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In Bureaucracy, History, Medical, Politics, Social commentary on May 8, 2020 at 12:09 am
Donald Trump’s appearance at the Conservative Political Action Conference on March 2, 2019 was an occasion for rejoicing among his supporters.
But for those who prize rationality and decency in a President, it was a dismaying and frightening experience.
For two hours, Trump gave free reign to his anger and egomania.
Among his unhinged commentaries:
“We have people in Congress that hate our country.”
If you don’t agree 100% with Trump on everything, you’re a traitor.
“He called me up. He said, ‘You’re a great President. You’re doing a great job.’ He said, ‘I just want to tell you you’re a great President and you’re one of the smartest people I’ve ever met.'”
Trump attributed these remarks to California’s liberal governor, Gavin Newsom. On February 11, 2019, Newsom had announced he was withdrawing several hundred National Guardsmen from the state’s southern border with Mexico—defying Trump’s request for support from border states.
Donald Trump at CPAC
“You know if you remember my first major speech—you know the dishonest media they’ll say, ‘He didn’t get a standing ovation.’ You know why? Because everybody stood and nobody sat. They are the worst. They leave that out.”
Once again, he’s the persecuted victim of an unfair and totally unappreciative news media.
“And I love the First Amendment; nobody loves it better than me. Nobody. I mean, who use its more than I do? But the First Amendment gives all of us—it gives it to me, it gives it to you, it gives it to all Americans, the right to speak our minds freely. It gives you the right and me the right to criticize fake news and criticize it strongly.”
Trump has repeatedly called the nation’s free press “the enemy of the people”—a slander popularized by Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin. And while Trump brags about his usage of the First Amendment, he’s used Non-Disclosure agreements and threats of lawsuits to deny that right to others.
“For too long, we’ve traded away our jobs to other countries. So terrible.”
While this remark got rousing applause, he failed to mention that his own products are made overseas:
- Ties: Made in China
- Suits: Made in Indonesia
- Trump Vodka: Made in the Netherlands, and later in Germany
- Crystal glasses, decanters: Made in Slovenia
- And the clothing and accessories line of his daughter, Ivanka, is produced entirely in factories in Bangladesh, Indonesia and China.
“By the way, you folks are in here—this place is packed, there are lines that go back six blocks and I tell you that because you won’t read about it, OK.”
He’s obsessed with fear that the media won’t make him look popular.
“So we’re all part of this very historic movement, a movement the likes of which, actually, the world has never seen before. There’s never been anything like this. There’s been some movements, but there’s never been anything like this.”
Trump sees himself as the single greatest figure in history. So anything he’s involved with must be unprecedented.
“But I always say, Obamacare doesn’t work. And these same people two years ago and a year ago were complaining about Obamacare.”
In 2010, 48 million Americans lacked health insurance. By 2016, that number had been reduced to 28.6 million. So 20 million Americans now have access to medical care they previously couldn’t get.
“But we’re taking a firm, bold and decisive measure, we have to, to turn things around [with North Korea]. The era of empty talk is over, it’s over.”
- Trump has boasted that he and North Korean dictator Kim Jong-Un “fell in love.” Then he met with Kim in Vietnam—and got stiffed on a deal for North Korea to give up its nuclear weapons.
- 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—instead of Putin for Russia’s subversion of the 2016 Presidential election.
“I’ll tell you what they [agents of Immigration and Customs Enforcement] do, they came and endorsed me, ICE came and endorsed me. They never endorsed a presidential candidate before, they might not even be allowed to.”
Trump can’t stop boasting about how popular he is.
“These are hard-working, great, great Americans. These are unbelievable people who have not been treated fairly. Hillary called them deplorable. They’re not deplorable.”
On the contrary: “Deplorable” is exactly the word for those who vote their racism, ignorance, superstition and hatred of their fellow citizens.
A FINAL NOTE: Trump held himself up for adoration just three days after Michael Cohen, his longtime fixer:
- Damned him as a racist, a conman and a cheat.
- Revealed that Trump had cheated on his taxes and bought the silence of a porn “star” to prevent her revealing a 2006 tryst before the 2016 election.
- Estimated he had stiffed, on Trump’s behalf, hundreds of workers Trump owed money to.
And, only two days earlier, Trump had returned from a much-ballyhooed meeting in Vietnam with North Korean dictator Kim Jong-Un. Trump hoped to get a Nobel Peace Prize by persuading Kim to give up his nuclear arsenal.
Instead, Trump got stiffed—and returned empty-handed.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Medical, Politics, Social commentary on May 7, 2020 at 12:17 am
“Is this man simply crazy, or is he crazy like a fox?”
That was the question that Bandy X. Lee, an assistant clinical psychiatry professor at the Yale School of Medicine, wanted to answer.
And she tried to do so as the editor of The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump: 27 Psychiatrists and Mental Health Experts Assess a President.
“It doesn’t take a psychiatrist to notice that our president is mentally compromised,” she and colleague Judith Lewis Herman asserted in the book’s prologue.
According to Dr. Craig Malkin, a Lecturer in Psychology for Harvard Medical School and a licensed psychologist, Trump is a pathological narcissist:
“Pathological narcissism begins,” Malkin writes, “when people become so addicted to feeling special that, just like with any drug, they’ll do anything to get their ‘high,’ including lie, steal, cheat, betray and even hurt those closest to them.
“When they can’t let go of their need to be admired or recognized, they have to bend or invent a reality in which they remain special despite all messages to the contrary. In point of fact, they become dangerously psychotic. It’s just not always obvious until it’s too late.”
Lance Dodes, a retired psychiatry professor at Harvard Medical School, believes that Trump is a sociopath: “The failure of normal empathy is central to sociopathy, which is marked by an absence of guilt, intentional manipulation and controlling or even sadistically harming others for personal power or gratification.”
But an observer didn’t need to be a psychiatrist to feel frightened by Trump’s behavior at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) on March 2, 2019.
For two hours, in National Harbor, Maryland, Trump delivered the longest address (so far) of his Presidency—and of any American President.
“You know, I’m totally off script right now,” Trump said early on. “This is how I got elected, by being off script.”
And from the moment he embraced an American flag as though he wanted to hump it, it was clear: He was “totally off script.”
“How many times did you hear, for months and months, ‘There is no way to 270?’ You know what that means, right? ‘There is no way to 270.'”
Once again, Trump reveals his obsession with his win in 2016—as if no one else had ever been elected President.
“If you tell a joke, if you’re sarcastic, if you’re having fun with the audience, if you’re on live television with millions of people and 25,000 people in an arena, and if you say something like, ‘Russia, please, if you can, get us Hillary Clinton’s emails. Please, Russia, please.'”
Here he’s trying to “spin” his infamous invitation to hackers in Vladimir Putin’s Russia to intervene in an American Presidential election by obtaining the emails of his campaign rival. Which they did that same day.
“So now we’re waiting for a report, and we’ll find out whether or not, and who we’re dealing with. We’re waiting for a report by people that weren’t elected.”
It doesn’t matter to Trump that America’s foremost enemy—Russia—tried to influence a Presidential election. What matters to him is that the report might end his Presidency.
“Those red hats—and white ones. The key is in the color. The key is what it says. ‘Make America Great Again’ is what it says. Right? Right?”
Color matters. Words, ideas don’t.
“Now, Robert Mueller never received a vote, and neither did the person that appointed him. And as you know, the attorney general says, ‘I’m going to recuse myself.'”
Special Counsel Robert S. Mueller and Assistant Attorney General Rod Rosenstein were career Justice Department officials. They weren’t voted into office.
“Number one, I’m in love, and you’re in love. We’re all in love together. There’s so much love in this room, it’s easy to talk. You can talk your heart out. You really could. There’s love in this room. You can talk your heart out. It’s easy. It’s easy. It’s easy.”
Trump apparently finds it easy to fall in love—with Right-wing audiences and Communist dictators such as Kim Jong-Un.
“And from the day we came down the escalator, I really don’t believe we’ve had an empty seat at any arena, at any stadium. They did the same thing at our big inauguration speech. You take a look at those crowds.”
Once again, he must brag about how popular he is and how many people want to listen to him.
“A few days ago I called the fake news the enemy of the people. And they are. They are the enemy of the people. Because they have no sources, they just make ’em up when there are none.”
By January 20, 2020, The Washington Post found that Trump had made “16,241 ‘false or misleading claims” in his first three years in office. He is in no position to talk about integrity.
“But we’re going to have regulation. It’s going to be really strong and really good and we’re going to protect our environment and we’re going to protect the safety of our people and our workers, OK?”
To “protect our environment,” Trump appointed Andrew R. Wheeler, a former coal company lobbyist, to head the Environmental Protection Agency.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Medical, Politics, Social commentary on May 6, 2020 at 11:13 am
“One man in the free world has the power to launch a nuclear war that might destroy civilization: the President of the United States. What if that man were mentally unbalanced?”
That is the premise of the 1965 novel, Night at Camp David, by Fletcher Knebel.
At the time of its release, its plot was considered so over-the-top as to be worthy of science fiction:
Iowa Democratic Senator Jim MacVeagh is summoned to Camp David, the Presidential retreat, by President Mark Hollenbach. MacVeagh is expected to become Hollenbach’s next Vice President. But he becomes alarmed that Hollenbach is clearly suffering from intense paranoia.
He wants to develop a closer relationship between the United States and Russia—while cutting ties with American allies in Europe. Moreover, Hollenbach believes the American news media are conspiring against him with his political enemies.
Only one person possesses evidence that Hollenbach is losing his grip on sanity—his mistress, Rita. Desperate to retain his power, Hollenbach orders the FBI to investigate both MacVeagh and Rita.
So why was a 53-year-old novel released in 2018? The answer lies in two words: Donald Trump.
In a November 30, 2018 review of Night at Camp David, Tom McCarthy, national affairs correspondent for the British newspaper, The Guardian, writes:
“The current president has seen crowds where none exist, deployed troops to answer no threat, attacked national institutions – the military, the justice department, the judiciary, the vote, the rule of law, the press – tried to prosecute his political enemies, elevated bigots, oppressed minorities, praised despots while insulting global allies and wreaked diplomatic havoc from North Korea to Canada.
“He stays up half the night watching TV and tweeting about it, then wakes up early to tweet some more, in what must be the most remarkable public diary of insecurity, petty vindictiveness, duplicity and scattershot focus by a major head of state in history.”
From the beginning of his Presidency, Trump aroused fear—based not only of what he might do, but that he might be mentally unbalanced. Consider:
On March 4, 2017, in a series of unhinged tweets, he accused former President Barack Obama of tapping his Trump Tower phones prior to the election:
“Terrible! Just found out that Obama had my ‘wires tapped’ in Trump Tower just before the victory. Nothing found. This is McCarthyism!”
“Is it legal for a sitting President to be ‘wire tapping’ a race for president prior to an election? Turned down by court earlier. A NEW LOW!”
“I’d bet a good lawyer could make a great case out of the fact that President Obama was tapping my phones in October, just prior to Election!”
“How low has President Obama gone to tapp my phones during the very sacred election process. This is Nixon/Watergate. Bad (or sick) guy!”
A subsequent investigation by the Justice Department turned up no evidence to substantiate Trump’s foray into Presidential libel.
Donald Trump
Trump’s shoot-first-and-never-mind-the-consequences approach to life has been thoroughly documented.
From June 15, 2015, when he launched his Presidential campaign, until October 24, 2016, he fired nearly 4,000 angry, insulting tweets at 281 people and institutions. The New York Times needed two full pages of its print edition to showcase them.
Among these targets were:
- His Democratic rival, Hillary Clinton
- His fellow Republican Presidential candidates
- Actress Meryl Streep
- News organizations
- President Barack Obama
- Comedian John Oliver
- The Affordable Care Act (Obamacare)
- Singer Neil Young
- The state of New Jersey
- Actor Arnold Schwarzenegger.
And during his first two weeks as President, Trump attacked 22 people, places and things on his @realDonaldTrump Twitter account.
Trump’s vindictiveness, his narcissism, his compulsive aggression, his complaints that his “enemies” in government and the press are trying to destroy him, have caused many to ask: Could the President of the United States be suffering from mental illness?
One who has dared to answer this question is John D. Gartner, a practicing psychotherapist.
John D. Gartner
Gartner graduated magna cum laude from Princeton University, received his Ph.D in clinical psychology from the University of Massachusetts, and served as a part-time assistant professor of psychiatry at Johns Hopkins University Medical School for 28 years.
During an interview by U.S. News & World Report (published on January 27, 2017), Gartner said: “Donald Trump is dangerously mentally ill and temperamentally incapable of being president.”
Gartner said that Trump suffers from “malignant narcissism,” whose symptoms include:
- anti-social behavior
- sadism
- aggressiveness
- paranoia
- and grandiosity.
“We’ve seen enough public behavior by Donald Trump now that we can make this diagnosis indisputably,” says Gartner, who admits he has not personally examined Trump.
More of that behavior was on full display on March 2, 2019 at the annual Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), held at the Gaylord National Resort & Convention Center, National Harbor, Maryland.
For more than two hours, Trump delivered the longest speech (so far) of his Presidency to his fanatically Right-wing audience.
Facing a hostile Democratic House of Representatives and a potentially explosive report by Special Counsel Robert Mueller, Trump threw down the gauntlet.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Law Enforcement, Politics, Social commentary on May 5, 2020 at 12:05 am
Ask the average person, “What do you think of Niccolo Machiavelli?” and he’s likely to say: “The devil.”
In fact, “The Old Nick” became an English term used to describe Satan and slander Machiavelli at the same time.
The truth, however, is more complex. Machiavelli was a passionate Republican, who spent most of his adult life in the service of his beloved city-state, Florence.
Florence, for all its wealth, lacked a strong army, and thus lay at the mercy of powerful enemies, such as Cesare Borgia. Machiavelli often had to use his wits to keep them at bay.
Machiavelli (1469 – 1527) is best-known for his writing of The Prince, a pamphlet on the arts of gaining and holding power. Its admirers have included Benito Mussolini and Joseph Stalin.
Niccolo Machiavelli
Contrary to popular belief, Machiavelli did not advocate evil for its own sake. Rather, he recognized that sometimes there is no perfect—or perfectly good—solution to a problem.
Sometimes it’s necessary to take stern—even brutal—action to stop an evil (such as a riot) before it becomes widespread:
In Chapter 19 of The Prince, he outlines: “That We Must Avoid Being Despised and Hated.” According to Machiavelli:
He is rendered despicable by being thought changeable, frivolous, effeminate, timid and irresolute—which a prince must guard against as a rock of danger….
[He] must contrive that his actions show grandeur, spirit, gravity and fortitude. As to the government of his subjects, let his sentence be irrevocable, and let him adhere to his decisions so that no one may think of deceiving or cozening him.
And in Chapter 17, he advises rulers to not fear taking decisive—even brutal—action when public order is threatened:
…A prince, therefore, must not mind incurring the charge of cruelty for the purpose of keeping his subjects united and faithful. For, with a very few examples, he will be more merciful than those who, from excess of tenderness, allow disorders to arise, from whence spring blood and rapine. For these as a rule injure the whole community, while the executions carried out by the prince injure only individuals.
The mayor of Stillwater, Oklahoma, would have done well to remember that.
On April 30, Mayor Will Joyce issued an emergency proclamation, requiring the use of face masks in stores and restaurants by both customers and employees.
With more than 60,000 Americans dead of the Coronavirus pandemic, this no doubt seemed like a prudent course of action.
But common sense is not a quality characteristic of the radical Right—particularly among the followers of President Donald Trump.
For weeks, demonstrations have erupted across the country against stay-at-home orders issued by mayors and governors in a desperate effort to halt the spread of COVID-19.
While those protesting have claimed they’re “fighting for my Constitutional rights,” the real reasons come down to: Ignorance and egotism.
Less than 24 hours after issuing the emergency declaration, the mayor backed down.
“In the short time beginning on May 1, 2020, that face coverings have been required for entry into stores/restaurants, store employees have been threatened with physical violence and showered with verbal abuse,” City Manager Norman McNickle said in a statement. “In addition, there has been one threat of violence using a firearm.
“This has occurred in three short hours and in the face of clear medical evidence that face coverings helps contain the spread of Covid-19.”
In a series of tweets, Mayor Joyce wrote: “I hate that our businesses and their employees had to deal with abuse today, and I apologize for putting them in that position.
“I am not the kind of person who backs down from bullies, but I also will not send someone else to fight the battle for me,”
Will Joyce
The proclamation issued on April 30 required businesses to require patrons to cover their faces to protect others from possible spread of COVID-19.
Joyce’s amended emergency declaration now encourages, not requires, face coverings for customers. Face masks are still required for store employees and are now “strongly recommended” for customers.
Oklahoma statute § 21-1378 states that it is unlawful to attempt or threaten an act of violence that is intended to cause severe bodily harm or death to another person. Such an act is a felony. A threat to kill or harm someone is a misdemeanor.
But laws are useless without the capacity for enforcement. And clearly Joyce was unwilling to order police to arrest and jail the threat-makers.
Instead, Joyce resorted to Twitter to “strike back” at those who posed a clear and present threat to public safety:
“To the people who resort to threats and intimidation when asked to take a simple step to protect your community: shame on you. Our freedom as Americans comes with responsibilities, too.”
In a similar gesture of official impotence, City manager Norman McNickle said:”The wearing of face coverings is little inconvenience to protect both the wearer and anyone with whom they have contact. It is unfortunate and distressing that those who refuse and threaten violence are so self-absorbed as to not follow what is a simple show of respect and kindness to others.”
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In Uncategorized on May 4, 2020 at 12:26 am
Employers often whine that they can’t find the talent they need. Today’s applicants, they claim, lack skills, education and even a willingness to work.
The truth is altogether different.
Every year, millions of capable, willing-to-work Americans now unemployed because of the arrogance, greed and/or laziness of employers.
So says Peter Cappelli, the George W. Taylor professor of management at the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania.
Peter Cappelli,
He is also the author of Why Good People Can’t Get Jobs: The Skills Gap and What Companies Can Do About It.
According to Cappelli:
- Hiring managers create wildly inflated descriptions of the talents and skills needed for openings: “They ask for the moon.”
- Computer technology eliminates many qualified people for consideration when their resumes don’t match the inflated qualifications demanded by employers.
- Employers aren’t willing to pay for the education and skills they demand: “What they really want is someone young, cheap, and experienced.”
- Online applicants are often told to name a salary expectation. Anyone who names a salary higher salary than what the company is willing to offer is automatically excluded. There’s no chance to negotiate the matter.
- About 10% of employers admit that the problem is that their desired candidates refuse to accept the positions at the wage level being offered.
- Employers are not looking to hire entry-level applicants right out of school. They want experienced candidates who can contribute immediately with no training or start-up time.
- Employers demand that a single employee perform the work of several highly skilled employees. One company wanted an employee to be an expert in (1) human resources, (2) marketing, (3) publishing, (4) project management, (5) accounting and (6) finance.
- When employers can’t find the “perfect candidate” they leave positions unfilled for months. Meanwhile, if they were willing to offer some training, they might easily find somebody who could come in tomorrow and do the job.
- Companies have stopped hiring new college graduates and grooming them for management ranks. They no longer have their own training and development departments. Without systems for developing people, companies must recruit outsiders.
- Employers’ unrealistic expectations are fueled partly by their own arrogance. There are now more than three jobless people for every job opening.
- Imperfect employers believe they should be able to find these “perfect people.”
Here are some other reasons why so many willing-to-work job-seekers cannot find willing-to-hire employers:
- Height: Dr. Timothy A. Judge, of the University of Florida and researcher Dr. Daniel M. Cable, of the University of North Carolina, found tha taller a man is, the more he’s likely to earn. A 6’0″ tall man will make over $160,000 more over the course of a 30-year career than a shorter man in that same position.
- Hair Color: Women with blond hair earn 7% more than those with darker hair, according to a study by the University of Queensland.
- Facial Type: A Duke University study found that mature-looking Caucasian men were seen as more powerful in the workplace than their younger men.
- Amount of Hair: Hair implants and plastic surgery can actually improve your workplace standings–and bring in a bigger paycheck.
- Smile: Rick Wilson of Rice University found that people who smiled were considered more trustworthy than people who didn’t.
So you’re a job-seeker who’s highly educated, skilled and experienced–and are eager to apply those qualifications for an employer.
But: The employer doesn’t like it that:
- You’re a man who’s shorter than 6 feet.
- You’re a woman whose hair color is brown or red.
- Your facial type isn’t that of a “mature-looking Caucasian man.”
- You’re a man who’s bald or balding.
- You’re by nature serious, and not inclined to smile a lot.
So, for reasons that have nothing to do with your ability to work, you don’t get hired. Or, if you do, you don’t get promoted.
Yet you’re the one who gets blamed for being out-of-work, or for not being promoted.
Because employers are legally allowed to behave as irresponsibly as they wish.
One such corporate employer, J. Willard Marriott, was infamous for the way he promoted executives. Marriott—the owner of A&W Root Beer and Marriott Hotels—would treat a promotion-ready executive to dinner. Then Marriott waited to see if the executive put salt and/or pepper on his food before tasting it.
If he did, he could forget his promotion as far as Marriott was concerned.
Supposedly, Marriott believed that such a candidate was unwilling to explore situations before making a decision.
Other CEOs have refused to hire or promote on whether the applicant chose steak or fish for his lunch/dinner. Steak was thought to be a “man’s meal,” while fish was considered in some way unmanly.
Millions of willing-to-work Americans can find the employment merited by their education, skills and dedication.
But this will happen only when employers are held legally and financially accountable for their laziness, greed, arrogance and/or just plain insanity.
A first and major step in that direction: Stop electing those who take what amount to corporate bribes (i.e., “campaign contributions”) to the House of Representatives, the Senate and the Presidency.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Military, Politics on May 1, 2020 at 12:06 am
Why do Republican voters support sex predators?
Roy Moore’s 2017 run for Republican United States Senator from Alabama offers several answers.
To attain his goal, he had to overcome a serious obstacle: The allegation that, during his 30s, he pursued relationships with teenage girls.
At least nine women accused him of making improper advances toward them—ranging from harassment to sexual assault.
In years past, such allegations would have proven fatal for any political candidate—especially one who repeatedly cited the Bible as his source of inspiration.
But in 2016, Presidential candidate Donald Trump proved that more than a dozen women can accuse you of sexual harassment—or even assault—and you can still win office.
Roy Moore
So Moore hoped that what worked for Trump would work for him: Deny all the charges and accuse your accusers of lying in pursuit of a corrupt political agenda.
And many Alabama voters said they would support him—even if the charges were true.
Among the reasons they offered:
“The Lord has forgiven him.”
According to voter Dottie Finch: “At first, I really wasn’t sure how I felt about the situation. But then I look at it this way: I don’t have the best past, and to have it be brought up after years of speculation and never anything being said about it, I don’t know just because he’s trying to prove himself that now people want to come out of the closet and accuse him of things.
“And if it has happened, I believe the good Lord has forgiven him and he has the right to continue to prove himself.
“I would power forward and keep on supporting him, just like I have with Donald Trump as our president.”
“Yes, he acted improperly. But so did other people in the Bible.”
One such voter was Jim Ziegler, Alabama state auditor: “Take the Bible: Zechariah and Elizabeth, for instance. Zechariah was extremely old to marry Elizabeth and they became the parents of John the Baptist.
“Also take Joseph and Mary. Mary was a teenager and Joseph was an adult carpenter. They became parents of Jesus. There’s just nothing immoral or illegal here. Maybe just a little bit unusual.”
“If Democrats say it, it has to be untrue.”
According to voter Tom Cammack: “I feel that the Democrat Party, like a lot of things it does, tries to manufacture things to make President Trump look bad. It’s all done for political reasons.”
“He didn’t do anything wrong.”
Said Alfonso Bradford: “I don’t think he’s done anything like that. Why didn’t it come up seven to eight months ago when he was running? All of a sudden, when it’s two weeks from now, all of this stuff comes up. I believe it’s a lot of BS. I really do.”
“He may be a pedophile, but he’s a Republican pedophile.”
Even a pedophile Republican was better, in their eyes, than any Democrat. For them, it was strictly a matter of holding power over those they hate. And the best way to guarantee that was with a Congress stocked with only Republicans.
According to Alabama Governor Kay Ivey:
“I believe in the Republican party, what we stand for, and, most important, we need to have a Republican in the United States Senate to vote on things like the Supreme Court justices, other appointments the Senate has to confirm and make major decisions. So that’s what I plan to do, vote for Republican nominee Roy Moore.”
Fortunately for Alabama, Moore lost. His Democratic opponent, former United States Attorney Doug Jones, received 49.9% of the vote; Moore got 48.4%.
* * * * *
Seventy-five years ago, another fanatical, Right-wing woman concluded: “If we can’t rule the world, there’s no point in living in it.”
She was Magda Goebbels, wife of Joseph Goebbels—Propaganda Minister for the rapidly-collapsing Third Reich.
On April 30, 1945, Russian troops lay only a few blocks from the underground bunker where Adolf Hitler—and the Goebbels family—-awaited the inevitable.
That afternoon, at about 3 P.M., Hitler shot himself in the right temple while biting on a cyanide capsule.
Magda and Joseph Goebbels, with their six children and a uniformed friend
On May 1, it was the turn of his propaganda minister—and his wife.
“I do not wish to live in a world without National Socialism,” Magda Goebbels said.
Nor did she want her six children to do so: “The children are much too good for anything that will come after us.”
To make certain they escaped living in a world not governed by Nazis, she gave each of them a powerful sleeping tablet. Then she crushed a cyanide capsule between their jaws.
Finally, it was time to for Joseph and Magda Goebbels to exit the Third Reich: He shot her in the back of the head, and then he shot himself.
That, more than anything, was the mentality at work in the Alabama election.
Those supporting Moore cared, foremost, about having power over those they hate. And they gave their allegiance to any candidate, no matter how despicable, who promises to give them that.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Politics, Social commentary on April 30, 2020 at 1:10 am
On March 14, 2019, Robert Francis “Beto” O’Rourke announced his candidacy for President of the United States in the 2020 Presidential election.
The former Congressman from Texas (2013 – 2019) had no sooner announced his candidacy that Fox News host Brian Kilmeade attacked him.
Vanity Fair had published a profile on O’Rourke, in which the writer noted that he had a “huge library.”
“As if it’s a big plus that he reads books,” scoffed Kilmeade.
Robert Francis “Beto” O’Rourke
His comment echoed that by former “Godfather’s Pizza” CEO Herman Cain during the 2012 Presidential race: “We need a leader, not a reader.” Thus he excused his ignorance for why President Barack Obama had intervened in Libya.
And on April 4, 2019, Tucker Carlson, another star commentator on Fox, offered this gem: “How did we wind up with a country in which feminists do science? I mean, isn’t that sort of bound to get a study like this, right?”
He was referring to a study by Dr. Aaron Brough of Utah State University on how gender norms reflect buying choices that, in turn, affect the environment. He found that both men and women associated doing something good for the environment with being “more feminine.”
Brough and his team call this deeply-held unconscious bias the “Green-Feminine Stereotype.”
Carlson didn’t ask a scientist or climate-change expert to dissect the study’s conclusions. Instead, he interviewed Mark Steyn, a Right-wing author. Steyn joked that his insecurities about his masculinity “are causing rising sea levels in the Maldives” and that he was “kind of on board” with the study’s thesis.
Tucker Carlson
Gage Skidmore [CC BY-SA 2.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0)%5D
For Carlson, “climate science was all about ice core samples” and not Walmart gift cards.
For Steyn, “climate science is a state of mind” and the “big bucks” are in surveys where you “decide what’s heating up the planet is men.”
This disdain for education in general—and science in particular—has led to the following: In March, an NBC News poll found that only 30% of Republicans said that they would actually listen to the advice of doctors to stay away from large, crowded areas to avoid Coronavirus.
An August 20, 2019 story in Forbes noted that a Pew Research survey, conducted in July, had found that “67% of Democrats and Democrat-leaning respondents say higher education is having a positive effect on the country compared to only 33% of Republicans and Republican-leaning participants.”
Furthermore, “the percentage of Republicans attributing a positive effect to higher education has steadily eroded from 58% (2010), 53% (2012), 54% (2015), 43% (2016), and 36% (2017). Among Republicans, 59% now say higher education has a negative effect on the U.S., compared to just 18% of Democrats.”
These are the same people who get their version of reality from Right-wing sources like Fox News Network and Rush Limbaugh.
Rush Limbaugh
On his March 27 show, Limbaugh dismissed Coronavirus as “the common cold,” then added: “We didn’t elect a president to defer to a bunch of health experts that we don’t know.
“And how do we know they’re even health experts? Well, they wear white lab coats, and they’ve been in the job for a while, and they’re at the CDC and they’re at the NIH, and they’re up, well—yeah, they’ve been there, and they are there.
“But has there been any job assessment for them? They’re just assumed to be the best because they’re in government. But, these are all kinds of things that I’ve been questioning.”
President Donald Trump has gone even further in celebrating ignorance. At a campaign rally during the 2016 Presidential race, he infamously said: “We won the evangelicals. We won with young. We won with old. We won with highly educated. We won with poorly educated. I love the poorly educated.”
As President, he has attacked the free press as “the enemy of America” for exposing his lies and criminality. And while he repeatedly scorns legitimate mainstream news media, he often seeks guidance from ego-stroking Right-wing shills at Fox News—who often prove as ignorant as he is.
By contrast, President John F. Kennedy insisted on being well-informed. He speed-read several newspapers every morning and nourished personal relationships with the press. These journalistic contacts gave Kennedy additional sources of information and perspectives on national and international issues.
White House painting of JFK
During the height of the Cuban Missile Crisis, Kennedy spoke with aides about a book he had just finished: Barbara Tuchman’s The Guns of August, about the events leading to World War 1.
He said that the book’s most important revelation was how European leaders had blindly rushed into war, without thought to the possible consequences. Kennedy told his aides he did not intend to make the same mistake—that, having read his history, he was determined to learn from it.
Republicans attacked President Barack Obama for his Harvard education and articulate use of language. Among their taunts: “Hitler also gave good speeches.”
And they resented his having earned most of his income as a writer of two books: Dreams From My Father and The Audacity of Hope. As if being a writer is somehow subversive.
When knowledge and literacy are attacked as “highfalutin’” arrogance, and ignorance and incoherence are embraced as sincerity, national decline lies just around the corner.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Medical, Politics, Social commentary on April 29, 2020 at 10:29 am
On April 27, Joe Scarborough offered an important insight about why most Americans have ignored President Donald Trump’s crimes and outrages for so long:
“Back in January Joe Biden wrote an Op-Ed that the President was not prepared for this coming pandemic, and things were going to get worse. And he said ‘Let your doctors talk. Let your scientists talk. Follow their lead.’
“…And it’s been one scam idea after another, that people then promoted on other networks, scam doctors promoting these scam solutions, claiming that everybody who had taken this malaria drug had been cured in certain hospitals. This is just the sort of thing that catches up to Donald Trump.
“I’ve said from the very beginning: You can lie about independent counsels, people won’t listen. You can lie about former FBI directors—“
MIKA BRZEZINSKI: “It doesn’t impact their lives.”
JOE SCARBOROUGH: “They’re still going to work, the kids are doing fine, they’ve got enough money to pay their rent, to pay their mortgage, You can even lie about the Ukraine call—they don’t really care.
“But all of these lies, all of these scams that he’s been pushing…have been revealed as lies—not by the people on cable news, but by their doctors. By nurses they know. If you’ve got a doctor who’s been treating your family for 20-25 years, you’re going to believe that person more than a scam artist that’s pushing propaganda for Donald Trump on talk radio.”
On August 23, 2018, Trump appearing on “Fox and Friends,” said: “I tell you what, if I ever got impeached, I think the market would crash, I think everybody would be very poor.”
Donald Trump
Thus, he appealed to the greed and fear of his voting base—and no doubt hoped to reach beyond it: “Keep me in power or you’ll all suffer for it.”
Then-White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders bragged, on June 4, 2018:
“Since taking office, the President has strengthened American leadership, security, prosperity, and accountability. And as we saw from Friday’s jobs report, our economy is stronger, Americans are optimistic, and business is booming.”
Many Congressional Republicans echoed this: The American people care only about the economy—and how well-off they are.
For eight years, Nazi Germany underwent such an epoch. Germans called it “The Happy Time.”
It began on January 30, 1933, when Adolf Hitler became Chancellor—and lasted until June 22, 1941. Germans knew about the Nazis’ cruelty to the Jews, the mass arrests and concentration camps.
They didn’t care.
Frenzied Germans greet Adolf Hitler
The Gestapo didn’t have to watch everyone: German “patriots” gladly reported their fellow citizens—especially Jews—to the secret police.
As far as everyday Germans were concerned:
- The streets were clean and peaceful.
- Employment was high.
- The trouble-making unions were gone.
- Germany was once again “taking its rightful place” among ruling nations, after its catastrophic defeat in World War 1.
The height of “The Happy Time” came in June, 1940. In just six weeks, the Wehrmacht accomplished what the German army hadn’t in four years during World War 1: The total defeat of its longtime enemy, France.
Suddenly, French clothes, perfumes, delicacies, paintings and other “fortunes of war” came pouring into the Fatherland.
Most Germans believed der Krieg—“the war”—was over, and only good times lay ahead.
Then, on June 22, 1941, three million Wehrmacht soldiers slashed their way into the Soviet Union. The Third Reich was now locked in a death-struggle with a nation even more powerful than itself.
German soldiers in the Soviet Union
And then, on December 11, 1941—four days after Germany’s ally, Japan, attacked Pearl Harbor—Hitler declared war on the United States.
“The Happy Time” for Germans was over. Only prolonged disaster lay ahead.
Donald Trump has spent his life appealing to the greed or fear of those around him. For example:
- Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi personally solicited a political contribution from Trump around the same time her office deliberated joining an investigation of alleged fraud at Trump University and its affiliates.
- After Bondi dropped the Trump University case against Trump, he wrote her a $25,000 check for her re-election campaign.
- According to an April 14, 2019 story by ABC News, a nationwide review uncovered at least 36 criminal cases where Trump was invoked in direct connection with violent acts, threats of violence or allegations of assault.
- In nine cases, attackers hailed Trump in the midst or immediate aftermath of physically assaulting victims. In 10 more cases, perpetrators cheered or defended Trump while taunting or threatening others. And in another 10 cases, Trump and his rhetoric were cited in court to explain a defendant’s violent or threatening behavior.
But since January, Trump has come up against an enemy—to his re-election—that he can’t intimidate or buy off.
A deadly virus like COVID-19 doesn’t accept bribe-monies or grovel before a raging tyrant.
The Germans made a devil’s-bargain with Adolf Hitler—and paid dearly for it.
Millions of greedy Americans have embraced Donald Trump, another would-be tyrant, as America’s economic savior.
By supporting Trump—or at least not opposing him—they have also made a devil’s-bargain. And such bargains always end with the devil winning.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Medical, Politics, Social commentary on April 28, 2020 at 6:22 am
Since Easter weekend, President Donald Trump held almost 50 daily press briefings at the White House.
Their official purpose: To update the country on the administration’s ongoing response to the Coronavirus pandemic that has killed more than 56,521 people in the U.S.
Their real purpose: To serve as a substitute for Trump’s hate-filled political rallies, which have been likened to those staged by Germany’s Fuhrer, Adolf Hitler, at Nuremberg.
Trump rally
These have been temporarily cancelled due to demands for social distancing to stem the rising tide of the COVID-19 pandemic. That has been Trump’s primary reason for seeking to end social distancing.
The White House has tried hard to stage-manage these appearances. For example, on April 14, Trump interrupted the question-and-answer session by cutting to a White House-produced video to try to shame the media for critical coverage of his response to the crisis.
Over the weekend, the New York Times had reported that the administration had ignored early warnings about the coming pandemic.
Thus, the purpose of the video—to refute the Times‘ claim.
The video featured a timeline of actions the Trump administration took between January 31 and March 13. But there was a huge gap in the timeline: It mentioned absolutely no action by Trump in February.
As the Times had noted, there had been a period of “six long weeks” after Trump imposed a partial ban on travel from China on January 31. It wasn’t until March 13 that he declared a national emergency.
The video timeline provided only one entry for February 6: “CDC Ships First Testing Kits.” Yet those test kits proved defective.
The rest of February had been filled with Trump’s staging mass campaign rallies. At one of these, he described Coronavirus as the Democrats’ “new hoax.”
Coronavirus
Americans have largely come to ignore the ongoing feud between Trump and the nation’s press, which often erupted at these press conferences.
But on April 23, Trump ventured into the equivalent of a PR minefield—and stepped on a mine of his own making.
After musing on new government research into how the virus reacts to different temperatures, climates and surfaces, Trump said: “So I asked Bill [William N. Bryan, acting Under Secretary for Science and Technology at the Department of Homeland Security] a question….
“So, supposing we hit the body with a tremendous—whether it’s ultraviolet or just very powerful light—and I think you said that that hasn’t been checked, but you’re going to test it. And then I said, supposing you brought the light inside the body, which you can do either through the skin or in some other way, and I think you said you’re going to test that too. It sounds interesting.
“And then I see the disinfectant, where it knocks it out in a minute. One minute! And is there a way we can do something like that, by injection inside or almost a cleaning. Because you see it gets in the lungs and it does a tremendous number on the lungs. So it would be interesting to check that. So, that, you’re going to have to use medical doctors with. But it sounds interesting to me.”
Trump was clearly seeking agreement with his latest medical theory. But Dr. Deborah Birx, the Coronavirus Task Force response coordinator, remained silent.
The Internet—and medical experts—did not.
On Twitter—the social media platform Trump routinely uses to attack everyone he hates—his suggestion that injecting disinfectants could treat Coronavirus drew scorn and ridicule.
One tweet showed Trump as a doctor hovering over a patient and saying: “Once I’ve pumped you full of disinfectant, I’ll zap you with this UV torch until you’re cured.”
Another depicted a glass filled with Dettol antiseptic liquid and an ice cube, with the caption, “Hey guys!!! It’s Dettol o’clock!!!”
A third meme featured Trump as Marie Antoinette saying: “Let them eat Clorox.”
Medical experts found Trump’s off-the-cuff remarks no laughing matter. Several doctors warned the public against injecting disinfectant or using UV light.
Reckitt Benckiser, the maker of Dettol and Lysol, warned people to not inject themselves with disinfectant—which is toxic—to try to kill COVID-19.
“It is incomprehensible to me that a moron like this holds the highest office in the land and that there exist people stupid enough to think this is OK,” said Walter Shaub, the former director of the Office of Government Ethics. “I can’t believe that in 2020 I have to caution anyone listening to the president that injecting disinfectant could kill you.”
And then, for Trump, the unthinkable happened: For the first time since Easter weekend, he did not hold a press briefing Saturday at the White House with the Coronavirus Task Force.
Instead, on April 25, he issued this tweet: “What is the purpose of having White House News Conferences when the Lamestream Media asks nothing but hostile questions, & then refuses to report the truth or facts accurately.”
For Trump, the danger posed by reporters lies not in their offering “fake news” but in reporting all-too-accurately his crimes and mistakes.
The President who has often acted like an emperor appears to finally realize he appeared in public without his clothes.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Politics, Social commentary on April 27, 2020 at 5:51 am
Until recently, only organized crime witnesses with a price on their head could obtain falsified job histories. But no more.
Thousands—if not millions—of job-seeking Americans are now able to obtain stellar job references to impress potential employer. And they’re doing it the unconventional way: They’re hiring companies to create them.
One such company is CareerExcuse.
CareerExcuse runs 200 fictional companies that don’t exist, have staffs or make money.
But for a fee, you can say you worked at one of them, and they’ll confirm you were an outstanding employee.
For between $100 and $200, you’ll get:
- One to three false—and positive—references from a company or companies you’ve never worked for.
- A fake company address.
- Local phone numbers to give to prospective employers.
- A guarantee that those employers will receive positive vouchers for you.
- “Instant” degrees.
- Landlord reference
- A “completely legitimate” resume-writing service.
Unlike the Federal Witness Security Program (WITSEC) the clients of CareerExcuse aren’t hardened criminals.
They are legitimate citizens trying to erase gaps in their resumes. Or they have worked for a long series of short-term employers and want to appear a stable employee.
Click here: CareerExcuse Job References
Or they’ve acquired–deservedly or not–a series of bad job references
“Some people see it as unethical,” Jennifer Hatton, senior partner at CareerExcuse, said in a 2015 interview with Business Insider.
But, said Hatten, “I don’t see why you shouldn’t deserve a shot, just like the next person” if you do have the skills and experience required.
“There are many things that happen in people’s lives, with [employers] going out of business, being laid off, managers just unrightfully firing you, sexual harassment suits—-you name it, it happens in the workforce.”
And it’s true.
An article in the March, 2011 issue of Reader’s Digest gives the lie to the excuses so many employers use for refusing to hire.
Entitled “22 Secrets HR Won’t Tell You About Getting a Job,” it reveals such truths as:
- After you’re unemployed more than six months, employers consider you unemployable—no matter your skills/experience.
- It’s not what but who you know that counts.
- Cover letters are often ignored, going directly into “the round file.”
- Many employers illegally try to screen out parents—such as by checking cars for child safety seats.
- You’re not protected against age discrimination. Many employers regularly ignore the law. If you are in your 50s or 60s, leave your year of graduation off your resume.
And in its June 8, 2011 cover-story on “What U.S. Economic Recovery? Five Destructive Myths,” Time magazine warned that profit-seeking corporations can’t be relied on to ”make it all better.”
Wrote Rana Foroohar, Time‘s assistant managing editor in charge of economics and business:
“There may be $2 trillion sitting on the balance sheets of American corporations globally, but firms show no signs of wanting to spend it in order to hire workers at home.”
Meanwhile, CareerExcuse claims to have more than 2,000 job-seeking clients.
“Our main clientele right now is IT executives, and they’re pretty high-level,” Hatton claimed. The average customer seeks a salary of $60,000 to $80,000.
There are areas of employment that CareerExcuse refuses to fill—medicine, government, law enforcement or government. Jobs where your employment would “put other people in danger,” said Hatten. These are also employers capable of conducting serious background investigations.
Hatton claimed that during the almost two years she had been with CareerExcuse, no one had ever discovered a faked background.
But William Schmidt, who founded the company, admitted to Motherboard that a fake reference could easily be punctured: “All it would take is one person to drive to that address and go to that office.”
And the inevitable result would be immediate termination.
For some users of CareerExcuse, the company has proven an infuriating disappointment.
Click here: 17 CAREER EXCUSE complaints and reports @ Pissed Consumer
Like many clients of the Federal Witness Security Program, they complain of promises not kept. Among their complaints on Pissed Consumer, a consumer-complaint website:
- “When a serious job opportunity came recently, I realized alot of loop holes in their services, address of company on the website was different, email addresses weren’t valid or active.”
- “They took my $ and never returned my calls or emails.What a joke!”
- “Their phone go to voice mail and they dont reply back to calls after a voice mail is left for them to reply …It is easy for the employer to know that the reference is fake.”
- “When the prospective employers called, Career excuse answered the phone with ‘Career Excuse, how can I help you.’ They were supposed to answer the phone in the name of the fake company they put together.”
- “They only gave me a cheap looking web page and they don’t even answer the phones to GIVE the service I payed for. They are a scam and complete rip-off.”
Throughout the United States, countless numbers of lazy, greedy, arrogant and/or incompetent employers are refusing to hire. And millions of willing-to-work Americans remain trapped in unemployment or under-employment as a result.
Until this situation changes, companies like CareerExcuse will continue to function—and proliferate.
Such a change isn’t going to happen tomorrow.
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WHEN A PSYCHOPATH RULES THE WHITE HOUSE: PART THREE (END)
In Bureaucracy, History, Medical, Politics, Social commentary on May 8, 2020 at 12:09 amDonald Trump’s appearance at the Conservative Political Action Conference on March 2, 2019 was an occasion for rejoicing among his supporters.
But for those who prize rationality and decency in a President, it was a dismaying and frightening experience.
For two hours, Trump gave free reign to his anger and egomania.
Among his unhinged commentaries:
“We have people in Congress that hate our country.”
If you don’t agree 100% with Trump on everything, you’re a traitor.
“He called me up. He said, ‘You’re a great President. You’re doing a great job.’ He said, ‘I just want to tell you you’re a great President and you’re one of the smartest people I’ve ever met.'”
Trump attributed these remarks to California’s liberal governor, Gavin Newsom. On February 11, 2019, Newsom had announced he was withdrawing several hundred National Guardsmen from the state’s southern border with Mexico—defying Trump’s request for support from border states.
Donald Trump at CPAC
“You know if you remember my first major speech—you know the dishonest media they’ll say, ‘He didn’t get a standing ovation.’ You know why? Because everybody stood and nobody sat. They are the worst. They leave that out.”
Once again, he’s the persecuted victim of an unfair and totally unappreciative news media.
“And I love the First Amendment; nobody loves it better than me. Nobody. I mean, who use its more than I do? But the First Amendment gives all of us—it gives it to me, it gives it to you, it gives it to all Americans, the right to speak our minds freely. It gives you the right and me the right to criticize fake news and criticize it strongly.”
Trump has repeatedly called the nation’s free press “the enemy of the people”—a slander popularized by Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin. And while Trump brags about his usage of the First Amendment, he’s used Non-Disclosure agreements and threats of lawsuits to deny that right to others.
“For too long, we’ve traded away our jobs to other countries. So terrible.”
While this remark got rousing applause, he failed to mention that his own products are made overseas:
“By the way, you folks are in here—this place is packed, there are lines that go back six blocks and I tell you that because you won’t read about it, OK.”
He’s obsessed with fear that the media won’t make him look popular.
“So we’re all part of this very historic movement, a movement the likes of which, actually, the world has never seen before. There’s never been anything like this. There’s been some movements, but there’s never been anything like this.”
Trump sees himself as the single greatest figure in history. So anything he’s involved with must be unprecedented.
“But I always say, Obamacare doesn’t work. And these same people two years ago and a year ago were complaining about Obamacare.”
In 2010, 48 million Americans lacked health insurance. By 2016, that number had been reduced to 28.6 million. So 20 million Americans now have access to medical care they previously couldn’t get.
“But we’re taking a firm, bold and decisive measure, we have to, to turn things around [with North Korea]. The era of empty talk is over, it’s over.”
“I’ll tell you what they [agents of Immigration and Customs Enforcement] do, they came and endorsed me, ICE came and endorsed me. They never endorsed a presidential candidate before, they might not even be allowed to.”
Trump can’t stop boasting about how popular he is.
“These are hard-working, great, great Americans. These are unbelievable people who have not been treated fairly. Hillary called them deplorable. They’re not deplorable.”
On the contrary: “Deplorable” is exactly the word for those who vote their racism, ignorance, superstition and hatred of their fellow citizens.
A FINAL NOTE: Trump held himself up for adoration just three days after Michael Cohen, his longtime fixer:
And, only two days earlier, Trump had returned from a much-ballyhooed meeting in Vietnam with North Korean dictator Kim Jong-Un. Trump hoped to get a Nobel Peace Prize by persuading Kim to give up his nuclear arsenal.
Instead, Trump got stiffed—and returned empty-handed.
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