Posts Tagged ‘VIETNAM WAR’
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In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Medical, Military, Politics, Social commentary on August 14, 2026 at 12:37 am
In 2020, the Federal Government seized vitally-needed medical supplies in at least seven states. FEMA didn’t publicly reporting the thefts, despite the outlay of millions of dollars of taxpayer money. Nor did the Trump administration explain how it decides which supplies to seize and where to reroute them.
TRUMP HAS SEIZED STATES’ MEDICAL SUPPLIES
The Federal Government didn’t inform states whose supplies it seized if they would receive the materials they ordered and paid for. That fueled concerns about whether the Trump administration was fairly distributing scarce medical supplies.
“We can’t get any answers,” said a California hospital official who asked not to be identified for fear of retaliation from the White House.
Trump said it was the states’ responsibility to obtain critically-needed medical supplies. But when they weren’t outbid by the Federal Government, hospital systems and states found their shipments of medical supplies seized with no explanation.
Where did those supplies go?
To China?
To Trump’s private warehouses?
To Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law, for sale on the black market?
No one still knows.
A March 2 Washington Monthly story concluded ominously: “What if the White House simply gives all the masks and ventilators to red states and counties, leaving blue ones to struggle? What mechanisms of accountability are left?
“U.S. democracy wasn’t set up to deal with a president openly behaving like a James Bond villain while being protected by a political party behaving more like a mafia than a civic institution.”
PROPAGANDA AS “NEWS”
After Easter weekend, President Donald Trump began holding daily press briefings at the White House.
Their official purpose: To update the country on the administration’s ongoing response to the Coronavirus pandemic.
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.
These had been temporarily cancelled due to demands for social distancing to stem the rising tide of the COVID-19 pandemic. That had been Trump’s primary reason for seeking to end social distancing.
The White House 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.
White House press conference
On April 26, The New York Times ran a story entitled: “Self-praise, hubris and self-pity: Examining 260,000 words about the Coronavirus from President Trump.” Summing up the image that Trump has tried to present of himself to the world, the Times concluded:
“The self-regard, the credit-taking, the audacious rewriting of recent history to cast himself as the hero of the pandemic rather than the president who was slow to respond: Such have been the defining features of Trump’s use of the bully pulpit during the coronavirus outbreak….
“By far the most recurring utterances from Trump in the [White House] briefings are self-congratulations, roughly 600 of them, which are often predicated on exaggerations and falsehoods….
“Trump’s attempts to display empathy or appeal to national unity (about 160 instances) amount to only a quarter of the number of times he complimented himself or a top member of his team.”
QUACKERY AS “MEDICINE”
On April 23, Donald 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 used to attack everyone he hated—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 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.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Military, Politics, Social commentary, Uncategorized on August 13, 2026 at 12:10 am
Like Nazi Germany’s Fuhrer, Adolf Hitler, President Donald Trump liked to pit individuals and organizations against each other. Hitler, for example, would assign several agencies to tackle the same problem: “That way, the stronger one gets the job done,” he told his architect, Albert Speer.
Adolf Hitler
PITTING CITIES AND STATES AGAINST EACH OTHER
This created needless duplication of efforts and wasted resources. But it ensured that Trump—like Hitler—remained the final voice of authority, since so many others were competing for his favor and direction.
This did not, however, work out well for the 50 states that make up the United States of America.
During the Great Depression, President Franklin D. Roosevelt intervened powerfully to ensure that all Americans received the help they needed.
Trump made it clear that each state was responsible for securing its needed supply of Personal Protective Equipment (PPEs) for its doctors and nurses aiding Coronavirus patients. This resulted in a dog-eat-dog atmosphere of cutthroat competition and scarcity, with Americans not only fighting the virus but each other.
Donald Trump
USING A PLAGUE TO DESTROY AMERICANS
Even worse: Trump and Republicans used a deadly plague as a weapon against those Americans they hate.
On March 26, during an interview on Fox News, Trump blamed the failures of his administration’s response to Coronavirus on Democratic state governors like Andrew Cuomo (NY), Jay Inslee (WA), and Gretchen Whitmer (MI).
On March 27, during his press briefing, Trump said he told Vice President Mike Pence—who’s officially in charge of the White House’s response effort—to not call Inslee and Whitmer because they weren’t “appreciative” enough of his efforts.
Trump said this even as hospitals in each of their states were being overwhelmed with Coronavirus patients:
“I tell him—I mean I’m a different type of person—I say, ‘Mike, don’t call the governor in Washington, you’re wasting your time with him. Don’t call the woman in Michigan. If they don’t treat you right, I don’t call.”
At his March 27 press briefing, Trump echoed French King Louis X1V’s infamous remark—“I am the State”: “When they’re [governors] not appreciative to me, they’re not appreciative to the Army Corps, they’re not appreciative to FEMA [Federal Emergency Management Agency]. It’s not right.”
On that same day, Trump attacked Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer on Right-wing Fox News’ “Sean Hannity Show”: “I don’t know if she knows what’s going on, but all she does is sit there and blame the Federal Government.”
On March 27, Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer told a local radio station: “What I’ve gotten back is that vendors with whom we’ve procured contracts—they’re being told not to send stuff to Michigan. It’s really concerning. I reached out to the White House last night and asked for a phone call with the president, ironically at the time this stuff was going on.”
Gretchen Whitmer
A March 29 story in the Washington Monthly shed light on what lay behind Whitmer’s inability to secure desperately-needed ventilators from her longtime vendors. Its headline ran: “What If Trump Decides to Save Republicans But Not Democrats?”
A sub-headline read: “He’s providing vital resources to red states and ignoring blue states.”
Florida—a Trump-supporting state—submitted a request to FEMA on March 11 for 430,000 surgical masks, 180,000 N95 respirators, 82,000 face shields and 238,000 gloves—and received a shipment with everything three days later.
On Fox News, Rudy Giuliani, Trump’s personal lawyer, bluntly told governors: “Take the blame when you have to. When you play with your boss, sometimes it’s better when you don’t win the golf game. He’s the boss, he’s got all the resources.”
Translation: Suck up to the capo’s ego if you want to survive.
The mentality of the Black Hand had come to the Oval Office.
The Black Hand
TRUMP SEIZES STATES’ MEDICAL SUPPLIES
Trump wasn’t simply refusing to provide states with vitally-needed medical supplies—he was illegally seizing those supplies that states have ordered.
An April 20 Forbes story offered frightening insight into the tyrannical reach of the Trump administration. Entitled, “Maryland Gov. Hogan Takes Extraordinary Steps to Keep Feds From Confiscating COVID Tests,” the story unfolded like a spy thriller.
Governor Larry Hogan had heard reports that the federal government had confiscated crucial medical supplies from other states—like Massachusetts.
After obtaining 500,000 test kits from South Korea, Hogan ordered them flown into Baltimore–Washington International Airport rather than the larger Dulles International Airport in Virginia. From there they were escorted under guard to a secret location and constantly protected by the National Guard.
As they were sent out for distribution across the state, the tests remained under protection by the National Guard and state police.
The precautions were absolutely necessary. Hospitals in Florida and California reported that FEMA had seized their supplies without explanation.
Massachusetts ordered three million masks that were confiscated by the Federal Government at the Port of New York. This forced the state to ask New England Patriots’ owner Robert Kraft to use his team plane to fly in one million N95 masks from China.
N95 mask
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In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Medical, Military, Politics, Social commentary on August 12, 2026 at 6:12 pm
On February 7, 2020, during a recorded phone interview, President Donald J. Trump shared his thoughts—and the latest medical Intelligence—about the Coronavirus with Washington Post editor/investigative reporter Bob Woodward.
TRUMP CONFESSES TO BOB WOODWARD
Bob Woodward: And so, what was [Chinese] President Xi [Jinping] saying yesterday?
Donald Trump: Oh, we were talking mostly about the virus, and I think he’s going to have it in good shape. But it’s a very tricky situation.
Woodward: Indeed, it is.
Trump: It goes through air, Bob. That’s always tougher than the touch. The touch, you don’t have to touch things, right? But the air, you just breathe the air and that’s how it’s passed. And so that’s a very tricky one. That’s a very delicate one. It’s also more deadly than even your strenuous flues. People don’t realize, we lose 25,000, 30,000 people a year here. Who would ever think that, right?
Woodward: I know. It’s much forgotten.
Trump: It’s pretty amazing. And then I said, “Well, is that the same thing?”
Woodward: What are you able to do for—
Trump: This is more deadly. This is 5% versus 1%, and less than 1%. So this is deadly stuff.
“This is deadly stuff.”
Unfortunately for those who believed in him, Trump was not saying this in public.
WHAT TRUMP SAID IN PUBLIC
From January to early March, 2020, Trump and his allies within the Republican party and Fox News Network repeatedly assured Americans they had nothing to fear.
Donald Trump
Barnstorming the country in a series of hate-filled political rallies, Trump told his supporters:
- January 22:“We have it totally under control. It’s one person coming in from China.”
- February 2: “We pretty much shut it down coming in from China. It’s going to be fine.”
- February 24: “The Coronavirus is very much under control in the USA.”
- February 25: “CDC & my administration are doing a GREAT job of handling Coronavirus.”
- February 25: “I think that’s a problem that’s going to go away. They have studied it. They know very much. In fact, we’re very close to a vaccine.”
- February 26: “The 15 cases within a couple of days is going to be down to close to zero.”
- February 26: “We’re going very substantially down, not up.”
- February 27: “One day it’s like a miracle, it will disappear.”
- February 28: “We’re ordering a lot of supplies. We’re ordering a lot of, uh, elements that frankly we wouldn’t be ordering unless it was something like this. But we’re ordering a lot of different elements of medical.”
Coronavirus
- February 28: “Now the Democrats are politicizing the Coronavirus….We did one of the great jobs….One of my people came up to me and said, ‘Mr. President, they tried to beat you on Russia, Russia, Russia’….They couldn’t do it. They tried the impeachment hoax….It’s all turning, they lost….And this is their new hoax.”
- March 4: “If we have thousands of people that get better just by, you know, sitting around and even going to work—some of them go to work, but they get better.”
- March 6: “I think we’re doing a really good job in this country of keeping it down. A tremendous job of keeping it down.”
- March 6: “Anybody right now, and yesterday, anybody that needs a test gets a test. And the tests are beautiful.”
- March 6: “I like this stuff. I really get it. People are surprised that I understand it. Every one of these doctors said, ‘How do you know so much about this?’ Maybe I have a natural ability. Maybe I should have done that instead of running for President.”
- March 8: “We have a perfectly coordinated and fine tuned plan at the White House for our attack on Coronavirus.”
- March 9: “The Fake News Media and their partner, the Democrat Party, is doing everything within its semi-considerable power (it used to be greater!) to inflame the CoronaVirus situation, far beyond what the facts would warrant. Surgeon General, The risk is low to the average American.”
- March 10: “It will go away. Just stay calm. It will go away.”
MORE CONFESSIONS TO BOB WOODWARD
But on March 19, Trump offered a completely different take on the virus in another phone interview with Woodward:
Donald Trump: Now it’s starting out it’s not just all people, Bob. But just today and yesterday, some startling facts came out. It’s not just old, older-
Bob Woodward: Yeah. Exactly.
Trump: Young people too. Plenty of young people. We’re looking at what’s going on in—
Woodward: So, give me a moment of talking to somebody, going through this with Fauci, or somebody who kind of… It caused a pivot in your mind, because it’s clear just from what’s on the public record, that you went through a pivot on this to, “Oh my God. The gravity is almost inexplicable and unexplainable.”
Trump: Well, I think Bob, really, to be honest with you-
Woodward: Sure. I want you to be.
Trump: I wanted to always play it down. I still like playing it down because I don’t want to create a panic.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Medical, Military, Politics, Social commentary on August 11, 2026 at 12:11 am
The 9/11 terror attacks frightened Americans more than any event since the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941.. But they didn’t slaughter as many Americans nor affect their lives as intimately as has the advent of COVID-19, also known as Coronavirus.
First, COVID-19 has killed far more Americans than 9/11. As before mentioned, 9/11 snuffed out the lives of almost 3,000 Americans. But as of September 15, 2020, more than 194,000 Americans had died of COVID-19. And the plague had not finished its murderous work.
Second, while 9/11 affected two American cities—New York and Washington, D.C.—COVID-19 spread throughout the country. As epicenters like New York City, Los Angeles and Chicago gain national attention, the virus continues to seep into rural centers—especially in the South and Midwest.
Third, the combination of evil and incompetence of the Trump administration shook Americans’ faith in the ability—and even the willingness—of the Federal Government to protect them.
TRUMP AND BOB WOODWARD
Conservative New York Times columnist David Brooks attacked President Donald Trump in terms usually reserved for serial killers. On the March 13 edition of The PBS Newshour, he said:
“This is what happens when you elect a sociopath as president, who doesn’t care, who has treated this whole thing for the past month as if it’s about him. ‘How do people like me?’ Minimizing the risks. ‘Does the stock market reflect well on me?’ And he hasn’t done the things a normal human being would do, which was to, let’s take precautions….
“And he’s incapable of that. And he’s even created an information distortion field around him.”
Yet even David Brooks could not have predicted the scandal that successfully threatened Trump’s chances for re-election on November 3.
Consider what Trump revealed privately to legendary investigative reporter Bob Woodward—with what he was telling the American public in countless addresses.
Woodward—along with Carl Bernstein—achieved imperishable fame in 1972-74 as the Washington Post reporters whose Watergate-related stories led to the fall of President Richard M. Nixon.
Bob Woodward
THE ADVENT OF CORONAVIRUS
First, some background on the Coronvirus itself:
The virus first appeared in Wuhan, China, in December, 2019. Its first reported victim became ill on December 1.
By December 31, the outbreak was traced to a novel strain of Coronavirus.
Coronaviruses are a group of viruses that affect birds and mammals. In humans, Coronaviruses can cause pneumonia and may cause bronchitis.
As President, Trump had access to Intelligence sources denied to his fellow citizens.
Trump first learned of the virus on January 3, 2020. This did not prevent him from playing golf on January 4, 5, 18 and 19.
On January 19, the first Coronavirus case appeared in the United States.
On January 27, then-acting chief of staff Mick Mulvaney tried to get the President to act.
But, according to officials who spoke with the Washington Post, Trump was “dismissive” of early briefings “because he did not believe that the virus had spread widely throughout the United States.”
Trump fired Mulvaney one month later.
Then, for Trump, it was back to the golf course—on February 1, 2 and 15.
Coronavirus
TRUMP CONFESSES TO BOB WOODWARD
On February 7, he decided to share some of his Coronavirus Intelligence with legendary Washington Post editor and reporter Bob Woodward.
Why he chose to do this remains a mystery.
It’s possible that Trump—whose hatred of the press is infamous—thought he could “take” Woodward. Or perhaps even cultivate him.
Conservative New York Times columnist David Brooks thinks so. On the September 11 edition of The PBS Newshour, Brooks offered:
“First, the hubris to think, you could be the president and talk to Bob Woodward and not get hurt by it. Donald Trump walked right into this.
“Two, the extreme cynicism of not only bumbling around in February and March, because you didn’t know how serious the pandemic was, but the confirmation that you did know, and you still thought you could talk it down, as if you can talk down a force of nature, and that this—you wouldn’t end up getting caught.”
If Trump thought he could “take” or cultivate Woodward, it wasn’t the first time a high-ranking government official had done so.
William J. Casey
During the Presidency of Ronald Reagan, CIA director William J. Casey spilled countless secrets to Woodward—which found their way into a 1987 book: Veil: The Secret Wars of the CIA, 1981-1987. Woodward admitted that he didn’t know why Casey had been so forthcoming. 
On February 7, 2020, the following telephone interview between Trump and Woodward took place:
Bob Woodward: And so, what was [Chinese] President Xi [Jinping] saying yesterday?
Donald Trump: Oh, we were talking mostly about the virus, and I think he’s going to have it in good shape. But it’s a very tricky situation.
Woodward: Indeed, it is.
Trump: It goes through air, Bob. That’s always tougher than the touch. The touch, you don’t have to touch things, right? But the air, you just breathe the air and that’s how it’s passed. And so that’s a very tricky one. That’s a very delicate one. It’s also more deadly than even your strenuous flues. People don’t realize, we lose 25,000, 30,000 people a year here. Who would ever think that, right?
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In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Military, Politics, Social commentary on August 10, 2026 at 12:07 am
On September 11, 2001, 19 Islamic terrorists snuffed out the lives of 3,000 Americans in New York, Washington, D.C. and Pennsylvania.
They did so by turning four commercial jetliners into fuel-bombs—and crashing them into, respectively, the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center in New York City; the Pentagon, in Washington, D.C.; and—unintentionally—a field in Somerset County, Pennsylvania.
(Its destination had been the White House or the Capitol Building. But its passengers, alerted by radio broadcasts of the doom awaiting them, resolved to take over the plane instead. The hijackers slammed the jet into the ground to avoid capture.)
World Trade Center – September 11, 2001
But within less than a month, American warplanes began carpet-bombing Afghanistan, whose rogue Islamic “government” refused to surrender Osama bin Laden, the had of Al-Qaeda who had masterminded the attacks.
By December, 2001, the power of the Taliban was broken—and bin Laden was driven into hiding in Pakistan.
For more than 16 years, the United States—through its global military and espionage networks—relentlessly hunted down most of those responsible for that September carnage.
On May 1, 2011, U.S. Navy SEALS invaded bin Laden’s fortified mansion in Abbottabad, Pakistan—and shot him dead.
U.S. Navy SEALs
OSAMA BIN LADEN’S BOASTING
On December 13, 2001, the Pentagon released a videotape of Osama bin Laden discussing the attacks in Arabic with another man who appears to be a cleric.
The videotape had been discovered by American forces in a private home in Jalalabad, Afghanistan.
On the tape, bin Laden says he was pleasantly surprised by the amount of destruction caused at the World Trade Center. He had only expected the top portion of the Twin Towers to collapse:
“We calculated in advance the number of casualties from the enemy, who would be killed based on the position of the tower. We calculated that the floors that would be hit would be three or four floors. I was the most optimistic of them all.
“Due to my experience in this field [he had graduated from King Abdul Aziz University with a civil engineering degree in 1979] I was thinking that the fire from the gas in the plane would melt the iron structure of the building and collapse the area where the plane hit and all the floors above it only.
“This is all that we had hoped for.”
Osama bin Laden
9/11 VS. COVID-19
Now, consider this:
It’s September 11, 2020. Nineteen years to the day since the United States suffered its worst terrorist attack in history—a loss of 3,000 Americans.
And, in less than a year, the United States is nearing a death-toll of 200,000 from an enemy just as deadly and unrelenting as Al Qaeda.
That enemy is Coronavirus, also known as COVID-19.
The September 11 attacks jolted Americans out of their complacency toward Islamic terrorism. Since the 1980s, the United States had responded to terrorism via its legal system. After 9/11, Americans opted for a military response against Middle Eastern terror cells.
For months afterward, America feared the worst—that other cities would soon become targets for massive terror attacks. But, for all the death and destruction wrought that day, this didn’t happen.
There were two major reasons for this:
First, under its new director, Robert Mueller, the FBI completely refocused its mission from investigating crimes to preventing them. This resulted in a proactive rather than reactive mindset and approach. Even terrorists who felt safe abroad found themselves arrested by FBI agents employing the sort of techniques previously used against foreign spies.
Second, the attacks led to the creation of a huge new agency—the Department of Homeland Security. Massive sums of money were doled out to local police departments across the country, arming them with new hires and more sophisticated anti-crime technologies.
And for the first time since the dawning of the age of flight, the Federal Government took responsibility for preventing airline terrorism. Previously, this had fallen to individual airlines—which, seeing it as a financial drain, had assigned it a low priority.
The attacks also led to a complete restructuring of the United States military.
In the past, Americans had excelled in set-piece battles and wars. But when fighting enemies where guerrilla warfare negated overwhelming military power, the United States had done poorly—first in Korea (1950-1953) and then in Vietnam (1960-1975).
As a result, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfield reorganized the Pentagon’s bureaucracy, assigning highest priority to building unconventional military units such as the Army’s Green Berets and Delta Force, and the Navy’s SEALs.
These were all major changes resulting from the 9/11 attacks. They cost billions of dollars and got huge publicity. But they didn’t affect the lives of everyday Americans as intimately as has the advent of COVID-19, also known as Coronavirus.
Coronavirus
The 9/11 terror attacks frightened Americans more than any event since the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941.. But they slaughtered only a fraction of Americans, as compared with the 194,000 who have died from COVID-19, in less than a year..
Osama bin Laden deservedly gained infamy for plotting 9/11. But Donald Trump, who repeatedly lied about the dangers of COVID-19, remains beloved by about 40% of Americans.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Military, Politics on June 26, 2026 at 12:05 am
On October 7, 2023, about 2,500 Hamas terrorists launched coordinated attacks on Israeli outposts and settlements, firing over 5,000 rockets and burning houses.
They killed over 1,139 people, of which 695 were civilians—including women, children and the elderly. They also kidnapped over 250 others—including 30 children—to Gaza.
Most of those hostages were subsequently murdered.
Palestinians celebrating the attack on Israel
Israel pounded Gaza with bombs, missiles. tanks and soldiers. By May, 2026, Palestinian health authorities claimed that Israel’s ground and air campaign had killed more than 72,000 Palestinians.
Among the reactions to this conflict:
- The World Court ordered Israel to immediately halt its military offensive in the southern Gaza city of Rafah.
- Liberal Democrats demanded that President Joseph Biden stop shipping military equipment to Israel.
- Three European countries—Spain, Ireland, and Norway—announced that they would recognize a Palestinian state.
- Across the United States, scores of university students protested Israel’s retaliation against Gaza.
- Among the universities targeted: Columbia, Harvard, Yale, the University of Texas at Austin, the University of Southern California, Emory University in Atlanta, Boston’s Emerson College.
- Columbia University, Barnard College and the University of Southern California canceled their graduation ceremonies owing to fears of violent protests by terrorism-sympathizing students.
Such holier-than-thou attitudes ignore three important truths:
First: Soldiering is by its nature a brutal business.
- The purpose of boot camp is to “break down” the restraints of pacifism and individuality and turn “boys” into “fighting men.” This must be done in weeks, so the process is shockingly brutal.
- Recruits are repeatedly taught such maxims as: “Ambushes are murder—and murder is fun.”
- Denigrating the enemy is a time-worn habit in all armies—including the American army. During the Indian wars, soldiers referred to Indians as “Red niggers.”
- In World War II—the “Good War”—America’s servicemen fought “Japs” and “Krauts.” During the Vietnam war, Vietnamese became “dinks” and “gooks.”
Marine drill instructor
- Today’s servicemen and women routinely (but unofficially) refer to their Islamic enemies as “ragheads” or “sand niggers.”
- Soldiers who aren’t toughened by boot camp are by the battlefield. As General George S. Patton often warned: “When you put your hand into a bunch of goo, that a moment before was your best friend’s face, you’ll know what to do.”
- Those who are demanding that Israel “pause” its offensive against Gaza ignore that when Allied armies were closing in on Berlin, the capitol of Nazi Germany, Americans did not demand that Nazis be given a chance to reorganize and counterattack.
Second: Atrocities in wartime are nothing new—including for U.S. forces.
- During the Mexican War, Texas Rangers accompanying the U.S. Army acted as commandos—and exacted reprisals against Mexicans engaging in terrorist acts.
- During the army’s wars against the Indians, soldiers and scouts—such as William F. “Buffalo Bill” Cody—routinely took scalps as trophies.
- During World War II, Marines posted in the Pacific rarely took prisoners. The reason: Japanese soldiers often pretended to surrender––and thus lured American troops into ambushes.
Waffen-SS soldier
- GIs fighting in the European theater generally shot fanatical Waffen-SS soldiers—including those who tried to surrender. This was especially true during the Battle of the Bulge, when Germans dressed in American uniforms stirred panic among Allied forces.
- During the Vietnam war, some “grunts” made necklaces of ears taken from dead Vietcong. Vietnam Correspondent Michael Herr, in his book Dispatches, relates the story of a grunt who was “building his own gook” from actual body parts.
Third: Those who provoke war do not have a right to dictate how their opponents should defend themselves.
- In 1815, just before the Battle of New Orleans, General Andrew Jackson ordered American snipers to harass invading British forces—and especially to take out officers. The British commander angrily protested this “barbarism.” Jackson sent back a message of his own: “You have invaded our country and we will defend ourselves as we see fit.”
- William Tecumseh Sherman, defending the conduct of his men during their legendary “March to the Sea” through Georgia, said: “Those people made war on us, defied and dared us to come south to their country, where they boasted they would kill us and do all manner of horrible things. We accepted their challenge, and now for them to whine and complain of the natural and necessary results is beneath contempt.”
William Tecumseh Sherman
- Israelis have learned to deter Palestinian suicide-bombers by the use of police dogs. Muslims protest because they consider dogs defiled—and defiling—creatures. Islamic terrorists fear that blowing up themselves near a dog risks mingling their blood with that of the dead or wounded animal—thus forfeiting their opportunity to enter Paradise and claim those 72 willing virgins.
- In early November, 2001—two months after 9/11—Muslims throughout the Islamic world demanded that the United States halt its attacks on Taliban forces in Afghanistan out of “respect” for Ramadan, the Islamic month of fasting.
- In short: Islamic “holy warriors” could launch attacks that murdered thousands of innocent men, women and children. But “infidels” were supposed to defend themselves according to Islamic rules.
- The United States wisely refused to bow to this Islamic version of “political correctness.”
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In Bureaucracy, Business, History, Law, Military, Politics, Social commentary on May 19, 2026 at 12:10 am
On April 29, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth appeared before Congress for the first time since President Donald Trump-–in concert with Israel—launched a series of devastating airstrikes against Iran.
During the hearing, the Pentagon revealed that the war so far had cost $25 billion. The fighting is on hold, but the military maintains its blockade of the Strait of Hormuz.
Early on in his testimony, Hegseth said the threat of Iran paled in comparison to one posed by Democrats: “The biggest challenge, the biggest adversary we face at this point are the reckless, feckless and defeatist words of congressional Democrats and some Republicans.”
Pete Hegseth
Forget that:
- Iran had effectively closed the Strait of Hormuz—through which 20% to 25% of the world’s oil consumption (about 20–21 million barrels per day) flows.
- As a result, gas prices rose overnight. By late April, the national average for a gallon of regular gas reached $4.02 to $4.04, compared to roughly $2.98 before military operations began.
- On April 5—Easter Sunday, no less—Trump posted on his website, Truth Social: “Tuesday will be Power Plant Day, and Bridge Day, all wrapped up in one, in Iran. There will be nothing like it!!! Open up the Fuckin’ Strait, you crazy bastards, or you’ll be living in Hell – JUST WATCH! Praise be to Allah. President DONALD J. TRUMP”
- When this threat failed to impress the Iranians, Trump posted on April 7: “A whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again. I don’t want that to happen, but it probably will.”
- This implied threat of a nuclear holocaust led legal experts and international organizations such as Amnesty International to warn that attacking civilian infrastructure would constitute war crimes under international law.
Donald Trump
Implicit in Hegseth’s charge—and attitude—was the message: “It’s Democrats’ fault that we’re not winning the war that we—and Israel—started on February 28. And that a war that was supposed to last six weeks at most has now dragged on for two months—with no end in sight.”
It’s possible that the highly combative Hegseth had a specific remedy in mind for such criticism—one that had been applied by Nazi Germany to those who who doubted the “final victory” of the war that Adolf Hitler had started.
Those who did so—or openly criticized the need for the war or the genocidal way it was being fought—faced two ways of dying: Beheading or hanging.
So long as the Third Reich was winning—or at least in possession of actual German territory—the punishment of beheading was carried out upon conviction by kangaroo courts.
But when the Reich was immediately facing invasion—from the West by American and British forces, and from the East by Russian ones—there often wasn’t time for pseudo-legal folderol. Roving bands of Schutzstaffel (SS) or Wehrmacht troops openly shot or literally strung up such “traitors” from lamp posts.
Certainly Hegseth’s attitude reflected that mentality, as this exchange with Rep. John Garamendi (D-CA) revealed:
GARAMENDI: The president has got himself and America stuck in a quagmire of another war in the Middle East. He’s desperately trying to extricate himself from his own mistakes.
HEGSETH: You call it a quagmire, handing propaganda to our enemies? Shame on you for that statement. And statements like that are reckless to our troops.
During the Vietnam war (1965 – 1975) the administrations of Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon lied repeatedly about the “progress” being achieved. The polite term used to describe this was “credibility gap.”
As a result, “grunts” often sported buttons reading: “Ambushed at Credibility Gap.”
When a nation’s armed forces are winning easy—or even hard-won—victories over an enemy, word quickly spreads through their ranks. When facing defeat—or stalemate—soldiers are equally quick to sense the truth of this.
So Hegseth’s accusation that Garamendi’s accurately calling the war “a quagmire”—at least so far—could not prove a morale-buster for the soldiers fighting it.
Throughout his testimony, Hegseth acted like a man in charge of an inquisition, rather than a public official called on by Congress to answer questions.
A typical exchange between him and Rep. Ro Khanna (D-CA):
KHANNA (D-CA): Do you know how much it will cost Americans in terms of their increased cost in gas and food over the next year because of the Iran war?
HEGSETH: I would simply ask you what the cost is of an Iranian nuclear bomb.
KHANNA: I’m going to give you that opportunity.
HEGSETH: I would simply ask you what the — you’re playing gotcha questions about domestic things.
KHANNA: No, it’s not. You’re asking — you’re saying it’s a gotcha question to ask what it’s going to be in terms of the increased cost of gas?
HEGSETH: Why won’t you answer what it costs to prevent Iran from getting a nuclear bomb?
KHANNA: I give you that, sir. You don’t know what we’re paying in terms of gas. You don’t know what we’re paying in terms of food. Your $25 billion number is totally off. It’s the incompetence. It’s the incompetence.
What she should have said was: “You’re here to answer questions, not ask them.”
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In Bureaucracy, History, Military, Politics, Social commentary on April 23, 2026 at 12:10 am
There are literally no limits to which Donald Trump’s fanatical supporters will go to convince others he’s a heroic champion worthy of their reverence.
One such meme depicted Trump as a military hero, clad in full Army gear, leading his men into combat. 
The problem: Trump—a notorious draft-dodger—received five deferments to escape the Vietnam war, including one for bone spurs.
Now, as re-elected President of the United States, he’s plunged the country into a needless war against Iran.
On February 28, Trump—in concert with Israel—launched a series of devastating, unprovoked airstrikes against Iran.
Trump seemed to consider himself omnipotent. Asked by a reporter how long the war would last, the President replied: “Any time I want it to end, it will end.”
But then—to Trump’s surprise and fury—Iran closed the narrow Strait of Hormuz, through which about 20%-25% of the world’s total liquid petroleum consumption (about 20–21 million barrels per day) flows.
Overnight, gas prices rose. By April 5, the national average for a gallon of regular gas reached $4.11, compared to roughly $2.98 before military operations began.
With midterm elections eight months away, the war looked like a losing issue for Republicans.
On April 5—Easter Sunday, no less—Trump posted on his website, Truth Social: “Tuesday will be Power Plant Day, and Bridge Day, all wrapped up in one, in Iran. There will be nothing like it!!! Open up the Fuckin’ Strait, you crazy bastards, or you’ll be living in Hell – JUST WATCH! Praise be to Allah. President DONALD J. TRUMP”
This was followed on April 7 by another post: “A whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again. I don’t want that to happen, but it probably will.”
Legal experts and international organizations such as Amnesty International warned that attacking civilian infrastructure would constitute war crimes under international law.
As the hours ticked off April 6. American pilots were forced to decide: “Do we want to become war criminals?”
Donald Trump
There is no better way to trace the decline of the United States than to compare Trump’s threat to wipe out an entire civilization with the 1946 Memorial Day ceremony at the Sicily-Rome American Cemetery, near the town of Nettuno.
The cemetery held about 20,000 American graves, mostly of soldiers who had died in Sicily or at Anzio, fighting Nazi Germany.
Presiding over that event was Lt. General Lucian K. Truscott, Jr., the U.S. Fifth Army Commander.
Unlike many other generals, Truscott had shared in the dangers of combat, pouring over maps on the hood of his jeep with company commanders as bullets or shells whizzed about him.
When it came his turn to speak, Truscott moved to the podium. Then he turned his back on the assembled visitors—which included several Congressmen.
The audience he now faced were the graves of his fellow soldiers.
Lt. General Lucian K. Truscott, Jr.
Among those who heard Truscott’s speech was Bill Mauldin, the famous cartoonist for the Army newspaper, Stars and Stripes. Mauldin had created Willie and Joe, the unshaved, slovenly-looking “dogfaces” who came to symbolize the GI.
It’s from Mauldin that we have the fullest account of Truscott’s speech that day.
“He apologized to the dead men for their presence there. He said that everybody tells leaders that it is not their fault that men get killed in war, but that every leader knows in his heart that this is not altogether true.
“He said he hoped anybody here through any mistake of his would forgive him, but he realized that he was asking a hell of a lot under the circumstances….
“Truscott said he would not speak of the ‘glorious’ dead because he didn’t see much glory in getting killed in your teens or early twenties.
“He promised that if in the future he ran into anybody, especially old men, who thought death in battle was glorious, he would straighten them out. He said he thought it was the least he could do.”
Then Truscott walked away, without acknowledging his audience of celebrities.
Bill Mauldin and “Willie and Joe,” the characters he made famous
Contrast the character of Lucian Truscott with that of the man who holds the office of President of the United States.
Donald Trump has:
- Equated his reckless sex life during the 1970s with the risks American soldiers faced in Vietnam.
- Relentlessly defended Russian dictator Vladimir Putin against all criticism, even as he’s slandered literally hundreds of his fellow citizens on his website, Truth Social.
- Attacked the FBI and CIA for concluding that Russia intervened in the 2016 election to help him win the White House.
- Allowed the deadly COVID-19 virus to ravage the country, killing 400,000 Americans by the time he left office in 2021.
- Incited his followers to attack the Capitol Building on January 6, 2021, to stop the Electoral Vote count, which he knew would prove Joe Biden the winner of the 2020 Presidential election.
Saving Private Ryan, Steven Spielberg’s 1998 World War II epic, opens with a scene of an American flag snapping in the wind.
Except that the brilliant colors of Old Glory have been washed out, leaving only black-and-white stripes and black stars.
Small wonder that, for many Americans, Old Glory has taken on a darker, washed-out appearance—in real-life as in film.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Military, Politics, Social commentary on March 2, 2026 at 12:18 am
Victory Through Air Power is a 1943 Walt Disney animated Technicolor feature film released during World War II. It’s based on the book—of the same title––by Alexander P. de Seversky.
Its thesis: By using bombers and fighter aircraft, the United States can attain swift, stunning victory over its Axis enemies: Germany, Italy and Japan.
Although not explicitly stated, the clear impression given is: By using air power, America can defeat its enemies without deploying millions of ground troops.
The movie has long since been forgotten except by film buffs, but its message has not. Especially by the highest officials within the U.S. Air Force.
The Air Force regularly boasted of the tonnage of bombs its planes dropped over Nazi Germany. But it failed to attain its primary goal: Break the will of the Germans to resist.
Just as the German bombings of England had solidified the will of the British people to resist, so, too, did Allied bombing increase the determination of the Germans to fight on.
Nor did the failure of air power end there.
On June 6, 1944—D-Day—the Allies launched their invasion of Nazi-occupied France.
It opened shortly after midnight, with an airborne assault of 24,000 American, British, Canadian and Free French troops. This was followed at 6:30 a.m. by an amphibious landing of Allied infantry and armored divisions on the French coast.
The operation was the largest amphibious invasion in history. More than 160,000 troops landed—73,000 Americans, 61,715 British and 21,400 Canadians.
Allied air power bombed and strafed German troops out in the open. But it couldn’t dislodge soldiers barricaded in steel-and-concrete-reinforced bunkers or pillboxes.
Those had to be dislodged, one group at a time, by Allied soldiers armed with rifles, dynamite and flamethrowers.
American soldier using flamethrower
This situation proved true throughout the rest of the war.
Then, starting in 1964, the theory of “Victory Through Air Power” once again proved a dud—in Vietnam.
From 1964 to 1975, seven million tons of bombs were dropped on Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia—more than twice the amount of bombs dropped on Europe and Asia in World War II.
Yet the result proved the same as it had in World War II: The bombing enraged the North Vietnamese and steeled their resolve to fight on to the end.
American bomber dropping its cargo over North Vietnam
The belief that victory could be achieved primarily—if not entirely—through air power had another unforeseen result during the Vietnam war.
To bomb North Vietnam, the United States needed air force bases in South Vietnam. This required that those bombers and fighters be protected.
So a force to provide round-the-clock security had to be maintained. But there weren’t enough guards to defend themselves against a major attack by North Vietnamese forces.
So more American troops were needed—to guard the guards.
North Vietnam continued to press greater numbers of its soldiers into attacks on American bases. This forced America to provide greater numbers of its own soldiers to defend against such attacks.
Eventually, the United States had more than 500,000 ground troops fighting in Vietnam—with no end in sight to the conflict.
Nor did it work for America in the 1991 and 2003 wars against Iraq.
Both wars opened with massive barrages of American missiles and bombs. The 1991 war—launched by President George H.W. Bush—saw the first use of the vaunted “stealth bomber,” which could avoid detection by enemy radar.
The 2003 war—launched by President George W. Bush—opened with an even greater bombardment intended to “shock and awe” the Iraqis into surrendering.
They didn’t.
Baghdad under “shock and awe” bombardment
Nor did air power prove effective on the Iraqi insurgency that erupted after American forces occupied Baghdad and much of the rest of the country.
That war had to be fought by U.S. Army regulars and Special Operations soldiers—especially Navy SEALS. It was a dirty and private effort, marked by nightly kidnappings and torture of suspected Iraqi insurgents.
The war devolved into a long, violent insurgency, occupation and sectarian civil war that lasted until 2011, when American troops were withdrawn. The United States failed to achieve control of Iraqi oil and unite the country under American control.
Then, in 2014, with forces of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) launching a blitzkrieg throughout Iraq, President Barack Obama caught the “Victory Through Airpower” disease.
ISIS had thrown the American-trained Iraqi Army into a panic, with soldiers dropping their rifles and running for their lives.
This led Republicans to accuse the President of being about to “lose” Iraq.
As a result, he shipped at least 300 American “advisors” to Iraq, to provide support and security for U.S. personnel and the American Embassy in Baghdad.
And he authorized American Predator drones to traverse Iraq, keeping tabs on the advancing ISIS forces. Then, in September, 2014, Obama ordered airstrikes against ISIS in Syria.
Yet that didn’t alter the balance of power in Iraq.
Finally, on February 11, 2015, Obama called on Congress to formally authorize the use of ground forces against ISIS. This would include supporting and training Iraqi forces and Syrian insurgents on the ground.
On February 28, 2026, President Donald Trump ordered a massive bombardment of Iran
The rerun of the Vietnam/Iraq experience will begin showing in the months ahead.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Law Enforcement, Military, Politics, Social commentary on December 2, 2025 at 12:49 am
More than 500 years ago, Niccolo Machiavelli, the Florentine statesman, authored The Discourses on Livy, a work of political history and philosophy. In it, he outlined how citizens of a republic can maintain their freedoms.
One of the longest chapters—Book Three, Chapter Six—covers “Of Conspiracies.” In it, those who wish to conspire against a ruler will find highly useful advice.
And so will those who wish to foil such a conspiracy.
For conspirators, there are three ways their efforts can be foiled.
- Discovery through denunciation;
- Discovery through incautiousness;
- Discovery through writings.
The first has already been covered. Now for the second and third.
Discovery through Writings: “You may talk freely with any one man about everything, for unless you have committed yourself in writing, the “Yes” of one man is worth as much as the “No” of another.
“Thus, you should guard most carefully against writing, as against a dangerous rock, for nothing will convict you quicker than your own handwriting.
“You may escape, then, from the accusation of a single individual, unless you are convicted by some writing or other pledge, which you should be careful never to give.
“If you are denounced, there are means of escaping punishment:
- By denying the accusation and claiming that the person making it hates you; or
- Claiming that your accuser was tortured or coerced into giving false testimony against you.
“But the most prudent course is to not tell your intentions to anyone, and to carry out the attempt yourself.”
Even if you’re not discovered before you carry out your attack, there are still two dangers facing a conspirator:
Dangers in Execution: These result from:
- An unexpected change in the routine of the intended target;
- The lack of courage among the conspirators; or
- An error on their part, such as leaving some of those alive whom the conspirators intended to kill.
Adolf Hitler, who claimed to have a sixth-sense for danger, was famous for changing his routine at the last minute.
On November 9, 1939, this instinct saved his life. He had been scheduled to give a long speech at a Munich beer hall before the “Old Fighters” of his storm troopers.
But that evening he cut short his speech and left the beer hall. Forty-five minutes later, a bomb exploded inside a pillar—before which Hitler had been speaking.
Conspirators can also be doomed by their good intentions.
In 44 B.C., Gaius Cassius, Marcus Brutus and other Roman senators decided to assassinate Julius Caesar, whose dictatorial ambitions they feared.
Cassius also intended to murder Mark Anthony, Caesar’s strongest ally. But Brutus objected, fearing the plotters would look like butchers, not saviors. Even worse, he allowed Anthony to deliver a eulogy at Caesar’s funeral.
This proved so inflammatory that the mourners rioted, driving the conspirators out of Rome. Soon afterward, they were defeated in a battle with the legions of Anthony and Octavian Caesar—and forced to commit suicide to avoid capture and execution.
Machiavelli closes his chapter “Of Conspiracies” with advice to rulers on how they should act when they find a conspiracy has been formed against them.
“If they discover that a conspiracy exists against them, they must, before punishing its authors, strive to learn its nature and extent. And they must measure the danger posed by the conspirators against their own strength.
“And if they find it powerful and alarming, they must not expose it until they have amassed sufficient force to crush it. Otherwise, they will only speed their own destruction. They should try to pretend ignorance of it. If the conspirators find themselves discovered, they will be forced by necessity to act without consideration.”
Niccolo Machiavelli
The foregoing was taken from Book Three, Chapter Six, of Machiavelli’s masterwork, The Discourses on Livy, which was published posthumously in 1531. But elsewhere in this volume, he notes how important it is for rulers to make themselves loved—or at least respected—by their fellow citizens:
“Note how much more praise those Emperors merited who, after Rome became an empire, conformed to her laws like good princes, than those who took the opposite course.
“Titus, Nerva, Trajan, Hadrian, Antoninus and Marcus Auelius did not require the Praetorians nor the multitudinous legions to defend them, because they were protected by their own good conduct, the good will of the people, and by the love of the Senate.
“On the other hand, neither the Eastern nor the Western armies saved Caligula, Nero, Vitellius and so many other wicked Emperors from the enemies which their bad conduct and evil lives had raised up against them.”
In his better-known work, The Prince, he warns rulers who—like Donald Trump–are inclined to rule by fear:
A prince should make himself feared in such a way that if he does not gain love, he at any rate avoids hatred: for fear and the absence of hatred may well go together.
Donald Trump
By Machiavelli’s standards, Trump has made himself the perfect target for a conspiracy.
“When a prince becomes universally hated, it is likely that he’s harmed some individuals—who thus seek revenge. This desire is increased by seeing that the prince is widely loathed.”
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DONALD TRUMP: KILLING MORE AMERICANS THAN OSAMA BIN LADEN: PART FIVE (OF EIGHT)
In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Medical, Military, Politics, Social commentary on August 14, 2026 at 12:37 amIn 2020, the Federal Government seized vitally-needed medical supplies in at least seven states. FEMA didn’t publicly reporting the thefts, despite the outlay of millions of dollars of taxpayer money. Nor did the Trump administration explain how it decides which supplies to seize and where to reroute them.
TRUMP HAS SEIZED STATES’ MEDICAL SUPPLIES
The Federal Government didn’t inform states whose supplies it seized if they would receive the materials they ordered and paid for. That fueled concerns about whether the Trump administration was fairly distributing scarce medical supplies.
“We can’t get any answers,” said a California hospital official who asked not to be identified for fear of retaliation from the White House.
Trump said it was the states’ responsibility to obtain critically-needed medical supplies. But when they weren’t outbid by the Federal Government, hospital systems and states found their shipments of medical supplies seized with no explanation.
Where did those supplies go?
To China?
To Trump’s private warehouses?
To Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law, for sale on the black market?
No one still knows.
A March 2 Washington Monthly story concluded ominously: “What if the White House simply gives all the masks and ventilators to red states and counties, leaving blue ones to struggle? What mechanisms of accountability are left?
“U.S. democracy wasn’t set up to deal with a president openly behaving like a James Bond villain while being protected by a political party behaving more like a mafia than a civic institution.”
PROPAGANDA AS “NEWS”
After Easter weekend, President Donald Trump began holding daily press briefings at the White House.
Their official purpose: To update the country on the administration’s ongoing response to the Coronavirus pandemic.
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.
These had been temporarily cancelled due to demands for social distancing to stem the rising tide of the COVID-19 pandemic. That had been Trump’s primary reason for seeking to end social distancing.
The White House 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.
White House press conference
On April 26, The New York Times ran a story entitled: “Self-praise, hubris and self-pity: Examining 260,000 words about the Coronavirus from President Trump.” Summing up the image that Trump has tried to present of himself to the world, the Times concluded:
“The self-regard, the credit-taking, the audacious rewriting of recent history to cast himself as the hero of the pandemic rather than the president who was slow to respond: Such have been the defining features of Trump’s use of the bully pulpit during the coronavirus outbreak….
“By far the most recurring utterances from Trump in the [White House] briefings are self-congratulations, roughly 600 of them, which are often predicated on exaggerations and falsehoods….
“Trump’s attempts to display empathy or appeal to national unity (about 160 instances) amount to only a quarter of the number of times he complimented himself or a top member of his team.”
QUACKERY AS “MEDICINE”
On April 23, Donald 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 used to attack everyone he hated—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 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.
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