAIO, LAURENCE TRIBE, MSNBC, MUSLIMS, NAZI GERMANY, NAZI PARTY, NBC NEWS, RAFAEL "TED" CRUZ, REPUBLICAN PARTY, REPUBLICANS, SS, THE BOSTON GLOBE, THE CHICAGO SUN-TIMES, THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE, THE HUFFINGTON POST, THE LOS ANGELES TIMES, THE NEW YORK TIMES, THE WALL STREET JOURNAL, THE WASHINGTON POST, TREASON, TWITTER, UNITED STATES SUPREME COURT, USA TODAY
In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Politics, Social commentary on January 14, 2016 at 12:12 am
“All revolutions,” said Ernst Rohem, leader of Adolf Hitler’s brown-shirted thugs, the S.A., “devour their own children.”
Ernst Rohem
Fittingly, he said this as he sat inside a prison cell awaiting his own execution.
On June 30, 1934, Hitler had ordered a massive purge of his private army, the S.A., or Stormtroopers. The purge was carried out by Hitler’s elite army-within-an-army, the Schutzstaffel, or Protective Squads, better known as the SS.
The S.A. Brownshirts had been instrumental in securing Hitler’s rise to Chancellor of Germany on January 30, 1933. They had intimidated political opponents and organized mass rallies for the Nazi Party.
But after Hitler reached the pinnacle of power, they became a liability.
Ernst Rohem, their commander, urged Hitler to disband the regular German army, the Reichswehr, and replace it with his own legions as the nation’s defense force.
Frightened by Rohem’s ambitions, the generals of the Reichswehr gave Hitler an ultimatum: Get rid of Rohem–or they would get rid of him.
So Rohem died in a hail of SS bullets–as did several hundred of his longtime S.A. cronies.
SS firing squad
At least one member of the Republican Party is now learning that an apparently useful weapon can become a liability.
Ever since Barack Obama became a Presidential candidate in 2008, Republicans have accused him of being ineligible to hold office.
Without a political scandal (such as Bill Clinton’s affair with Monica Lewinsky) to fasten on, the Republican Party opted for slander: Obama had been born in Kenya–and thus was not an American citizen.
From this there could be only one conclusion: That he would be an illegitimate President, and should be removed from office if elected.
And this smear campaign continued after he won the election. Right-wingers like real estate billionaire Donald Trump insisted that Obama had been born in Kenya, not Honolulu.
During his first two years in office, Obama tried to ignore the charge.
But polls repeatedly showed that large segments of the country believed it. Finally, even Obama’s closest advisers warned him: You must address this and put it to rest.
So, on April 27, 2011, the President released the long-form of his Hawaii birth certificate.
The long-form version of President Obama’s birth certificate
For the vast majority of Americans, this settled the issue. In 2012, they re-elected Obama to a second, four-year term.
Nevertheless, for many Right-wingers, even the release of Obama’s long-form birth certificate meant nothing.
Joseph Arpaio, the Right-wing sheriff of Maricopa County, Arizona, claimed that his “investigators” were certain that Obama’s birth certificate was fraudulent.
Responding to Arpaio’s claims, Joshua A. Wisch, a special assistant to Hawaii’s attorney general, said: “President Obama was born in Honolulu, and his birth certificate is valid. Regarding the latest allegations from a sheriff in Arizona, they are untrue, misinformed and misconstrue Hawaii law.”
Fast forward to 2015.
Donald Trump, who had threatened to run for President in 2012, announced his candidacy on June 16. Since then, he has been the front-runner for Republican voters.
But then Texas’ United States Senator Rafael “Ted” Cruz entered the race. As radical and ruthless as Trump, he quickly became the billionaire’s most dangerous competitor.
Rafael “Ted” Cruz
What to do?
Then Trump–or someone in his campaign–had an inspiration. Why not use against Cruz the same “he’s-not-an-American” charge that had been used against Obama?
Cruz, born outside the United States, was not really a natural-born American citizen–and was thus ineligible to be President.
Cruz was born in Calgary, Alberta, Canada, to an American mother and a Cuban father.
The U.S. Constitution states specifically that “No person except a natural born Citizen …shall be eligible to the Office of President.”
Cruz has argued that because his mother was an American, he became an American citizen at birth.
But courts have never ruled on the issue of what constitutes a “natural-born” citizen.
At first, the issue seemed confined to Republican politicians and those likely to vote for them. But then others outside the Right began investigating it.
Mary McManamon, a constitutional law professor at Widener University’s Delaware Law School, concluded in an Open Editorial for The Washington Post:
“Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.) is not a natural-born citizen and therefore is not eligible to be president or vice president of the United States.”
Cruz got an even bigger slap in the face from Laurence Tribe, the celebrated professor of Constitutional law at Harvard University. He has argued before the United States Supreme Court 36 times.
Writing in The Boston Globe, Tribe stated:
“…The kind of judge Cruz says he admires and would appoint to the Supreme Court is an ‘originalist,’ one who claims to be bound by the narrowly historical meaning of the Constitution’s terms at the time of their adoption.
“To his kind of judge, Cruz ironically wouldn’t be eligible, because the legal principles that prevailed in the 1780s and ’90s required that someone actually be born on US soil to be a “natural born” citizen.” [Italics added.]
So long as Cruz stays in the race, Trump will continue to use the “birther” charge against him. And it will continue to dog him, as it did Obama.
Thus, the evil that politicians do lives after them.
ABC NEWS, BARACK OBAMA, BENEDICT ARNOLD, CBS NEWS, CHRISTOPHER LASCH, CORPORATE TAXES, CORRUPTION, EDUARDO SAVEREN, FACEBOOK, FORBES MAGAZINE, GROVER NORQUIST, NBC NEWS, NICCOLO MACHIAVELLI, ORGANIZED CRIME, PUBLIC CAMPAIGN, ROBERT F. KENNEDY, RUSH LIMBAUGH, SENATOR CHARLES SCHUMER, STEPHEN DECATUR, TAX AVOIDANCE, THE CHICAGO SUN-TIMES, THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE, THE DISCOURSES, THE NEW YORK TIMES, THE PRINCE, THE WALL STREET JOURNAL, TREASON, TWITTER, USA TODAY, WALL STREET, WEALTH GAP
In Bureaucracy, Business, History, Politics, Social commentary on June 2, 2015 at 12:01 am
Niccolo Machiavelli, the father of modern politics, warns in his masterwork, The Discourses:
All those who have written upon civil institutions demonstrate…that whoever desires to found a state and give it laws, must start with assuming that all men are bad and ever ready to display their vicious nature, whenever they may find occasion for it.
If their evil disposition remains concealed for a time, it must be attributed to some unknown reason; and we must assume that it lacked occasion to show itself. But time, which has been said to be the father of all truth, does not fail to bring it to light.
Niccolo Machiavelli
Where the crimes of corporate employers are concerned, we do not have to wait for their evil disposition to reveal itself. It has been fully revealed for decades.
It’s time to recognize that a country can be betrayed for other than political reasons. It can be sold out for economic ones, too.
Trea$on
The United States desperately needs a new definition of treason–one that takes the above-mentioned truth into account.
- Employers who set up offshore accounts to claim their American companies are foreign-owned—and thus exempt from taxes—are traitors.
- Employers who enrich themselves by weakening their country—by throwing millions of qualified workers into the street and moving their plants to other countries—are traitors.
- Employers who systematically violate Federal immigration laws—to hire illegal aliens instead of willing-to-work Americans—are traitors.
And with a new definition of treason should go new penalties–heavy fines and/or prison terms–for those who sell out their country to enrich themselves.
A starting-point must be an all-out campaign to educate voters on the need for major reforms in corporate law.
One non-profit, non-partisan organization that’s already pursuing this is Public Campaign.
Its goal: Eliminating special interest money in American politics by securing publicly-funded elections at local, state and federal levels.
According to its website:
“Twenty-five profitable Fortune 500 companies, some with a history of tax dodging, spent more on lobbying than they paid in federal taxes between 2008 and 2012….
“Over the past five years, these 25 corporations generated nearly $170 billion in combined profits and received $8.7 billion in tax rebates while paying their lobbyists over half a billion ($543 million), an average of nearly $300,000 a day.
“Based on newly released data by Citizens for Tax Justice (CTJ), these 25 companies actually received tax refunds overall those five years.
“So most individual American families and small businesses have bigger tax bills than these corporate giants. Unfortunately, most American families and businesses do not have the lobbying operation and access these 25 companies enjoy.”
25 Companies That Spent More On Lobbyists Than Taxes | Public Campaign
Then comes the list:
Several companies on this list are well-known–and spend millions of dollars on self-glorifying ads every year to convince consumers how wonderful they are.
Among these:
- General Electric
- PG&E Corp.
- Verizon Communications
- Boeing
- Consolidated Edison
- MetroPCS Communications
But non-profit organizations alone can’t mount and sustain the sort of nationwide, bluntly-worded educational effort that’s long overdue.
The United States Government–through such agencies as the Justice Department–should start and maintain a nationwide advertising campaign of its own. Its goal: To educate voters on the real-life greed and public irresponsibility of such corporations.
It should be modeled on the efforts of former Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy to publicize the dangers of organized crime.
During that campaign, he issued the following warning:
“If we do not, on a national scale, attack organized criminals with weapons and techniques as effective as their own, they will destroy us.”
That warning applies equally to criminal corporations.
Robert F. Kennedy
Republicans–and some Democrats–have worked tirelessly to defend the greed of the richest and most privileged 1% of America.
For example, they ingeniously dubbed the estate tax–-which affects only a tiny, rich minority–-“the death tax.” This makes it appear to affect everyone.
As a result, millions of poor and middle-class Americans who will never have to pay a cent in estate taxes vigorously oppose it.
By doing so, they unknowingly support the greed of the very richest Americans who despise the needs of those poorer than themselves.
Democrats should thus cast reform efforts in terms that will prove equally popular. For example:
“Corporate Criminals: Giving You the Best Congress Money Can Buy.”
“De-regulation = Let Criminals Be Criminals.”
“[Name of corporation] Pays a Lower Percentage in Taxes than You.”
“Corporations Are Greedy People, Too”
“Owning a Corporation Shuldn’t Be a License for Treason”
Such an advertising campaign could lay the groundwork for an all-out Federal effort to reign in that greed and irresponsibility thrugh appropriate reform legislation.
It was Stephen Decatur, the naval hero of the War of 1812, who famously said: “Our country, right or wrong.”
Stephen Decatur
Billionaire tax-cheats and their Right-wing allies have coined their own motto: “My wallet–first and always.”
ABC NEWS, BARACK OBAMA, BENEDICT ARNOLD, CBS NEWS, CHRISTOPHER LASCH, CONSUMER PROTECTION, CORPORATE TAXES, CORRUPTION, EDUARDO SAVEREN, FACEBOOK, FORBES MAGAZINE, GROVER NORQUIST, NBC NEWS, NICCOLO MACHIAVELLI, PUBLIC CAMPAIGN, RUSH LIMBAUGH, SENATOR CHARLES SCHUMER, STEPHEN DECATUR, TAX AVOIDANCE, THE CHICAGO SUN-TIMES, THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE, THE DISCOURSES, THE NEW YORK TIMES, THE WALL STREET JOURNAL, TREASON, TWITTER, USA TODAY, WALL STREET, WEALTH GAP
In Bureaucracy, Business, History, Politics, Social commentary on June 1, 2015 at 12:54 am
The British offered Revolutionary War General Benedict Arnold £20,000 for betraying West Point to the Crown.
Benedict Arnold
But Arnold was a piker compared to companies that are raking in literally billions of untaxed dollars by betraying the United States in its time of economic trial.
To avoid paying their legitimate share of taxes, they move their headquarters overseas to countries with reduced tax rates. In tax parlance, this is called an “inversion.”
For almost 20 years, tax-avoiding corporations fled to Caribbean countries such as Bermuda and the Cayman Islands. But in 2004, Congress ruled that American companies could relocate overseas if foreign shareholders owned 20% of their stock.
But increased media attention to “income inequality” has led Democratic lawmakers to press for a long-overdue reform: Raising the stock threshold to 50%.
This would make it harder for firms to abandon their country.
These are the companies abandoning the U.S. to dodge taxes – The Washington Post
Yet a more comprehensive reform package would include:
- American companies that move their headquarters out of the United States would be officially declared “agents of a foreign power engaged in treasonous activity against the United States.”
- Under this designation, these “foreign-owned” companies would be forbidden to sell products within the United States.
- As “agents of a foreign power,” their assets would be subject to confiscation by agents of the Internal Revenue Service.
- The citizenship of those Americans engaged in such treasonous activity would be revoked and they would be ordered to leave the United States on pain of criminal prosecution for treason.
Below is a chart compiled by the Ways and Means Committee Democrats of the U.S. House of Representatives. It compiles 47 corporate “inversions” within the last decade.
From the chart’s introduction:
“Forty-seven U.S. corporations have reincorporated overseas through corporate inversions in the last 10 years, far more than during the previous 20 years combined, according to new data compiled by the Congressional Research Service [CRS].
“In total, 75 U.S. corporations have inverted since 1994 – with one other inversion occurring in 1983. What’s more, there are a dozen prospective inversion deals involving U.S. corporations looking to reincorporate overseas, according to CRS
“The new data underscores the significant increase in the number of U.S. corporations that have or are seeking to lower their U.S. taxes by reincorporating overseas.
“It also adds urgency to a legislative solution. Ways and Means Committee Ranking Member Sander Levin in May introduced legislation that would tighten rules to limit inversions.
“The Joint Committee on Taxation estimates that the legislation would save $19.5 billion over 10 years. Companion legislation was introduced in the Senate by Sen. Carl Levin.
“‘Barely a week seems to pass without news that another corporation plans to move its address overseas simply to avoid paying its fair share of U.S. taxes,’” said Ranking Member Levin.
“These corporate inversions are costing the U.S. billions of dollars and undermining vital domestic interests.
“‘We can and should address this problem immediately through legislation to tighten rules to limit the ability of corporations to simply change their address and ship U.S. tax dollars overseas.’”
New CRS Data: 47 Corporate Inversions in Last Decade | Committee on Ways and Means
Among those companies that have chosen to betray their country in its time of economic need:
- Medtronic Pharmaceuticals. Revenues: $16.5 billion
- Perrigo/Elan Pharmaceuticals. Revenues: $3.5 billion
- Chiquita Brands. Revenues: $3 billion
- Liberty Global PLC Cable Company. Revenues: $17.3 billion
- Eaton/Cooper Power Management. Revenues: $22 billion
- Pentair Water Filtration. Revenues: $7.5 billion
- AON Insurance. Revenues: $11.8 billion
- Global Indemnity Insurance. Revenues: $319 billion
- ENSCO International (oil and gas drilling). Revenues: $4.9 billion
- Coviden Healthcare. Revenues: $10.2 billion
- Herbalife International (nutrition). Revenues: $4.8 billion
- Ingersoll-Rand (industrial manufacturer). Revenues: $12.3 billion
- Accenture Consulting. Revenues: $28.6 billion
- Seagate Technology. Revenues: $14.4 billion
- Tycho International (manufacturing). Revenues: $10.6 billion
- Chicago Bridge & Iron. Revenues: $11.1 billion
- Transocean (offshore oil drilling). Revenues: $9.4 billion
- White Mountain Insurance. Revenues: $2.3 billion
The most popular countries for these “inversions” are:
- The Cayman Islands
- Bermuda
- Canada
- United Kingdom
- Ireland
- Switzerland
- Netherlands
ABC NEWS, BARACK OBAMA, BENEDICT ARNOLD, CBS NEWS, CHRISTOPHER LASCH, CORPORATE TAXES, CORRUPTION, EDUARDO SAVEREN, FACEBOOK, FORBES MAGAZINE, GROVER NORQUIST, NBC NEWS, NICCOLO MACHIAVELLI, PUBLIC CAMPAIGN, RUSH LIMBAUGH, SENATOR CHARLES SCHUMER, STEPHEN DECATUR, TAX AVOIDANCE, THE CHICAGO SUN-TIMES, THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE, THE DISCOURSES, THE NEW YORK TIMES, THE WALL STREET JOURNAL, TREASON, TWITTER, USA TODAY, WALL STREET, WEALTH GAP
In Bureaucracy, Business, History, Politics, Social commentary on May 29, 2015 at 12:08 am
On May 13, 2012, Forbes magazine ran an Op-Ed piece under the headline: “For De-Friending The U.S., Facebook’s Eduardo Saverin Is an American Hero.”
Democratic Senator Chuck Schumer of New York angrily disagreed.
Chuck Shumer
“It is scary. It is a scary, absurd place where even a tax dodger who renounces America for his own 30 pieces of silver is celebrated as a patriot and an American hero.
“It is perverse. I am appalled by making heroic a man who renounces citizenship to escape a tax rate of capital gains of 15%.
“No one gets rich in America on their own,” Schumer said. “And when people do well in America, they should do well by America. I believe the vast majority of Americans believe this too.”
From that Op-Ed piece:
“Saverin’s flight from the U.S. is yet another reminder of the superiority of a national consumption tax that in a perfect world would be implemented in concert with the abolition of the I.R.S.”
It’s tempting to imagine a world without an agency to collect taxes. But it’s nightmarish to contemplate a world where there were no taxes to pay for
- a powerful military to protect us;
- an FBI to combat terrorism and organized crime;
- an FAA to safely regulate airline traffic;
- agencies to repair roads;
- agencies to erect public buildings (such as schools, courts and libraries) and
- agencies (such as the EPA and FDA) to protect us from predatory businessmen.
The Op-Ed piece further asserts that “you cannot limit the power of the Federal Government if its officials hold the power to tax incomes.”
Every nation in history–-whether a democracy or a dictatorship, whether capitalist, socialist or communist–-has understood the absolute necessity for collecting public revenues. And it has created means by which to do so.
“When individuals resist governmental hubris, we should exalt their actions.”
We should, in short, celebrate those who come to the United States to make fortunes they could not make anywhere else–-and then, when they do, turn their backs on their adopted country.
We should rejoice that they have stuffed billions of dollars more into their already-fat pockets and left their supposed fellow countrymen to shift for themselves.
“In an ideal world the Federal Government should implement a consumption tax. And if, as a result, poor people suffer because they’re taxed at the same level as rich ones, fine.
“Everyone should know how much it costs to run the government.”
Of course we should have a “regressive” tax that “hits low incomes at the same percentage as high ones.”
Of course, those who are barely able to feed their families or can’t afford medical care should pay as much in taxes as a rich parasite who, like Mitt Romney, throws out $10,000 bets like so many dimes.
“If the Federal Government can’t fund all its programs because rich people like Saverin refuse to pay taxes, then U.S. taxpayers generally will have to make good for the missing taxes. It’s the fault of Congress that it cannot put an end to any program.”
For billionaires like Saverin and the well-heeled types who subscribe to Forbes, it doesn’t matter that “fewer government programs will achieve funding.”
San Simeon, estate of William Randolph Hearst
Greed-obsessed “swells” like Saverin:
- don’t depend on Medicare–they can easily afford the best doctors money can buy;
- don’t have to depend on Social Security to see them through old age;
- don’t have to worry about standing in food bank lines;
- don’t need to rely on police departments–if they’re threatened, they can easily afford round-the-clock bodyguards;
- don’t need consumer protection agencies; if they’re victimized by unscrupulous businessmen, they can hire platoons of lawyers and private detectives.
A contemporary writer who warned of America’s abandonment by its privileged classes was Christopher Lasch. In his posthumously published last book, The Revolt of the Elites and the Betrayal of Democracy [2005] he wrote:
“There has always been a privileged class, even in America. But it has never been so dangerously isolated from its surroundings.
“George Bush’s [the president who served from 1989 to 1992] wonderment, when he saw for the first time an electronic scanning device at a supermarket checkout counter, revealed…the chasm that divides the privileged classes from the rest of the nation.”
Until recently, wrote Lasch, American cultural and economic elites willingly shouldered civic responsibilities. But in post-modern capitalism, a professional elite defines itself as entirely separate from civic concerns.
The new elites flourish through enterprises that operate across international borders. The rich in America have more in common with the fellows in Europe or Asia than with the vast majority of their fellow Americans who don’t share their comfortable surroundings.
Thus, the privileged class in America–-the top 1%–has separated itself from the crumbling public services and industrial cities that are used and lived in by the rest of the country’s citizens.
Even worse, our society has condoned their exalted status. The dust jacket blurb for James Patterson’s crime-thriller, NYPD Red, says it best:
“NYPD Red is a special task force charged with protecting the interests of Manhattan’s wealthiest and most powerful citizens.”
It’s time to protect the 99% of America’s citizens against the predations of its 1% wealthiest.
Bureaucracybuster's Blog 
ABC NEWS, ABRAHAM LINCOLN, ALTERNET, ANDREW JACKSON, AP, BARACK OBAMA, BREITBART NEWS, BUZZFEED, CBS NEWS, CIVIL WAR, CNN, CROOKS AND LIARS, DAILY KOZ, DONALD TRUMP, FACEBOOK, HILLARY CLINTON, HUFFINGTON POST, JOHN C. CALHOUN, MARCHING THROUGH GEORGIA, MIKE PENCE, MOTHER JONES, MOVEON, MSNBC, NBC NEWS, NEWSWEEK, NPR, POLITICO, RAW STORY, REPUBLICAN PARTY, REUTERS, ROBERT E. LEE, ROBERT HAYNE, ROGER STONE, SALON, SEATTLE TIMES, SECCESSION, SLATE, THE ATLANTIC, THE CHICAGO SUN-TIMES, THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE, THE DAILY BEAST, THE GUARDIAN, THE HILL, THE HUFFINGTON POST, THE LOS ANGELES TIMES, THE NATION, THE NEW YORK TIMES, THE WALL STREET JOURNAL, THE WASHINGTON POST, THOMAS HART BENTON, TIME, TREASON, TWITTER, U.S. NEWS & WORLD REPORT, UP, UPI, USA TODAY, WILLIAM TECUMSEH SHERMAN
MARCHING THROUGH TREASON–AGAIN: PART ONE (OF TWO)
In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Military, Politics, Social commentary on October 26, 2016 at 12:19 amThey cannot be made to love us, but they may be made to fear us.
–William Tecumseh Sherman speaking of the Southern Confederacy
If Hillary Clinton is elected President, she may soon face the same crisis that confronted Abraham Lincoln more than a century ago: Mass treason.
Americans haven’t even voted yet. But, already, hard-core supporters of Republican Presidential nominee Donald Trump believe a sinister international cabal has “rigged” the 2016 election for Clinton.
There is absolutely no evidence for this–other than what Trump himself has loudly and repeatedly told them: That there is a massive conspiracy to take him down.
At one town hall meeting where his Vice Presidential running mate, Mike Pence, appeared, a woman named Rhonda stood up and announced: “One of the things that I can tell you that a lot of us are scared of is this voter fraud.
“There’s a lot of out here saying that when we vote, we’re going to wear red. Our lives depend on this election. Our kids’ futures depend on this election.
“For me personally, if Hillary Clinton gets in, I myself am ready for a revolution.”
In Cincinnati, a Trump supporter threatened to forcibly remove Clinton from the White House if she won the Presidential race: “I feel like Hillary needs to be taken out if she gets in the government. I’ll do everything in my power to take her out of power–which, if I have to be a patriot, I will.”
When asked if he was physically threatening Clinton, Dan Bowman, 50, told CNN: “I don’t know, is it?”
Officially, the Trump campaign claimed: “We reject violence in any form and will not allow it to be a part of our campaign.”
But on August 9, Trump told a rally in Wilmington, North Carolina that Clinton intended to abolish the Second Amendment: “If she gets to pick her judges, there’s nothing you can do, folks. Although the Second Amendment people–maybe there is, I don’t know.”
The Clinton camp instantly saw it as a “dog-whistle” solicitation for political assassination. The Trump campaign issued a statement denying that he had meant any such thing.
On July 19, Trump clinched the Republican Presidential nomination. By early August, Roger Stone, a longtime Right-wing political consultant and now Trump strategist, was already predicting “widespread voter fraud” in the coming election.
This despite the fact that a 2014 Washington Post analysis of 14 years of voter fraud found 31 possible incidents of in-person voter fraud, comprised of approximately 241 fraudulent ballots.
In an interview with the Right-wing Breitbart News website, Stone said:
“The first thing that Trump needs to do is begin talking about [voter fraud] constantly. If there’s voter fraud, this election will be illegitimate, the election of the winner will be illegitimate, we will have a constitutional crisis, widespread civil disobedience, and the government will no longer be the government.”
Roger Stone
Stone added that Trump should keep drumming up his supporters against the “rigged” system, and promise that the government would be shut down if Clinton was pronounced the victor in November.
“I think he’s gotta put them on notice that their inauguration will be a rhetorical, and when I mean civil disobedience, not violence, but it will be a bloodbath… We will not stand for it.”
Yet no official in Washington, D.C.–from President Barack Obama on down–has so far dared to openly acknowledge–let alone confront–this menace.
If Hillary Clinton is elected President, she would do well to review how Andrew Jackson, America’s seventh President from 1829 to 1837, reacted to threats of secession.
Andrew Jackson
In 1830, South Carolina was threatening to secede from the Union. A South Carolina Congressman who was returning home visited Jackson and asked: “Do you have a message you want me to give to your friends in the state?”
Jackson questioned him about the recent mass meetings in Charleston.
The friend warned him that South Carolina’s fire-eaters believed “the Army and Navy aren’t big enough to collect a penny” of Federal taxes.
“Do they realize what their words mean?” asked Jackson.
“I’m afraid they do, General.”
“Then tell them from me that they can talk and write resolutions and print threats to their hearts’ content.
“But if one drop of blood is shed there in opposition to the laws of the United States, I will hang the first man I can lay my hands on engaged in such treasonable conduct, from the first tree I can reach.”
News of Jackson’s threat quickly spread throughout Washington, D.C.
Senator Robert Hayne of South Carolina told his fellow Senator, Thomas Hart Benton, of Missouri, that he couldn’t believe that Jackson would send an army to invade a sovereign state.
Benton replied: “I tell you, Hayne, when Jackson starts talking about hanging, they can begin to look for the ropes.”
Jackson later issued a proclamation to the people of South Carolina and threatened to hang Hayne’s successor, Senator John C. Calhoun. He also warned that he would himself lead an army into the state to enforce Federal law.
The treasonous rumblings stopped–for the moment.
Share this: