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In Bureaucracy, History, Medical, Politics, Social commentary on October 2, 2024 at 12:08 am
Throughout its history the South has been a hotbed of treason, racism and ignorance.
Today, it proudly continues holding fast to these traditions—as it threatens the entire country with a Fascistic dictatorship under Donald Trump.
Infamy 1: 1860 – 1865 – The Confederate States of America.
Union (blue) and Confederate (red) states: 1860 – 1865
Júlio Reis, CC BY-SA 3.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0>, via Wikimedia Commons
From 1860 to 1865, the South—Texas, Arkansas, Louisiana, Tennessee, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, Florida, South Carolina, North Carolina and Virginia—produced the greatest case of mass treason in America’s history.
According to The Destructive War, by Charles Royster, it wasn’t the cause of “states’ rights” that led 13 Southern states to withdraw from the Union in 1860-61. It was their demand for “respect,” which, in reality, translates into “e-g-o.”
“The respect Southerners demanded did not consist simply of the states’ sovereignty or of the equal rights of Northern and Southern citizens, including slaveholders’ right to take their chattels into Northern territory.
“It entailed, too, respect for their assertion of the moral superiority of slaveholding society over free society,” writes Royster.
It was not enough for Southerners to claim equal standing with Northerners; Northerners must acknowledge it. But this was something that the North was increasingly unwilling to do.
Finally, its citizens dared to elect Abraham Lincoln as President in 1860.
Lincoln and his new Republican party damned slavery—and slaveholders—as morally evil, obsolete and ultimately doomed. And they were determined to prevent slavery from spreading any further throughout the country.
Southerners found all of this intolerable.
Lincoln—during his First Inaugural Address—bluntly said that he did not intend to “directly or indirectly…interfere with the institution of slavery in the States where it exists. I believe I have no lawful right to do so, and I have no inclination to do so.”
Abraham Lincoln
But that was not enough for Southerners.
Only 10% of Southerners owned slaves. The other 90% of the population “had no dog in this fight,” as Southerners liked to say.
Yet they so admired and aspired to be like their “gentleman betters” that they threw in their lot with them.
On April 12, 1861—just over a month since Lincoln’s inauguration on March 4—Southern batteries opened fire on Union Fort Sumter in Charleston Harbor, South Carolina.
This ignited the American Civil War, costing the lives of 750,000 Americans—at a time when the population of the United States stood at 31,443,321.
Four years later, Confederate General Robert E. Lee surrendered the Army of Northern Virginia to Union General Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox Courthouse.
Huge sections of the South had been laid waste by Union troops and more than 258,000 Southerners had been killed.
And slavery, the mainstay of Southern plantation life, had been ended forever.
The South had paid a high price for its investment in treason.
Infamy 2: 1964 – 2024 – Racism breeds Southern Republicans.
In 1964, Democratic President Lyndon B. Johnson pushed the Civil Rights Act through Congress, ending more than a century of blatant discrimination against blacks.
The South—which before the Civil War had been solidly Democratic—suddenly went solidly Republican.
To understand this mammoth shift, it’s vital to realize: In Lincoln’s time, the Republicans were the party of progressives.
The party was founded on an anti-slavery platform. Its members were thus reviled as “Black Republicans.” And until the 1960s, the South was solidly Democratic.
Democrats were the ones defending the status quo—slavery—and opposing the rights of freed blacks in the South of Reconstruction and long afterward.
When, in the early 1960s, Democrats championed the rights of blacks, Southerners bolted for the Republican party—which held to the same values that slavery/discrimination-supporting Democrats once did.
After signing the Civil Rights Act of 1964 into law, President Lyndon B. Johnson told an aide: “We have just lost the South for a generation.”
Johnson was wrong: A generation lasts 20 to 30 years. It’s been 60 years since the signing of the Act, and the South is still solidly within the Republican camp.
1968 election
Infamy 3: 2016 – Fascist racism elects Donald Trump as President.
Repeatedly, when asked why they supported Trump, his followers said: “He says what I’ve been thinking!”
And what Trump appealed to, above all else, was racist hatred.
From June 15, 2015, when he launched his Presidential campaign, until October 24, 2016, Trump fired almost 4,000 angry, insulting tweets at 281 people and institutions that had somehow offended him.
Donald Trump
The New York Times needed two full pages of its print edition to showcase them.
Among his targets:
- Women
- Blacks
- Hispanics
- Asians
- Muslims
- The disabled
- Prisoners-of-war
Red States voted for Donald Trump – 2016
BobWyatt07, CC BY-SA 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons
Whites comprised the overwhelming majority of the audiences at Trump rallies. Not all were racists, but many of those who were advertised it on T-shirts: “MAKE AMERICA WHITE AGAIN.”
And the vast majority of the white votes Trump got were in the South.
The 2008 election of Barack Obama as the first black President had shocked whites. His 2012 re-election had deprived them of the hope that 2008 had been an accident.
In 2016 macho, largely uneducated, anti-black Southern males couldn’t accept a woman—Hillary Clinton—occupying the White House.
They ignored reputable reports—later confirmed—that Trump’s campaign was backed by Russian oligarchs linked to Russian dictator Vladimir Putin, the former head of the KGB.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Military, Politics, Social commentary on September 20, 2024 at 12:10 am
Would you believe in a love at first sight?
(Yes, it happens with a mirror all the time.)
What do you see when you turn out the light?
(It stays on so that my face can shine.)
Oh, I get by with a little help from my Vlad.
Mm, I can lie with a little help from my Vlad.
Mm, you’re gonna die with a little help from my Vlad.
The appointment of Robert S. Mueller as Special Counsel aroused unprecedented hopes and fears.
Yet even before the release of the long-awaited Mueller report, several deeply-researched and well-written books outlined Russia’s efforts to subvert the 2016 Presidential race. And they cast devastating light on Trump’s loyalty to the United States.
Among these:
- The Apprentice: Trump, Russia and the Subversion of Democracy, by Greg Miller
- House of Trump, House of Putin: The Untold Story of Donald Trump and the Russian Mafia, by Craig Unger
- Russian Roulette: The Inside Story of Putin’s War on America and the Election of Donald Trump, by Michael Isikoff
- The Plot to Destroy Democracy: How Putin and His Spies Are Undermining America and Dismantling the West, by Malcom W. Nance
According to its blurb on Amazon.com, The Apprentice is “based on interviews with hundreds of people in Trump’s inner circle, current and former government officials, individuals with close ties to the White House, members of the law enforcement and intelligence communities, foreign officials, and confidential documents.”
Among the subjects it covers:
- The Trump Tower meeting, where the Trump campaign sought “dirt” on Hillary Clinton from Russian Intelligence agents;
- The penetration by Russian Intelligence of computer systems used by Democrats;
- How Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law, tried to set up a secret back channel to Moscow via Russian diplomatic facilities;
- Trump’s giving Russian officials highly classified secrets supplied by Israeli Intelligence;
- Trump’s clashes with the FBI and CIA.
Miller is a veteran investigative journalist and twice winner of the Pulitzer Prize. Among his stories: National security adviser Michael Flynn’s discussing U.S. sanctions with Russian officials prior to Trump’s inauguration. The story contributed to Flynn’s ouster.
Then there’s House of Trump, House of Putin, whose jacket blurb describes Trump’s inauguration as “the culmination of Vladimir Putin’s long mission to undermine Western democracy, a mission that he and his hand-selected group of oligarchs and Mafia kingpins had ensnared Trump in, starting more than twenty years ago with the massive bailout of a string of sensational Trump hotel and casino failures in Atlantic City.
“…Craig Unger methodically traces the deep-rooted alliance between the highest echelons of American political operatives and the biggest players in the frightening underworld of the Russian Mafia. He traces Donald Trump’s sordid ascent from foundering real estate tycoon to leader of the free world….
“Without Trump, Russia would have lacked a key component in its attempts to return to imperial greatness. Without Russia, Trump would not be president.”
As an appendix to the book, Unger writes: “Donald Trump has repeatedly said he has nothing to do with Russia. Below are fifty-nine Trump connections to Russia.”
Russian Roulette, according to its dust jacket, “is a story of political skullduggery unprecedented in American history. It weaves together tales of international intrigue, cyber espionage, and superpower rivalry.
“After U.S.-Russia relations soured, as Vladimir Putin moved to reassert Russian strength on the global stage, Moscow trained its best hackers and trolls on U.S. political targets and exploited WikiLeaks to disseminate information that could affect the 2016 election.
“The Russians were wildly successful and the great break-in of 2016 was no ‘third-rate burglary.’ It was far more sophisticated and sinister—a brazen act of political espionage designed to interfere with American democracy. At the end of the day, Trump, the candidate who pursued business deals in Russia, won….
“This story of high-tech spying and multiple political feuds is told against the backdrop of Trump’s strange relationship with Putin and the curious ties between members of his inner circle—including Paul Manafort and Michael Flynn—and Russia.”
Malcom Nance, the author of The Plot to Destroy Democracy, is an Intelligence and foreign policy analyst and media commentator on terrorism, intelligence, insurgency and torture.
In his book, he outlines how “Donald Trump was made President of the United States with the assistance of a foreign power.
“[It is] the dramatic story of how blackmail, espionage, assassination, and psychological warfare were used by Vladimir Putin and his spy agencies to steal the 2016 U.S. election—and attempted to bring about the fall of NATO, the European Union, and western democracy….
“Nance has utilized top secret Russian-sourced political and hybrid warfare strategy documents to demonstrate the master plan to undermine American institutions that has been in effect from the Cold War to the present day.
“Based on original research and countless interviews with espionage experts, Nance examines how Putin’s recent hacking accomplished a crucial first step for destabilizing the West for Russia, and why Putin is just the man to do it.”
These books—combined with the findings of the Mueller report—clearly establish the damning conclusion: The man now sitting in the Oval Office is an illegitimate usurper, installed by an unholy alliance of American Fascists and Russian Communists.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Military, Politics, Social commentary on September 19, 2024 at 12:16 am
Do you need anybody?
(I need a Gestapo that kills.)
Could it be anybody?
(As long as it kills I get thrills.)
Yes, I get by with a little help from my Vlad.
Mm, I can lie with a little help from my Vlad.
Mm, you’re gonna fry with a little help from my Vlad.
On January 20, 2017—the day Donald Trump became the 45th President of the United States—Michael Flynn became the nation’s 25th National Security Adviser.
Flynn was a former United States Army lieutenant general and director of the Defense Intelligence Agency.
TREASON EXAMPLE #5 On February 8, Flynn denied having spoken to Russian ambassador Sergey Kislyak in December, 2016, about removing the sanctions placed on Russia by the outgoing Obama administration.
The sanctions had been placed in retaliation for Russia’s efforts to manipulate the 2016 Presidential election.
On February 13, The Washington Post reported that Acting Attorney General Sally Yates had warned Trump in late January that Flynn had lied about his contacts with Kislyak—and that he could be blackmailed by Russian Intelligence.
Sally Yates
Flynn was forced to resign that same day—after only 24 days as National Security Adviser.
Officially, the reason given was that he had misled Vice President Mike Pence. But Flynn’s deception had already been known—via the warning to Trump by Yates.
Only after Yates’ warning became known to the media was Flynn forced to resign.
The same Washington Post story reported that, in December, 2015, he had appeared on Russia Today, the news network that American Intelligence agencies consider “the Kremlin’s principal international propaganda outlet.”
He had also received more than $45,000 as a “speaking fee” from the network for a talk on world affairs. At the gala where Flynn received the fee, he sat next to Russian President Vladimir Putin for dinner.
Flynn did not file the required paperwork for the trip. Nor did he report the “fee” to the Pentagon.
On December 1, 2017, Flynn appeared in federal court to formalize a deal with Special Counsel Robert S. Mueller III. He plead guilty to a felony count of “willfully and knowingly” making “false, fictitious and fraudulent statements” to the FBI.
TREASON EXAMPLE #6 On May 9, 2017, President Trump fired FBI Director James Comey for investigating Russia’s subversion of the 2016 Presidential race.
There were four reasons for this:
- Comey had refused to pledge his personal loyalty to Trump. Trump had made the “request” during a private dinner at the White House in January.
- Comey told Trump that he would always be honest with him. But that didn’t satisfy Trump’s demand that the head of the FBI act as his personal secret police chief—as was the case in the former Soviet Union.
- Comey had rejected Trump’s attempt to coerce him into dropping the FBI’s investigation into former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn.
- Comey had recently asked the Justice Department to fund an expanded FBI investigation into well-documented contacts between Trump’s 2016 Presidential campaign and Russian Intelligence agents.
James Comey
TREASON EXAMPLE #7 On May 10, Trump met with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak in the Oval Office—and gave them highly classified Israeli Intelligence about an Islamic State plot to turn laptops into concealable bombs.
Kislyak is reportedly a top recruiter for Russia’s SVR foreign intelligence agency. He has been closely linked with Jeff Sessions, then Attorney General, and fired National Security Adviser Mike Flynn.
“I just fired the head of the FBI,” Trump told the two dignitaries. “He was crazy, a real nut job. I faced great pressure because of Russia. That’s taken off.”
TREASON EXAMPLE #8 On July 16, 2018, Trump attended a press conference in Helsinki, Finland, with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
There he blamed American Intelligence agencies—such as the FBI, CIA and National Security Agency—as partners in a conspiracy: “You have groups that are wondering why the FBI never took the server, why haven’t they taken the server? Why was the FBI told to leave the office of the Democratic National Committee?
“I have President Putin. He just said it’s not Russia. I will say this: I don’t see any reason why it would be.”
Donald Trump, Vladimir Putin in Helsinki
TREASON EXAMPLE #9 On June 9, 2018, Trump called for Russia to be readmitted to the G7.
“I think it would be an asset to have Russia back in,” he said during an impromptu press conference at the summit.
“I think it would be good for the world. I think it would be good for Russia. I think it would be good for the United States. I think it would be good for all of the countries of the current G7. I think the G8 would be better.”
Russia was ousted from the group in 2014 after Putin annexed Crimea—the first violation of a European country’s borders since World War II.
“Today crystallizes precisely why Putin was so eager to see Trump elected,” said former Obama National Security Council spokesman Ned Price.
“For Putin, this is return on his investment, and it’s safe to say that his investment has paid off beyond even his wildest dreams,” he said in a statement to CNN.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Military, Politics, Social commentary on September 18, 2024 at 12:14 am
What do I do when the bank calls me in?
(Does it worry you to be in debt?)
How do I feel when I need rubles fast?
(Do you worry Vlad might say “Nyet”?)
No, I get by with a little help from my Vlad.
Mm, I can lie with a little help from my Vlad.
Mm, you’re gonna fry with a little help from my Vlad.
Donald Trump—as the Republican nominee for President—steadfastly refused to acknowledge his decades-long relationship with Russia. On October 24, 2016, he stated: “I have nothing to do with Russia, folks, I’ll give you a written statement.”
In fact, Trump had a highly profitable relationship with Russia—as his two sons, Donald, Jr., and Eric, unintentionally revealed:
In 2008, Donald Trump, Jr. said at a New York real estate conference: “In terms of high-end product influx into the US, Russians make up a pretty disproportionate cross-section of a lot of our assets….We see a lot of money pouring in from Russia.”
And Trump’s son, Eric, said in 2014: “Well, we don’t rely on American banks. We have all the funding we need out of Russia.”
Trump quickly appointed men with ties to Russian officials to high positions.
Among these: Attorney General Jeff Sessions. During the 2016 campaign, Sessions—then serving as a surrogate for Trump’s campaign—twice spoke with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak.
But during his Senate confirmation hearings, Sessions denied that he had had “communications with the Russians” during the campaign.
The discovery of numerous contacts between Trump campaign officials and Russian Intelligence agents led the FBI to investigate Russia’s efforts to influence the outcome of the 2016 Presidential election.
TREASON EXAMPLE #4: Trump has repeatedly praised and defended Russian dictator Vladimir Putin.
Vladimir Putin
On December 18, 2015, Trump appeared on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe.” Its host, Joe Scarborough, was upset by Trump’s praise for Putin:
SCARBOROUGH: Well, I mean, [he’s] also a person who kills journalists, political opponents, and invades countries. Obviously that would be a concern, would it not?
TRUMP: He’s running his country, and at least he’s a leader. Unlike what we have in this country.
SCARBOROUGH: But again: He kills journalists that don’t agree with him.
TRUMP: I think our country does plenty of killing, also, Joe, so, you know. There’s a lot of stupidity going on in the world right now, Joe. A lot of killing going on. A lot of stupidity. And that’s the way it is.
On October 7, 2016, the Department of Homeland Security and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence issued a joint statement blaming the Russian government for the hacking of Democratic National Committee emails. Its motive: “To interfere with the US election process.”
Two days later, Trump publicly stated: “But I notice, anytime anything wrong happens, they like to say the Russians are—Maybe there is no hacking. But they always blame Russia.”
On December 16, 2016, FBI Director James B. Comey and Director of National Intelligence James R. Clapper Jr. agreed with a CIA assessment that Russia intervened in the 2016 election in part to help Donald Trump win the White House.
Trump, however, steadfastly denied any such role by Russia: “I think it’s ridiculous,” he told “Fox News Sunday.” “I think it’s just another excuse. I don’t believe it….No, I don’t believe it at all.”
Clinton Watts, a consultant to the FBI’s Counter Terrorism Division, is an expert on cyberwarfare.
Testifying before the U.S. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence on March 30, 2017, Watts outlined cyberwarfare measures that Russia used to subvert the 2016 Presidential campaign.
This pattern of Russian falsehoods and social media manipulation of the American electorate continued through Election Day and persists today.
Many of the accounts we watched push the false Incirlik story in July now focus their efforts on shaping the upcoming European elections, promoting fears of immigration or false claims of refugee criminality.
They’ve not forgotten about the United States either. This past week, we observed social media campaigns targeting Speaker of the House Paul Ryan hoping to foment further unrest amongst U.S. democratic institutions, their leaders and their constituents.
As we noted two days before the Presidential election in our article describing Russian influence operations, Russia certainly seeks to promote Western candidates sympathetic to their worldview and foreign policy objectives.
But winning a single election is not their end goal. Russian Active Measures hope to topple democracies through the pursuit of five complementary objectives:
- Undermine citizen confidence in democratic governance;
- Foment and exacerbate divisive political fractures;
- Erode trust between citizens and elected officials and democratic institutions;
- Popularize Russian policy agendas within foreign populations;
- Create general distrust or confusion over information sources by blurring the lines between fact and fiction.
From these objectives, the Kremlin can crumble democracies from the inside out creating political divisions resulting in two key milestones:
- The dissolution of the European Union and
- The break up of the North American Treaty Organization (NATO).
TREASON EXAMPLE #5 On January 20, 2017—the day Donald J. Trump became the 45th President of the United States—Michael Flynn took office as the nation’s 25th National Security Adviser.
Two days later, The Wall Street Journal reported that Flynn was under investigation by U.S. counterintelligence agents for his secret communications with Russian officials.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Military, Politics, Social commentary on September 17, 2024 at 12:10 am
What would you think if I ripped off some kids?
Would you walk out and not vote for me?
Lend me your ears and I’ll feed you a line
And I’ll try not to laugh cynically.
Oh, I get by with a little help from my Vlad.
Mm, I can lie with a little help from my Vlad.
Mm, you’re gonna fry with a little help from my Vlad.
On September 4, the Department of Justice indicted two Russian nationals—Kostiantyn Kalashnikov, 31, and Elena Afanasyeva, 27—for conspiracy to violate the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) and conspiracy to commit money laundering.
Both were employees of RT, a Russian state-controlled media outlet, in a $10 million scheme to create and distribute hidden Russian propaganda to U.S. audiences.
RT did so through its ownership of Tenet Media, an American Right-wing company. Among its employees were six right-wing influencers: Matt Christiansen, Tayler Hansen, Benny Johnson, Tim Pool, Dave Rubin and Lauren Southern.
Numerous Republicans have profited through Russian bribes (officially described as “campaign contributions”). Among these:
- Former Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (Kentucky);
- Former House Speaker Paul Ryan;
- Senator Marco Rubio (Florida);
- Former House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (California);
- Senator Lindsey Graham (South Carolina).
But no Republican has benefited more from Russian monies and assistance than former President Donald Trump, who received:
- $1 million to the Trump Inaugural Committee from Russian oligarch Len Blavatnik;
- $1 million to the Trump Inaugural Committee from Russian oligarch Alexander Shustorovich;
- $250,000 to Trump’s Inaugural Committee from Russian oligarch, Andrew Intrater
Trump has repeatedly claimed “no collusion” between himself and Russia. But the evidence overwhelmingly speaks otherwise.
TREASON EXAMPLE #1 On July 9, 2016, high-ranking members of his Presidential campaign met at Trump Tower with at least two lobbyists who had ties to Russian dictator Vladimir Putin. The participants included:
- Trump’s son, Donald Trump Jr.;
- His son-in-law, Jared Kushner;
- His then-campaign manager, Paul Manafort;
- Natalia Veselnitskaya, a Russian lawyer with ties to Putin; and
- Rinat Akhmetshin, a former Soviet counterintelligence officer suspected of having ongoing ties to Russian Intelligence.
The purpose of that meeting: To gain access to any “dirt” Russian Intelligence could supply on Democratic Presidential nominee Hillary Clinton.
Trump originally claimed that the meeting was “about the adoption of Russian children.” Eventually he admitted that it had been “a meeting to get information on an opponent.”
Donald Trump
TREASON EXAMPLE #2 On July 22, 2016, Wikileaks released 19,252 emails and 8,034 attachments hacked from computers of the highest-ranking officials of the Democratic National Committee (DNC). Early reports traced the leak to Russian hackers.
On July 27, 2016, during his campaign for President, Trump said at a press conference in Doral, Florida: “Russia, if you are listening, I hope you are able to find the 33,000 emails that are missing [from Democratic Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton’s computer]. I think you will probably be rewarded mightily by our press.”
Hours later, the Main Intelligence Directorate in Moscow targeted Clinton’s personal office and hit more than 70 other Clinton campaign accounts.
Clinton Watts is a consultant and researcher on cyberwarfare. He has served as
- An FBI Special Agent on a Joint Terrorism Task Force (JTTF);
- The Executive Officer of the Combating Terrorism Center at West Point (CTC); and
- A consultant to the FBI’s Counter Terrorism Division (CTD) and National Security Branch (NSB).
In a statement he prepared for the U.S. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, Watts outlined cyberwarfare measures that Russia used to subvert the 2016 Presidential campaign.
He delivered this on March 30. 2017. Part of this reads as follows:
Through the end of 2015 and start of 2016, the Russian influence system….began pushing themes and messages seeking to influence the outcome of the U.S. Presidential election.
Russia’s overt media outlets and covert trolls sought to sideline opponents on both sides of the political spectrum with adversarial views toward the Kremlin. The final months leading up to the election have been the predominate focus of Russian influence discussions to date.
Clinton Watts
However, Russian Active Measures were in full swing during both the Republican and Democratic primary season and may have helped sink the hopes of candidates more hostile to Russian interests long before the field narrowed.
The final piece of Russia’s modern Active Measures surfaced in the summer of 2016 as hacked materials from previous months were strategically leaked.
On 22 July 2016, Wikileaks released troves of stolen communications from the Democratic National Committee and later batches of campaign emails. Guccifer 2.0 and DC Leaks revealed hacked information from a host of former U.S. government officials throughout July and August 2016.
For the remainder of the campaign season, this compromising material powered the influence system Russia successfully constructed in the previous two years.
TREASON EXAMPLE #3 Throughout 2016, the CIA, FBI and National Security Agency (NSA) found numerous ties between officials of the Trump Presidential campaign and Russian Intelligence agents.
And many of those Trump appointed to office had strong ties to the government of Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Rex Tillerson
One of these was Secretary of State Rex Tillerson. In 2013, as the chief executive of ExxonMobil, he was presented with Russia’s Order of Friendship award. He had just signed deals with the state-owned Russian oil company Rosneft. Its chief, Igor Sechin, is a loyal Putin lieutenant.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Politics, Social commentary on September 11, 2024 at 12:05 am
On December 8 and 10, 2020, the United States Supreme Court refused to hear two cases brought by supporters of President Donald Trump to overturn the results of the 2020 Presidential election.
In the first case, Representative Mike Kelly (R-PA), a Trump ally, argued that Pennsylvania’s 2.5 million mail-in ballots were unconstitutional—and should be invalidated
In the second case, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton sought to overturn the results in four battleground states: Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. Even worse: Seventeen Republican state Attorney Generals—and 126 Republican members of Congress—rushed to support the case.
The reason: They feared Trump’s fanatical base would turn them out of office if they didn’t.
The Supreme Court
Had the Court acted on either request, the results for democracy would have been catastrophic.
For the first time in American history, a President who falsely accused his victorious rival of fraud would have invalidated the votes of 80 million Americans.
Meanwhile, as Trump continued to deny the reality of Joe Biden’s win and sought ways to overturn it, a deadly pandemic raged throughout the United States.
By December 16, 16.8 million Americans had been infected with COVID-19—and 304,000 have died.
Many of these infections and deaths resulted from millions of Americans’ insistence on spending Thanksgiving with their families. And with the Christmas, Hanukkah and New Year’s celebrations fast approaching, medical experts feared there would be even greater numbers of casualties.
So what was Trump concentrating his time on during his final weeks in office?
Two things:
- Desperately trying to overturn the results of the 2020 election; and
- Taking credit for the arrival of COVID-19 vaccines.
Donald Trump
The first one should have been grounds for his immediate removal from office. And the second should earn him everlasting contempt.
No other President had ever:
- Tried to muscle governors to override the voters of their states.
- Repeatedly spread a lie that his opponent had won by “stealing” the election.
- Demanded that the Supreme Court hear—and act—on frivolous, lie-filled lawsuits challenging the results of the election.
As for the plague, he:
- Spent most of the year ignoring the plague, and then denying it.
- Refused to wear a mask and made its wearing a political act rather than simply the best available means to stay safe.
- Turned his frenzied campaign rallies into “superspreader” events: Masses of mask-less men and women crammed into indoor stadiums, shouting vigorously—then taking the virus with them all over the country.
- Did nothing to bring rival factions in Congress together to fashion a relief bill for millions of Americans made unemployed and hungry by Coronavirus.
* * * * *
Too many people have labeled the actions of Donald Trump and his political accomplices as “insanity.”
On the contrary: It was—literally—an attempted Republican coup.
Never before in United States history had a President—or a political party—made such a blatant and unconstitutional effort to overthrow the will of the electorate.
The sheer hypocrisy of it would be stunning—if Republicans didn’t ordinarily hold to a double-standard: One that applies exclusively to its own members and another for its opponents.
For example:
During the 2016 Presidential race, members of Trump’s campaign met with Russian Intelligence agents on several occasions.
The most infamous of these meetings occurred on July 9, 2016. High-ranking representatives of Trump met at Trump Tower with at least two lobbyists with ties to Russian dictator Vladimir Putin.
Reince Priebus, the incoming White House Chief of Staff for newly-elected Trump, was outraged that many Americans believed that the Russians had helped elect him. He demanded that outgoing President Barack Obama vouch for Trump’s legitimacy.
“I think President Obama should step up,” Priebus said on January 15, 2017, on ABC’s “This Week.”
“This Week” host George Stephanopoulos replied that Trump had questioned Obama’s legitimacy as an American citizen until almost the end of the 2016 Presidential race.
“But look, George, that’s not the point!” Priebus said, visibly agitated. “The point is not where Barack Obama was born! The point is that we’ve got congressmen on the Democratic side of the aisle that are questioning the legitimacy of President-elect Trump.”
Here was Texas—which boasts constantly of its sovereignty—trying to impose its Fascistic will on four other equally sovereign states.
And why? Because the voters in those states dared to pick a candidate Texans didn’t like.
Had New York or California tried to impose its will on Texas, the howls of Texan outrage would have resounded across the nation.
The United States has—momentarily—escaped tyranny imposed by a totally corrupt executive branch and a totally cowardly legislative one.
Every one of the 17 Republican state Attorney Generals—and the 126 Republican members of Congress—has betrayed their oath to “support and defend the Constitution of the United States.”
And they have done so for the basest of reasons: Because they want to be re-elected to their current office or elected to an even higher one. And they fear they won’t be if Trump—like a Mafia capo—puts the “X” on them.
This wasn’t simply “Profiles Without Courage.” It was “Profiles in Treason.”
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In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Politics, Social commentary on September 10, 2024 at 12:11 am
On November 3, Joe Biden became President-elect of the United States by winning 81,283,495 votes, or 51.4% of the vote, compared to 74,223,755 votes, or 46.9% of the vote cast for President Donald Trump.
In the Electoral College—which actually determines the winner—the results were even more stunning: 306 votes for Biden, compared with 232 for Trump. It takes 270 votes to be declared the victor.
From the moment Biden was declared the winner, Trump set out to overturn that verdict.
Joe Biden
Speaking from the White House in the early hours of November 4, Trump sounded like a petulant child whose planned outing has been suddenly called off:
“We were getting ready for a big celebration, we were winning everything and all of a sudden it was just called off. The results tonight have been phenomenal…I mean literally we were just all set to get outside and just celebrate something that was so beautiful, so good, such a vote such a success.”
For the first time in American history, a President demanded a halt to the counting of votes while the outcome of an election hung in doubt.
States ignored his demand and kept counting.
Next, Trump ordered his attorneys to file lawsuits to overturn the election results, charging electoral fraud. Specifically:
- Illegal aliens had been allowed to vote.
- Trump ballots were systematically destroyed.
- A sinister computer program turned Trump votes into Biden ones.
Throughout November and December, cases were filed in Wisconsin, Arizona, Nevada, Michigan, Minnesota and Georgia challenging the election results. None were supported by evidence of fraud—as even Trump’s lawyers admitted when questioned by judges.
On November 13, nine cases meant to attack President-Elect Joe Biden’s win in key states were denied or dropped. A law firm challenging the vote count in Pennsylvania withdrew from the effort.
In Michigan, Trump’s attorneys dropped their federal suit to block the certification of Detroit-area ballots.
By November 21, more than 30 cases were withdrawn by Trump’s attorneys or dismissed by Federal judges—some of them appointed by Trump himself.
Ultimately, from November 3 to December 14, Trump and his allies lost 59 times in court, either withdrawing cases or having them dismissed by Federal and state judges.
Donald Trump
On November 19, losing in the courts, Trump invited two Republican legislative leaders from Michigan to the White House. The reason: To persuade them to stop the state from certifying the vote.
The Michigan legislators said they would follow the law.
On December 5, Trump called Georgia Governor Brian Kemp and asked him to call a special legislative session and convince state legislators to select their own electors that would support him, thus overturning Biden’s win.
Kemp refused, saying he lacked the authority to do so.
On December 8, the Supreme Court refused to hear Trump’s bid to reverse Pennsylvania’s certification of Biden’s victory. Representative Mike Kelly (R-PA), a Trump ally, argued that the state’s 2.5 million mail-in were unconstitutional.
The Court’s order read, “The application for injunctive relief presented to Justice [Samuel] Alito and by him referred to the Court is denied.”
Although Trump had appointed three of the Court’s Justices, not one of them dissented.
On December 10, the Supreme Court refused to let a Texas lawsuit overturn the results in four battleground states: Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.
The majority of their votes—cast for Biden—were critical to Trump’s defeat.
“Texas has not demonstrated a judicially cognizable interest in the manner in which another state conducts its elections,” the court said without further comment. It dismissed all other related claims as moot.
The request for their overturning came in a lawsuit brought by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton. A Trump ally, Paxton had been indicted on felony securities fraud charges. He might have been seeking a Presidential pardon as reward for his effort.
Seventeen Republican state Attorney Generals—and 126 Republican members of Congress—supported the lawsuit. They feared Trump’s fanatical base would “primary” them if they didn’t publicly declare their loyalty—to a man they knew was slated to leave office within two months.
Had the Court acted on Paxton’s request, the results for democracy would have been catastrophic.
“Texas seeks to invalidate elections in four states for yielding results with which it disagrees,” Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro told the justices in legal papers. “Its request for this court to exercise its original jurisdiction and then anoint Texas’s preferred candidate for president is legally indefensible and is an affront to principles of constitutional democracy.”
Meanwhile, top Republicans—such as Vice President Mike Pence, Missouri United States Senator Roy Blunt and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell—refused to congratulate Biden as the winner.
Mitch McConnell
In fact, the vast majority of House and Senate Republicans refused to publicly acknowledge Biden as President-Elect of the United States. The reason: They were still in thrall to Trump’s fanatical base.
They feared that if they broke with the soon-to-be-ex-President, they would be voted out of office at the next election—and lose their cozy positions and the power and perks that come with them.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Military, Politics, Social commentary on July 10, 2024 at 12:10 am
President Joseph Biden now faces the most monumental decision of his life. And no matter what choice he makes, his name will live in infamy for millions of Americans—whether they lean Right or Left.
Thanks entirely to the Supreme Court’s July 1 ruling giving almost unlimited immunity to former President Donald Trump, Biden can go down in history as the man who saved—at least temporarily—the American republic.
Joseph Biden
Or he can go down in history as the man who presided over the end of the American republic.
To save it, he must
- Purge, through arrests and trials, almost the entire treason-conspiring Republican party, starting with Trump, its Fuhrer-in-waiting.
- Do this officially, because the Court has ruled that he (and future Presidents) can only be prosecuted for unofficial acts.
- Do this while he still commands the full resources of the military and Justice Department.
- Sweep clean the Federal courts of all Right-wing, treason-supporting judges—such as Aileen Cannon, who has repeatedly thwarted efforts to try Trump for stealing and hiding almost 300 highly classified government documents at his Mar-a-Lago estate.
- This includes the six Right-wing Supreme Court Justices who have given future Presidents the legal authority to assassinate rivals, take bribes and/or foment coups.
If Biden does this, he will damned as the first President since Abraham Lincoln to brutally crush political opposition.
But he will also be hailed for having—at least temporarily—prevented a wholesale Right-wing takeover and dictatorship under Project 2025. Its’ goal: Replace existing federal civil service workers with tens of thousands of radical Right-wingers.
To preside over the end of the American republic, all Biden need do is what he’s done for the last three years: Nothing.
Example #1: Only on November 18, 2022, did Attorney General Merrick Garland appoint Jack Smith Special Counsel to investigate Trump’s attempt to overturn the legitimate results of the 2020 Presidential election and become “President-for-Life.”
This was clearly treason—and Garland should have appointed Smith, at the latest, by mid-2021.
Merrick Garland
Example #2: Trump’s accomplices included 147 members of Congress who voted to invalidate the 2020 Electoral College vote count. A total of 139 served in the House of Representatives, and eight served in the Senate.
To date, not one of these accessories has even been indicted, let alone convicted, for treason.
Arguably, Biden’s worst appointment has been Merrick Garland as Attorney General.
In 1961, when Robert F. Kennedy became Attorney General, he moved quickly and forcefully to wage war on America’s organized crime syndicates. Unprecedented numbers of mobsters found themselves facing vigorous FBI investigations, indictments and/or convictions.
By contrast, Garland’s timidity in prosecuting the crimes of Right-wing Republicans serves as not only a national embarrassment but a threat to national security.
On May 30, a Manhattan jury convicted Donald Trump of 34 felonies for falsifying New York business records in 2016. He had done so to conceal his hush money payoff to porn “star” Stormy Daniels for his extramarital tryst with her.
Donald Trump
Even though the Biden administration had nothing to do with the case, Republicans immediately blamed the President—and demanded wholesale prosecutions of the Left.
Right-wing activist Charlie Kirk urged Republican prosecutors to get “creative” in bringing charges: “Indict the left, or lose America,” he said on X.
And Trump quickly issued his own calls for “vengeance”:
“Wouldn’t it be terrible to throw the president’s wife and the former secretary of state, think of it, the former secretary of state, but the president’s wife, into jail? Wouldn’t that be a terrible thing? But they want to do it,” Trump said in an interview on Newsmax.
“It’s a terrible, terrible path that they’re leading us to. And it’s very possible that it’s going to have to happen to them.”
Nor has Trump forgotten former Republican Representative Liz Cheney, who chaired the House 1/6 Committee investigating the Trump-inspired attack on Congress.
“ELIZABETH LYNNE CHENEY IS GUILTY OF TREASON,” Trump posted on his social media website Truth Social. “RETRUTH IF YOU WANT TELEVISED MILITARY TRIBUNALS.”
There can be absolutely no doubt that Trump will pursue “vengeance” against everyone who has ever opposed him if he is re-elected President.
There can also be no doubt that he will remain in office until he dies as “President-for-Life.”
When Andrew Jackson, seventh President of the United States from 1829 to 1837, was close to death, he asked his doctor: “What act of my administration will be most severely condemned by future Americans?”
“Perhaps the removal of the bank deposits,” said the doctor—referring to Jackson’s withdrawal of U.S. Government monies from the first Bank of the United States.
“Oh, no,” said Jackson, his eyes blazing. “I can tell you. Posterity will condemn me more because I was persuaded not to hang John C. Calhoun as a traitor than for any other act in my life!”
John C. Calhoun had once been Vice President under Jackson and later a United States Senator from South Carolina. His fiery, pro-slavery rhetoric and radical theories of “nullification” of Federal laws played a major role in bringing on the Civil War (1861-1865).
Whether Biden moves to prevent a Trump/Republican dictatorship or allows it to become reality, he will be simultaneously praised and damned by future generations of Americans.
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In Bureaucracy, Business, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Military, Politics, Social commentary on July 9, 2024 at 12:10 am
The Supreme Court has spoken. And Donald Trump, who tried to treasonously overturn the 2020 Presidential election and make himself “President-for-Life,” is now armed with the almost total immunity he has long sought.
As Trump and his entrenched Right-wing allies move ever closer to establishing an absolute dictatorship, this is an apt time to discover—or rediscover—the frighteningly real world of The Profession, a 2011 futuristic novel by bestselling author Steven Pressfield.
Steven Pressfield
Pressfield had previously made his mark as an author of historical novels—primarily set in ancient Greece.
In Gates of Fire (1998) he explored the rigors and heroism of Spartan society—and the famous last stand of its 300 picked warriors at Thermopylae.
In The Virtues of War (2004) Pressfield adopted the identity of Alexander the Great, explaining what it was like to command invincible armies that swept across the known world.
Finally, in The Afghan Campaign (2006) he chronicled—from the viewpoint of a lowly Greek soldier—Alexander’s brutal, three-year anti-guerrilla campaign in Afghanistan.
But in The Profession, Pressfield created a seemingly plausible world set in the future. The book’s dust jacket offers an excellent summary of its plot-line:
“The year is 2032. Everywhere military force is for hire. Oil companies, multi-national corporations and banks employ powerful, cutting-edge mercenary armies to control global chaos and protect their riches.
“Even nation states enlist mercenary forces to suppress internal insurrections, hunt terrorists, and do the black bag jobs necessary to maintain the new New World Order.
“Force Insertion is the world’s merc monopoly. Its leader is the disgraced former United States Marine General James Salter, stripped of his command by the president for nuclear saber-rattling with the Chinese and banished to the Far East.
“A grandmaster military and political strategist, Salter plans to take vengeance on those responsible for his exile and then come home…as Commander in Chief.”
Salter appears as a hybrid of World War II General Douglas MacArthur and Iraqi War General Stanley McCrystal. Like MacArthur, Salter has butted heads with his President—and paid dearly for it. Now his ambition—like MacArthur—is to become President himself by popular acclaim.
Douglas MacArthur
And like McCrystal, he is a pure warrior who leads from the front and is revered by his men. Salter seizes Saudi oil fields and strategically rigs them with explosives to be used if threatened.
Then he offers them as a gift to America. By doing so, he makes himself the most popular man in the country—and a guaranteed occupant of the White House.
Stanley McCrystal
And in 2032 the United States is a far different nation from the one its Founding Fathers created in 1776.
“Any time that you have the rise of mercenaries…society has entered a twilight era, a time past the zenith of its arc,” says Salter. “The United States is an empire…but the American people lack the imperial temperament. We’re not legionaries, we’re mechanics. In the end the American Dream boils down to what? ‘I’m getting mine and the hell with you.'”
Americans, asserts Salter, have come to like mercenaries: “They’ve had enough of sacrificing their sons and daughters in the name of some illusory world order. They want someone else’s sons and daughters to bear the burden….
“They want their problems to go away. They want me to make them go away.”
Yet unlike Donald Trump, who infamously shouted, “I love the poorly educated!” Salter is a highly intellectual man. He feels himself a tragic figure, lamenting that the United States has abandoned its longstanding political values even as he prepares to extinguish the most basic one by becoming dictator.
“The moment compels me to seize it. If I don’t someone or something worse will step in. But if I perform the bidding of Necessity, I violate the code of the republic to which all of us have sworn allegiance. I cross a line, beyond which there can be no return.
“But what, I ask, is the alternative? The nation has lost its way and is struggling desperately, merely to hang on. The nation can’t go on as it is, and everyone knows it. If not me, who? If not me, what?
“So, yes, I will go home. And yes, I will accept whatever crown, of paper or gold, that my country wants to press upon me. Not because I believe such a coronation will make any difference in the long run.
“But maybe in the short run, it’s better that my hand be on the wheel rather than some other self-aggrandizing sonofabitch whose motives might not be as well-intentioned or whose consciousness so painfully evolved.”
At a nationally televised press conference, Salter hands a loaded pistol to a longtime friend and disciple who now fears his dictatorial ambitions.
“Go ahead,” says Salter. “You’ll be saving the republic. And me, too.”
But the former disciple cannot bring himself to kill his longtime idol: “Now I’m guilty with you,” he says.
Steven Pressfield, in a work of fiction, has given us a nightmarish vision of a futuristic America.
Donald Trump and his Right-wing disciples may soon make that vision a reality.
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In Business, History, Law, Medical, Politics, Social commentary on June 21, 2024 at 12:05 am
On October 3, 2022, former President Donald Trump filed a lawsuit against CNN for defamation.
Seeking $475 million in punitive damages, he charged the network with conducting a “campaign of libel and slander” against him.
Trump claimed that CNN had used its influence to defeat him politically.
“As a part of its concerted effort to tilt the political balance to the left, CNN has tried to taint the Plaintiff with a series of ever-more scandalous, false, and defamatory labels of ‘racist,’ ‘Russian lackey,’ ‘insurrectionist,’ and ultimately ‘Hitler,'” the lawsuit claimed.
The lawsuit focused largely on CNN’s use of the term, “The Big Lie,” to describe Trump’s false claims that widespread voter fraud cost him the 2020 Presidential election.
The phrase dates from Adolf Hitler’s use of it in his autobiography, Mein Kampf: People “more readily fall victims to the big lie than the small lie, since they themselves often tell small lies in little matters but would be ashamed to resort to large-scale falsehoods.”
Trump’s lawsuit claimed “The Big Lie” had been used in referring to him more than 7,700 times on CNN since January, 2021.
In addition, the lawsuit cited instances where CNN compared Trump to Hitler. In a January, 2022 report, Fareed Zakaria provided footage of Germany’s dictator.
On July 28, 2023, a federal judge in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, threw out Trump’s defamation lawsuit.
U.S. Judge Raag Singhal, who was nominated by Trump in 2019, said CNN’s words were opinion, not fact, and therefore could not be the subject of a defamation claim.
“CNN’s statements while repugnant, were not, as a matter of law, defamatory,” wrote Singhal. “Being ‘Hitler-like’ is not a verifiable statement of fact that would support a defamation claim.”
Trump, in fact, had zero chance of winning his lawsuit.
First: Donald Trump is a public figure—arguably the most public figure in the world. Plaintiffs who are public figures or government officials must prove themselves victims of actual malice to collect damages.
In the landmark case, New York Times v. Sullivan (1964) the Supreme Court declared that actual malice occurs when a statement is made “with knowledge that it was false or with reckless disregard of whether it was false or not.”
This is a more stringent standard than private citizens have to meet, which is negligence.
Donald Trump
Second: Truth is an absolute defense against libel (unless the plaintiff is suing for invasion of privacy). And Trump’s history as a liar, criminal and traitor has been thoroughly established.
Liar:
- He created the lie that Barack Obama—whose birth certificate states unequivocally that he was born in Hawaii—was not an American citizen. The reason: To de-legitimize Obama as a Presidential candidate and President.
- Throughout 2020, he repeatedly lied about the dangers of COVID-19—attacking medical experts who urged citizens to mask up and social distance. As a result, by the time he left office, 400,000 Americans had died of COVID.
Criminal:
- He has been forced to shut down his Trump Foundation and forced to pay more than $2 million in court-ordered damages to eight different charities for illegally misusing charitable funds at the Foundation for political purposes.
- He was also forced to close his unaccredited Trump University for scamming its students. He had promised to teach them “the secrets of success” in the real estate industry—then delivered nothing. In 2016, a federal court approved a $25 million settlement with many of those students.
Traitor:
- On July 9, 2016, high-ranking members of his Presidential campaign met at Trump Tower with at least two lobbyists who had ties to Russian dictator Vladimir Putin. The reason: To obtain “dirt” on Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton.
- On July 27, 2016, Trump said at a press conference in Doral, Florida: “Russia, if you’re listening, I hope you are able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing [from Democratic Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton’s computer]. I think you will probably be rewarded mightily by our press.”
These incidents were nothing less than treason—inviting a foreign power, hostile to the United States, to interfere in its Presidential election.
Third—and perhaps the most important of all: In a libel suit, the plaintiff must answer—under oath—all questions put to him by the defendant’s attorneys.
Trump, better than anyone, knows the depths of his own criminality. Just as Al Capone knew his notoriety for evil would make it impossible for him to win a libel suit, so does Trump.
On August 10, 2022, he invoked his Fifth Amendment privilege against self-incrimination nearly 450 times during a deposition at the office of New York Attorney General Letitia James, in its probe into the Trump Organization’s business practices.
And during April-May, 2024 trial for paying hush-money to porn “star” Stormy Daniels, he refused to take the witness stand.
If he refused to testify as a litigant in a libel suit, the suit would be dismissed by the judge.
So why did he file a defamation suit against CNN?
Money—not by winning an impossible lawsuit, but by raising it from his gullible and Fascistic followers.
He could claim “The court system is rigged against me.” And know that his Stormtrumper army would gladly empty their pockets—to pay his ever-mounting legal expenses.
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FIVE MAPS TO SOUTHERN INFAMY: PART ONE (OF TWO)
In Bureaucracy, History, Medical, Politics, Social commentary on October 2, 2024 at 12:08 amThroughout its history the South has been a hotbed of treason, racism and ignorance.
Today, it proudly continues holding fast to these traditions—as it threatens the entire country with a Fascistic dictatorship under Donald Trump.
Infamy 1: 1860 – 1865 – The Confederate States of America.
Union (blue) and Confederate (red) states: 1860 – 1865
Júlio Reis, CC BY-SA 3.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0>, via Wikimedia Commons
From 1860 to 1865, the South—Texas, Arkansas, Louisiana, Tennessee, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, Florida, South Carolina, North Carolina and Virginia—produced the greatest case of mass treason in America’s history.
According to The Destructive War, by Charles Royster, it wasn’t the cause of “states’ rights” that led 13 Southern states to withdraw from the Union in 1860-61. It was their demand for “respect,” which, in reality, translates into “e-g-o.”
“The respect Southerners demanded did not consist simply of the states’ sovereignty or of the equal rights of Northern and Southern citizens, including slaveholders’ right to take their chattels into Northern territory.
“It entailed, too, respect for their assertion of the moral superiority of slaveholding society over free society,” writes Royster.
It was not enough for Southerners to claim equal standing with Northerners; Northerners must acknowledge it. But this was something that the North was increasingly unwilling to do.
Finally, its citizens dared to elect Abraham Lincoln as President in 1860.
Lincoln and his new Republican party damned slavery—and slaveholders—as morally evil, obsolete and ultimately doomed. And they were determined to prevent slavery from spreading any further throughout the country.
Southerners found all of this intolerable.
Lincoln—during his First Inaugural Address—bluntly said that he did not intend to “directly or indirectly…interfere with the institution of slavery in the States where it exists. I believe I have no lawful right to do so, and I have no inclination to do so.”
Abraham Lincoln
But that was not enough for Southerners.
Only 10% of Southerners owned slaves. The other 90% of the population “had no dog in this fight,” as Southerners liked to say.
Yet they so admired and aspired to be like their “gentleman betters” that they threw in their lot with them.
On April 12, 1861—just over a month since Lincoln’s inauguration on March 4—Southern batteries opened fire on Union Fort Sumter in Charleston Harbor, South Carolina.
This ignited the American Civil War, costing the lives of 750,000 Americans—at a time when the population of the United States stood at 31,443,321.
Four years later, Confederate General Robert E. Lee surrendered the Army of Northern Virginia to Union General Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox Courthouse.
Huge sections of the South had been laid waste by Union troops and more than 258,000 Southerners had been killed.
And slavery, the mainstay of Southern plantation life, had been ended forever.
The South had paid a high price for its investment in treason.
Infamy 2: 1964 – 2024 – Racism breeds Southern Republicans.
In 1964, Democratic President Lyndon B. Johnson pushed the Civil Rights Act through Congress, ending more than a century of blatant discrimination against blacks.
The South—which before the Civil War had been solidly Democratic—suddenly went solidly Republican.
To understand this mammoth shift, it’s vital to realize: In Lincoln’s time, the Republicans were the party of progressives.
The party was founded on an anti-slavery platform. Its members were thus reviled as “Black Republicans.” And until the 1960s, the South was solidly Democratic.
Democrats were the ones defending the status quo—slavery—and opposing the rights of freed blacks in the South of Reconstruction and long afterward.
When, in the early 1960s, Democrats championed the rights of blacks, Southerners bolted for the Republican party—which held to the same values that slavery/discrimination-supporting Democrats once did.
After signing the Civil Rights Act of 1964 into law, President Lyndon B. Johnson told an aide: “We have just lost the South for a generation.”
Johnson was wrong: A generation lasts 20 to 30 years. It’s been 60 years since the signing of the Act, and the South is still solidly within the Republican camp.
1968 election
Infamy 3: 2016 – Fascist racism elects Donald Trump as President.
Repeatedly, when asked why they supported Trump, his followers said: “He says what I’ve been thinking!”
And what Trump appealed to, above all else, was racist hatred.
From June 15, 2015, when he launched his Presidential campaign, until October 24, 2016, Trump fired almost 4,000 angry, insulting tweets at 281 people and institutions that had somehow offended him.
Donald Trump
The New York Times needed two full pages of its print edition to showcase them.
Among his targets:
Red States voted for Donald Trump – 2016
BobWyatt07, CC BY-SA 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons
Whites comprised the overwhelming majority of the audiences at Trump rallies. Not all were racists, but many of those who were advertised it on T-shirts: “MAKE AMERICA WHITE AGAIN.”
And the vast majority of the white votes Trump got were in the South.
The 2008 election of Barack Obama as the first black President had shocked whites. His 2012 re-election had deprived them of the hope that 2008 had been an accident.
In 2016 macho, largely uneducated, anti-black Southern males couldn’t accept a woman—Hillary Clinton—occupying the White House.
They ignored reputable reports—later confirmed—that Trump’s campaign was backed by Russian oligarchs linked to Russian dictator Vladimir Putin, the former head of the KGB.
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