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In Bureaucracy, History, Military, Politics, Social commentary on October 2, 2018 at 12:27 am
A CNN headline says it all: “Obama asked question everyone’s been wondering about GOP”
“What happened to the Republican Party?”
That’s the question former President Barack Obama asked at the University of Illinois on September 7. And he quickly answered it:
“Its central organizing principle in foreign policy was the fight against communism, and now they’re cozying up to the former head of the KGB. Actively blocking legislation that would defend our elections from Russian attack. What happened?”
Barack Obama as President
On the surface, it seems the Republican Party has drastically changed. But, in reality, there has been no substantial change at all.
Let’s start at the beginning—in this case, 1932.
Democratic nominee Franklin D. Roosevelt wins election against Republican President Herbert Hoover. So popular is he that he wins an unprecedented four terms—12 years!—in the White House, seeing America through the Great Depression and World War II,
In 1945, Roosevelt suddenly dies in office, leaving Vice President Harry S. Truman in command. He lacks the imperial magnetism and eloquence of FDR, so Republicans assume that 1948 will be a cakewalk for them.
But it isn’t. Instead, Truman wins a second term—and rubs it in by holding up the now-defunct headline, “DEWEY DEFEATS TRUMAN” for reporters to photograph.
By 1952, Republicans have been locked out of the White House for 20 years. They’re desperate to return—and angry enough to do anything to win.
They find attacking the integrity of their fellow Americans a highly effective tactic.
During the 1950s, Wisconsin United States Senator Joseph R. McCarthy rides a wave of paranoia to national prominence—by attacking the patriotism of anyone who disagrees with him.
Elected to the Senate in 1946, he rises to national prominence on February 9, 1950, after giving a fiery speech in Wheeling, West Virginia:
“The State Department is infested with communists. I have here in my hand a list of 205—a list of names that were made known to the Secretary of State as being members of the Communist Party and who nevertheless are still working and shaping policy in the State Department.”
Senator Joseph R. McCarthy
Americans are already growing increasingly fearful of Communism:
- Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin has not withdrawn the Red Army from the countries it has occupied in Eastern Europe during World War II.
- In 1948, the Soviet Union develops—and demonstrates—its own atomic bomb, an achievement U.S. scientists had claimed would not happen for at least a decade.
- In 1949, China falls to the triumphant armies of Mao Tse Tung. Generalissimo Chaing Kai Shek is driven from mainland China to the tiny island of Taiwan.
Anti-communism as a lever to political advancement sharply accelerates following McCarthy’s speech.
Any American can be accused of being a Communist or a Communist sympathizer—”a Comsymp” or “fellow traveler” in the style of the era.
Among those accused:
- Secretary of State George C. Marshall, who had overseen America’s strategy for defeating Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan
- President Harry S. Truman
- Playwrights Lillian Hellman and Arthur Miller
- Actors Charlie Chaplin, Zero Mostel, Lloyd Bridges, Howard Da Silva, Edward G. Robinson and John Garfield
- Composers Arron Copland and Elmer Bernstein
- Physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer, who presided over the creation of America’s atomic bomb
- Actresses Lee Grant, Delores del Rio, Ruth Gordon and Lucille Ball
- Journalists Edward R. Murrow and William L. Shirer, who had chronicled the rise of Nazi Germany
- Folksinger Pete Seeger
- Writers Irwin Shaw, Howard Fast, John Steinbeck and Dashiell Hammett
Even “untouchable” Republicans become targets for such slander.
The most prominent of these is President Dwight D. Eisenhower—labeled ”a conscious, dedicated agent of the Communist Conspiracy” by Robert Welch, founder of the John Birch Society in 1958.
In 1953, McCarthy attacks the leadership of the United States Army as “a hotbed of traitors” and convenes an inquiry through the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations.
But the hearings backfire, exposing McCarthy as a bullying demagogue. A Senate committee condemns his behavior as acting “contrary to senatorial ethics and tended to bring the Senate into dishonor and disrepute.”
Yet even without McCarthy, Republicans ride the issue of anti-Communism to victory from 1948 to 1992. “Respectable” anti-Communists—like Richard M. Nixon—depict themselves as the only ones who can be trusted to safeguard America.
Republicans hold the White House for eight years under Dwight D. Eisenhower, then lose it in 1960 to John F. Kennedy and again in 1964 to Lyndon B. Johnson.
By 1968, with the nation mired in Vietnam and convulsed by antiwar demonstrations and race riots, Americans turn once more to those who prey upon their fears and hates.
They elect Richard Nixon, who promises to end the Vietnam war and attack “uppity” blacks and antiwar demonstrators—and, above all, “the Communist menace.”
The same strategy re-elects him in 1972.
Jimmy Carter wins the Presidency in 1976 and loses it in 1980 to Ronald Reagan. Republicans hold the White House until 1992.
Reagan doesn’t want to continue the “stalemate” of “containing” Communism. He intends to roll it back. Tensions rise between the United States and the Soviet Union—the highest since the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962.
American proxies fight Soviet proxies in Afghanistan and Central America, but the world escapes nuclear holocaust.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Military, Politics, Social commentary on September 12, 2018 at 12:10 am
After Donald Trump won the 2016 election, many people feared he would embark on a radical Right-wing agenda. But others hoped that the Washington bureaucracy would “box him in.”
The same sentiments echoed throughout Germany after Adolf Hitler was appointed Chancellor of Germany on January 30, 1933.
The 1983 TV mini-series, The Winds of War, offered a dramatic example of how honorable men can be overwhelmed by a ruthless dictator.
Based on the bestselling 1971 historical novel by Herman Wouk, the mini-series factually re-created the major historical events of World War II.
One of those events took place on November 5, 1939.
General Walther von Brauchitsch is summoned to the Chancellery in Berlin to meet with Adolf Hitler. He carries a memorandum signed by all the leaders of the German Wehrmacht asserting that Case Yellow—Hitler’s planned attack against France—is impossible.
Meanwhile, at the German army headquarters at Zossen, in Berlin, the Wehrmacht’s top command wait for word from von Brauchitsch.
ZOSSEN:
Brigadier General Armin von Roon: I must confide in you on a very serious matter. I have been approached by certain army personages of the loftiest rank and prestige with a frightening proposal.
Chief of the General Staff Franz Halder: What did you reply?
Von Roon: That they were talking high treason.
Gunter Meisner as Adolf Hitler in “The Winds of War”
THE WHITE HOUSE:
Fast forward 79 years from Adolf Hitler’s stormy confrontation with Walter von Brauchitsch to September 5, 2018.
On September 5, 2018, The New York Times publishes an anonymous Op-Ed essay by “a senior official in the Trump administration.” This spotlights massiver dysfunction within the White House—and put the blame squarely on the President.
Among the revelations:
- “Many of the senior officials in his own administration are working diligently from within to frustrate parts of his agenda and his worst inclinations.”
- “We believe our first duty is to this country, and the president continues to act in a manner that is detrimental to the health of our republic. That is why many Trump appointees have vowed to do what we can to preserve our democratic institutions while thwarting Mr. Trump’s more misguided impulses until he is out of office.”
- “On Russia…the president was reluctant to expel so many of Mr. Putin’s spies as punishment for the poisoning of a former Russian spy in Britain….But his national security team knew better—such actions had to be taken, to hold Moscow accountable.”
- “From the White House to executive branch departments and agencies, senior officials will privately admit their daily disbelief at the commander in chief’s comments and actions. Most are working to insulate their operations from his whims.”
ZOSSEN:
Von Roon: The conspiracy has been going on that long—since Czechoslovakia [1938)?
Halder: If the British had not caved in at Munich [where France and Britain sold out their ally, Czechoslovakia]—perhaps. But they did. And ever then, ever since his big triumph, it has been hopeless. Hopeless.
Von Roon: Empty talk, talk, talk. I am staggered.
Halder: A hundred times I myself could have shot the man. I can still at any time. But what would be the result? Chaos. The people are for him. He has unified the country. We must stick to our posts and save him from making military mistakes.
THE WHITE HOUSE:
On September 11, 2018, legendary investigative reporter Bob Woodward publishes a devastating take on the Trump administration: Fear: Trump in the White House. The text features explosive revelations about the President’s ignorance and mistreatment of staffers:
- Trump was about to sign a letter canceling a free-trade agreement with South Korea. To prevent this, Eric Cohn, his national economic council director, swiped it from Trump’s desk. Trump didn’t notice it missing.
- Trump’s lawyer, John Dowd, failed to convince the President that he shouldn’t testify to Special Counsel Robert Mueller. The reason: He would commit perjury—and end up in “an orange jumpsuit.”
- Trump referred to Alabaman Jeff Sessions, his attorney general, as “a dumb southerner” and “mentally retarded.”
General Walther von Brauchitsch fails to convince Hitler to postpone “Case Yellow”—the invasion of France. Hitler insists that it commence in seven days—on November 12.
And he issues a warning to the entire German General staff: “I will ruthlessly crush everybody up to the rank of a Field Marshal who dares to oppose me. You don’t have to understand. You only have to obey. The German people understand me. I am Germany.”
Due to foul weather, Hitler is forced to postpone the invasion of France until June, 1940. But the German General staff can’t ultimately put off the war that will destroy them—and Germany.
President Donald Trump has:
- Fired FBI Director James Comey.
- Tried to fire Independent Counsel Robert Mueller.
- Attacked the integrity of the American Intelligence community.
- Attacked the free press as “the enemy of the American people.”
- Branded America’s longtime ally, Canada, as “a national security threat.”
- Praised brutal Communist dictators Vladimir Putin and Kim Jong Un.
Like Hitler, he can equally say: I am the destiny of America.
History has yet to record if Trump’s subordinates will prove more successful than Hitler’s at preserving “our democratic institutions while thwarting Mr. Trump’s more misguided impulses until he is out of office.”
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In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Politics, Social commentary on September 11, 2018 at 12:08 am
Donald Trump is on the prowl. He’s looking for a traitor—or at least his version of one.
On September 5, Trump was rocked by an unprecedented scandal: The New York Times published an anonymous Op-Ed essay by “a senior official in the Trump administration.”
The writer called himself as a member of “The Resistance.” And he claimed that “many of the senior officials” in the Trump administration “are working diligently from within to frustrate parts of [Trump’s] agenda and his worst inclinations.”
Among his revelations:
- “From the White House to executive branch departments and agencies, senior officials will privately admit their daily disbelief at the commander in chief’s comments and actions. Most are working to insulate their operations from his whims.”
- “Meetings with him veer off topic and off the rails, he engages in repetitive rants, and his impulsiveness results in half-baked, ill-informed and occasionally reckless decisions that have to be walked back.”
- “Given the instability many witnessed, there were early whispers within the cabinet of invoking the 25th Amendment, which would start a complex process for removing the president. But no one wanted to precipitate a constitutional crisis. So we will do what we can to steer the administration in the right direction until—one way or another—it’s over.”
- Trump had opposed expelling “so many of Mr. [Vladimir] Putin’s spies” in retaliation for the poisoning of a former Russian spy living in Britain. He also opposed putting further sanctions on Russia “for its malign behavior. But his national security team knew better—such actions had to be taken, to hold Moscow accountable.”
The Op-Ed ignited a furious guessing game among Washington reporters and ordinary citizens. Not since Watergate and Deep Throat had so many reporters and high-level government officials tried to identify a news source.
Donald Trump
For many, it’s simply an enjoyable mystery.
For Trump, it’s a personal affront. Someone has dared reveal that he is not in total command of the government that he heads. And, even worse, that a shadow government exists to thwart his often reckless and even dangerous ambitions.
Two days after the editorial appeared, on September 7, Trump told reporters on Air Force One: “Yeah, I would say [Attorney General] Jeff [Sessions] should be investigating who the author of this piece was because I really believe it’s national security,”
This despite the fact that:
- No State secrets had been revealed, and
- “Leaking” is a routine occurrence among officials at every government agency.
So will the Justice Department investigate a case under such circumstances?
No one knows.
Jeff Sessions
Trump has locked himself into a no-win contest—to which there can be only two outcomes. And both of them will prove destructive to him.
Outcome #1: Trump doesn’t find the writer. Trump has always believed in conspiracy theories. and seen disagreement as betrayal. He will become increasingly paranoid and self-destructive, and the White House will become increasingly a place where few want to work.
Even under the best circumstances, any job at the Executive Mansion is tremendously stressful—filled with constant deadlines, turf battles between egotistical staffers, the threat of embarrassing exposure in the national media.
If Trump insists that everyone now working for him be strapped into lie detectors, at least some people will refuse and leave. And getting well-screened and experienced replacements for such positions won’t be easy.
Outcome #2: Trump does find the writer. In that case, Trump’s Mount Rushmore-sized ego will demand the writer’s prosecution and imprisonment—if not execution.
Since the writer didn’t leak State secrets, there won’t be any legal basis for such a prosecution. So this will be seen as a vendetta driven by an authoritarian man’s ego.
Moreover, Trump will run headlong into the danger of unleashing a Constitutional crisis.
His hatred of the “fake news” has long been known. The only media he watches and considers reliable is Right-wing Fox News Network, which acts as his personal cheering squad.
The rest of the media will see this—correctly—as an outright attack on their Constitutionally-protected freedom to discover the news and report it. And they will depict it as such.
Picking a fight with the national news media is a no-win situation for Presidents: The media have the resources to “dig up the dirt” on their enemies—and a unique megaphone to give voice to it.
Donald Trump has earned the hatred of many of the reporters covering him. And they will relish doing all they can to bring him down.
And while Republicans have marched in lockstep with Trump from Day One, even they may well hesitate to support him in an all-out war on the press. After all, they have to run for office every two years (for the House of Representatives) or six (for the Senate).
And they know how dangerous it is to antagonize the reporters and editors who cover them.
For Trump, there will be the very real danger that, this time, they won’t back him.
Richard Nixon learned the hard way how dangerous it is to go to war against a free press.
Donald Trump may be about to do the same.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Law Enforcement, Politics, Social commentary on September 10, 2018 at 12:03 am
Labor Day week was a bad one for the Donald Trump administration.
On September 4, the PBS Newshour carried the following story: “Woodward’s White House Book Portrays Officials Trying to Rein in Trump.”
Specifically: Bob Woodward, the two-time Pulitzer-Prize winning investigative reporter and associate editor for The Washington Post, had written a new book about the Trump White House. Its title gave away the contents: Fear: Trump in the White House.
The book will hit bookstores on September 11. But advance copies had clearly been leaked to reviewers.
Among the revelations:
- Former National Economic Council director Gary Cohn believed that Trump would sign a letter canceling a free-trade agreement with South Korea. So he stole the letter from Trump’s desk. Trump “did not notice it was missing.”
- Former Secretary of State Rex Tillerson described Trump as “a fucking moron.”
- After failing to explain to Trump the importance of American defenses in South Korea, Secretary of Defense James Mattis said that Trump “acted like—and had the understanding of—‘a fifth or sixth-grader.'”
- White House Chief of Staff John Kelly privately vented his contempt for Trump: “He’s an idiot. It’s pointless to try to convince him of anything. He’s gone off the rails. We’re in crazytown. I don’t even know why any of us are here. This is the worst job I’ve ever had.”
- Trump lawyer Jay Sekulow tried to argue to Special Counsel Robert Mueller that Trump could not be asked to give an interview because he is a compulsive liar.
Woodward’s book is the third to attack Trump this year.
In January, Michael Wolff’s scathing volume, Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House, sent the Trump and his lackeys into a frenzy.
Then, in August, came Omarosa Manigault-Newman’s Unhinged: An Insider’s Account of the Trump White House. Unlike Wolff, Manigault-Newman had been a longtime Trump follower privy to some of his darkest secrets. Now she chose to reveal them.
Trump predictably slandered Woodward: “It’s just another bad book. He’s had a lot of credibility problems.” And: “The book means nothing, it’s a work of fiction … He had the same problem with other presidents.”
Actually, it’s Trump who has a credibility problem—with The Washington Post finding that, by August 1, he had told 4,229 lies since taking office on January 20, 2017.
Bob Woodward
And Trump had undercut himself during a recorded interview with Woodward. On August 14, he called Woodward after hearing reports about the upcoming book.
Woodward said he was sorry that Trump refused to give him an interview for the book, despite his making several requests.
“It’s really too bad, because nobody told me about it,” said Trump. “You know I’m very open to you. I think you’ve always been fair.”
And then, on September 5, Trump was rocked by another scandal: The New York Times published an anonymous Op-Ed essay.
The Op-Ed confirmed much of what reviewers had said appeared in Woodward’s book. And what made it devastating was that the author was identified as “a senior official in the Trump administration.”
The writer called himself a member of “The Resistance.” And he claimed that “many of the senior officials in [Trump’s] own administration are working diligently from within to frustrate parts of his agenda and his worst inclinations.”
Among his revelations:
- “The root of the problem is the president’s amorality. Anyone who works with him knows he is not moored to any discernible first principles that guide his decision making.”
- “From the White House to executive branch departments and agencies, senior officials will privately admit their daily disbelief at the commander in chief’s comments and actions. Most are working to insulate their operations from his whims.”
- “Meetings with him veer off topic and off the rails, he engages in repetitive rants, and his impulsiveness results in half-baked, ill-informed and occasionally reckless decisions that have to be walked back.”
- Trump had opposed expelling “so many of Mr. [Vladimir] Putin’s spies” in retaliation for the poisoning of a former Russian spy living in Britain. He also opposed putting further sanctions on Russia “for its malign behavior. But his national security team knew better—such actions had to be taken, to hold Moscow accountable.”
The publishing of the Op-Ed by an anonymous writer touched off a furious guessing game among Washington reporters and ordinary citizens.
Donald Trump
It also triggered a volcanic rage in Trump, who told reporters: “If the failing New York Times has an anonymous anonymous can you believe it, meaning gutless! A gutless editorial.”
Trump labeled the editorial an act of treason—although no State secrets had been revealed, and “leaking” is a routine occurrence among officials at every government agency.
Two days after the editorial appeared, on September 7, Trump told reporters on Air Force One: “Yeah, I would say [Attorney General] Jeff [Sessions] should be investigating who the author of this piece was because I really believe it’s national security,”
Asked if the Justice Department would investigate a case where no national security secrets had been leaked, Sarah Flores, the agency’s spokeswoman, said only: “We do not confirm or deny investigations.”
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In Bureaucracy, History, Military, Politics, Social commentary on September 7, 2018 at 12:02 am
There was a time when Republicans saw—and portrayed themselves—as America’s foremost defenders against Communism.
This was particularly true during the early 1950s. Case in point: Wisconsin United States Senator Joseph R. McCarthy.
Elected to the Senate in 1946, he rose to national prominence on February 9, 1950, after giving a fiery speech in Wheeling, West Virginia:
“The State Department is infested with communists. I have here in my hand a list of 205—a list of names that were made known to the Secretary of State as being members of the Communist Party and who nevertheless are still working and shaping policy in the State Department.”
Joseph McCarthy
No American—no matter how prominent—was safe from the accusation of being a Communist or a Communist sympathizer—”a Comsymp” or “fellow traveler” in the style of the era.
So Red-baiting Republicans like McCarthy and then-Vice President Richard M. Nixon would feel dumbfounded at the following news:
On February 20, a purge of Russian “bots” by Twitter sparked outrage by—yes!—Right-wingers.
Bots are fake accounts used to spread propaganda or advertising campaigns. Investigations by the House and Senate Intelligence Committees have uncovered massive efforts by Russia to throw the 2016 Presidential election to Donald Trump.
Their weapon of choice: Swamping “social media” sites like Facebook, Google and Twitter with genuinely fake news.
The Twitter purge came a week after Special Counsel Robert Mueller indicted 13 Russians and three Russian companies for interfering in that election. The indictments detailed an elaborate plot to wage “information warfare” against the United States.
Right-wingers suddenly found thousands of their Russian bot followers had disappeared—and accused Twitter of secretly deleting “like-minded accounts.”
Like-minded, that is, if you like treason.
“Twitter is currently purging the followers on conservative accounts only. I just lost 3000 followers in one minute,” tweeted Candace Owens, director of urban engagement for Turning Point USA. This is a student organization promoting limited government and free markets.
Bill Mitchell, a Right-winger known for his controversial tweets defending President Donald Trump, claimed that he lost roughly 4,000 followers overnight.
“This is a damn joke,” tweeted Mike Zollo. “Twitter is absolutely censoring conservative and right wing speech for no damn reason other than their disagreement with it. But, liberals can write vile comments and threaten us with no punishment.”
From the end of World War II to the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, it would have been unthinkable for a Republican Presidential candidate to find common cause with a Soviet dictator.
But that utterly changed when Donald Trump won, first, the Republican Presidential nomination and, then, the White House. Trump lavishly praised Russian President Vladimir Putin—and even called on him to directly interfere in the 2016 Presidential race.
On July 22, 2016, Wikileaks released 19,252 emails and 8,034 attachments hacked from computers of the highest-ranking officials of the Democratic National Committee (DNC). Early reports traced the leak to Russian hackers.
“Russia, if you are listening,” Trump said at a press conference in Doral, Florida, “I hope you are able to find the 33,000 emails that are missing—I think you will probably be rewarded mightily by our press.”
This was nothing less than treason—calling upon a foreign power, hostile to the United States, to interfere in its Presidential election.
On December 16, 2016, then-FBI Director James B. Comey and Director of National Intelligence James R. Clapper Jr. agreed with a CIA assessment that Russia intervened in the 2016 election in part to help Donald Trump win the White House.
Trump, however, has steadfastly denied any such role by Russia: “I think it’s ridiculous,” he told “Fox News Sunday.” “I think it’s just another excuse. I don’t believe it….No, I don’t believe it at all.”
The last time dictator-worshiping Fascists found common cause with dictator-worshiping Communists was in August, 1939.
Germany’s Fuhrer Adolf Hitler and the Soviet Union’s General Secretary Joseph Stalin agreed to end—at least temporarily—their years of violent rivalry and personal slander.
The reason: Hitler planned to invade Poland, and feared he would have to fight its allies, France and England, if he did. He didn’t want to have to fight the Soviet Union, too.
And Stalin saw Hitler’s warlike ambitions as useful to his own dreams of conquest: He wanted—and got—the eastern half of Poland, while Hitler’s legions occupied the western half.
So why would Donald Trump—the arch capitalist—find common cause with Vladimir Putin, the arch Communist?
Simple: Each had something the other wanted.
First, Putin: He wanted a President who would withdraw the United States from the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO)—which would instantly render that alliance kaput. And give Russia a free hand to attack Europe.
And Trump had repeatedly said the United States was paying an unfairly large portion of the monies needed to maintain that alliance.
Then, Trump: He wanted to be President—to enrich himself and his family, to become the center of the world’s attention, and to destroy anyone who dared confront or contradict him.
It’s useful to remember that the Hitler-Stalin “bromance” ended badly: Russia lost 25 million of its citizens and East Germany was ruled by Russia for the next 50 years.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Politics, Social commentary on August 28, 2018 at 12:24 am
James Comey has had a long and distinguished career in American law enforcement:
- 2002 – 2003: United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York
- 2003 – 2005: United States Deputy Attorney General
- 2013 – 2017: Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation
As a result, Comey has firsthand experience in attacking organized crime—and in spotting its leaders.
In his bestselling memoir, A Higher Loyalty, he writes:
“As I found myself thrust into the Trump orbit, I once again was having flashbacks to my earlier career as a prosecutor against the mob. The silent circle of assent. The boss in complete control. The loyalty oaths. The us-versus-them worldview. The lying about all things, large and small, in service to some code of loyalty that put the organization above morality and the truth.”
On May 9, 2017, President Donald Trump fired Comey as FBI director. There were five reasons for this:
- Comey had refused to pledge his personal loyalty to Trump. Trump had made the “request” during a private dinner at the White House in January.
- Comey told Trump that he would always be honest with him. But that didn’t satisfy Trump’s demand that the head of the FBI act as his personal secret police chief—as was the case in the former Soviet Union.
- Trump had tried to coerce Comey into dropping the FBI’s investigation into former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn, for his secret ties to Russia and Turkey. Comey had similarly resisted that demand.
- Comey had recently asked the Justice Department to fund an expanded FBI investigation into well-documented contacts between Trump’s 2016 Presidential campaign and Russian Intelligence agents.
- The goal of that collaboration: To elect Trump over Hillary Clinton, a longtime foe of Russian President Vladimir Putin.
James Comey
Trump and his shills have adamantly denied that he demanded that Comey serve as his private police chief.
But now Trump has proved that he—and not Comey—was the liar. And more like a mobster than a President.
On August 21, his former attorney, Michael Cohen, pleaded guilty to eight counts of campaign finance violations, tax fraud and bank fraud. And, more worrisome for Trump, Cohen said he had made illegal campaign contributions “in coordination and at the direction of a candidate for federal office”—Donald Trump.
On August 23, on the Fox News program, “Fox and Friends,” Trump attacked Cohen for “flipping” on him:
“For 30, 40 years I’ve been watching flippers. Everything’s wonderful and then they get 10 years in jail and they—they flip on whoever the next highest one is, or as high as you can go. It—it almost ought to be outlawed. It’s not fair.
“You know, campaign violations are considered not a big deal, frankly. But if somebody defrauded a bank and he’s going to get 10 years in jail or 20 years in jail but if you can say something bad about Donald Trump and you’ll go down to two years or three years, which is the deal he made.”
Making “flipping” illegal would undo decades of organized crime prosecutions—and make future ones almost impossible.
“It takes a small bum to catch a big bum,” as one deputy U.S. marshal once stated.
Boy Scouts simply won’t hang out with career criminals. To penetrate the secrets of criminal organizations, investigators and prosecutors need the testimony of those who are parties to those secrets.
The Organized Crime Control Act of 1970 gave Justice Department prosecutors unprecedented weapons for attacking crime syndicates across the country. One of these was the authority to give witnesses immunity from prosecution on the basis of their own testimony.
Thus, a witness to a criminal conspiracy could be forced to tell all he knew—and thus implicate his accomplices—and bosses. In turn, he wouldn’t be prosecuted on the basis of his testimony. (He could, however, be prosecuted if someone else accused him of criminal acts.)
Organized crime members aggressively damn such “rats.” There is no more obscene word in a mobster’s vocabulary.
But no President—until Trump—has ever attacked those who make possible a war on organized crime.
On August 19, he tweeted:
“The failing @nytimes wrote a Fake piece today implying that because White House Councel Don McGahn was giving hours of testimony to the Special Councel, he must be a John Dean type “RAT.” But I allowed him and all others to testify – I didn’t have to. I have nothing to hide……”
In 1973, former White House Counsel John Dean testified before the United States Senate on a litany of crimes committed by President Richard M. Nixon. Dean didn’t lie about Nixon—who ultimately resigned in disgrace.
For Trump, Dean’s sin is that he “flipped” on his former boss, violating the Mafia’s code of omerta, or silence.
Trump knows better than most how dangerous a “flipper” can be. His former lawyer and mentor, Roy Cohn, represented some of the most notorious Mafiosi in the country—such as John Gotti and Carmine Galante.
And both Gotti and Galante went to prison owing to “flippers.”
For Donald Trump, there is no greater nightmare than becoming the victim of those who know—and are willing to share—his criminal secrets.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Politics, Social commentary on August 24, 2018 at 12:48 am
Omarosa Manigault-Newman has struck a chord of fear in President Donald Trump that rivals the fear he has struck in others.
She has done so by using many of his own tactics against him: Deceit, intimidation, media manipulation.
Syndicated Columnist Mark Shields noted on the August 17 edition of The PBS Newshour: “In a White House where most of the people are recent acquaintances of the president, she goes back longer than anybody, except the president’s daughter. She goes back 15 years. She is a Donald Trump protege and product….
“But what she does, obviously, like Elizabeth Warren, she gets under Donald Trump’s skin. And she has said things that, you know, may be subject to fact-check, but the reality is, she has tape.
“She has tape of Donald Trump groveling before her, pretending that he didn’t know that John Kelly had the day before brought her to the Situation Room…which therefore confirms the suspicion widely held that Donald Trump doesn’t have the stomach for confronting people who work for him, that he lies.
“And you can see that he obviously is absolutely upset by her, and she’s got everybody in the White House, every male, quaking in his Guccis about those tapes. I can tell you that.”
David Brooks and Mark Shields
New York Times Columnist David Brooks, speaking on the same episode of The Newshour, outlined why her attacks on Trump have been so effective.
“Well, what’s interesting about her is, she plays by reality show rules. She plays by Trump rules. And most people who go against Trump don’t quite play by his rules. And she plays by his rules, which is no rules, that do whatever you can, it doesn’t matter what the norms and standards are.
“And taping somebody in the Situation Room is a rather serious offense and, to me, a pretty great betrayal of any—how any White House should work. I mean, if we’re walking around each other in the hallway taping each other, just think about doing that.
“That’s just a betrayal of how normal life should happen….And so she said, they’re going to lie about me, they’re going to screw me, so I’m ready.”
In perhaps the most-quoted passage of The Prince, Niccolo Machiavelli wrote:
“From this arises the question whether it is better to be loved than feared, or feared more than loved. The reply is, that one ought to be both feared and loved, but as it is difficult for the two to go together, it is much safer to be feared than loved.
“For it may be said of men in general that they are ungrateful, voluble, dissemblers, anxious to avoid danger and covetous of gain. As long as you benefit them, they are entirely yours: they offer you their blood, their goods, their life and their children, when the necessity is remote, but when it approaches, they revolt.
“And the prince who has relied solely on their words, without making other preparations, is ruined. For the friendship which is gained by purchase and not through grandeur and nobility of spirit is bought but not secured, and at a pinch is not to be expended in your service.”
Niccolo Machiavelli
Donald Trump has always used fear to instill and maintain loyalty among his closest associates—and to intimidate his many enemies.
But Machiavelli offers a warning on the uses of fear:
“Still, 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.
“Cruelties ill committed are those which, although at first few, increase rather than diminish with time….In taking a state, the conqueror must arrange to commit all his cruelties at once, so as not to have to recur to them very day, and so as to be able, by not making fresh changes, to reassure people and win them over by benefiting them.
“Whoever acts otherwise, either through timidity or bad counsels,” warns Machiavelli, “is always obliged to stand with knife in hand, and can never depend on his subjects, because they, owing to continually fresh injuries, are unable to depend upon him.”
From the onset of his Presidency, Trump has violated this warning with a vengeance. And now he is “obliged to stand with knife in hand.”
Omarosa is the first former Trump loyalist to emerge as a fervent Trump critic. And she may have even worse in store for him.
Warns David Brooks:
“All sorts of signs are pointing in this direction, that we’re going to wind up with an election where….people are basically going to be voting, when race is a hot button issue, with a man who has a history of bigoted comments, and then voting along those lines.”
With Democratic voters—many of them blacks and Hispanics—energized, Trump’s obvious racism could sweep Republicans from the House of Representatives.
Omarosa seems determined to make that happen.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Politics, Social commentary on August 23, 2018 at 12:06 am
On the August 12, 2018 edition of NBC’s “Meet the Press,” Omarosa Manigault-Newman revealed that she had recorded a conversation with White House Chief of Staff John Kelly.
This had occurred on December 13, 2017, in the White House Situation Room. This is the part of the White House where the most sensitive conversations occur.
She justified her unprecedented violation of the Situation Room thus: “They take me into the Situation Room, the doors are locked, they tell me I can’t leave and they start to threaten me, put fear in me, to put me under duress.
“I protected myself because this is a White House where everybody lies; the President lies to the American people, [press secretary] Sarah Huckabee [Sanders] stands in front of the country and lies every single day.
“You have to have your own back or else you’ll look back and you’ll have 17 knives in your back. I protected myself because this is a White House where everybody lies.”
The next day, August 13, 2018, Omarosa threw an even more embarrassing bombshell at the man who had once been her mentor and promoter.
She revealed the conversation—also taped—she had had with President Donald Trump on the day of her firing.
Donald Trump
TRUMP: “Omarosa? Omarosa what’s going on? I just saw on the news that you’re thinking about leaving? What happened?”
OMAROSA: “General Kelly came to me and said that you guys wanted me to leave.”
TRUMP: “Nobody even told me about it,”
OMAROSA: “Wow.”
TRUMP: “You know they run a big operation, but I didn’t know it, I didn’t know that. Goddamn it. I don’t love you leaving at all.”
The tape reveals a duel between practiced deceivers: Trump is trying to convince Omarosa that he knew nothing about her firing—and that he can do nothing to prevent it.
She, on the other hand, never tips her hand that she doesn’t believe him—and that she’s recording their conversation.
At least for the moment, Trump was the more deceived, tweeting that same day: “Thank you Omarosa for your service! I wish you continued success.”
Apparently he didn’t expect her to attain that success at his expense.
And on August 16, 2018, Omarosa embarrassed another member of the Trump family—Lara Trump, the wife of Donald Trump’s son, Eric.
Lara Trump
She did so by revealing yet another tape—of a conversation between the two—during her appearance on MSNBC.
This had occurred on December 16—three days after Omarosa’s firing by White House Chief of Staff John Kelly.
Lara Trump referred to a December 15 New York Times article where Omarosa had said: “I have seen things that made me uncomfortable, that have upset me, that have affected me deeply and emotionally, that has affected my community and my people. And when I can tell my story, it is a profound story that I know the world will want to hear.”
LARA TRUMP: “It sounds a little like, obviously, that there are some things you’ve got in the back pocket to pull out. Clearly, if you come on board, like, we can’t have . . .”
OMAROSA: “Oh God, no.”
LAURA TRUMP: “Everything, everybody positive, right?”
Lara Trump then offered Omarosa a speaker’s position with the 2020 Trump re-election campaign. It would pay her about $15,000 a month.
LARA TRUMP: “All the money that we raise and that pays salaries is directly from donors, small-dollar donors for the most part. So I know you, you were making 179 [$179,000 a year] at the White House, and I think we can work something out where we keep you right along those lines.”
After Omarosa played her tape of the conversation, Lara Trump released a statement. She and her “entire family was concerned” about Omarosa after her firing.
“We still wanted her on our team because we cared so much about her personally. That’s why I reached out to offer her a position with the 2020 Trump Campaign before we knew anything about the gross violations of ethics and integrity during her White House tenure.”
Omarosa viewed the offer differently: “I saw this as an attempt to buy my silence,” she said on MSNBC.
And she issued her own statement: “I am not going anywhere. I’m not going to be bullied. I’m not intimidated. And I’m going to go toe-to-toe with him [President Trump]. Everything he throws at me—believe me, my tapes are much better than theirs.”
She threatened to release more tapes “if I need to. I’ll do what I have to do to protect myself.”
Meanwhile, President Trump has not remained silent—although he has reportedly been urged to do so by his closest aides and attorneys.
On August 13, he attacked Omarosa on Twitter: “When you give a crazed, crying lowlife a break, and give her a job at the White House, I guess it just didn’t work out. Good work by General Kelly for quickly firing that dog!”
Arizona United States Senator Jeff Flake objected to this use of language: “This kind of language is unbecoming of a President of the United States. There is no excuse for it, and Republicans should not be okay with it.”
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In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Politics, Social commentary, Uncategorized on August 22, 2018 at 12:37 am
On December 13, 2017, Omarosa Manigault-Newman was told that she would be leaving the White House on January 20, 2018—one year from the day she had arrived there.
But Omarosa didn’t want to part with her $180,000 position as director of Communications for the Office of Public Liaison.
She reportedly asked Ivanka Trump to intervene on her behalf, but the request was denied.
Deciding to go right to the top, she headed for the Trump’s private quarters. There she tripped an alarm—which brought guards and White House Chief of Staff John Kelly to the scene.
An enraged Kelly ordered her ejected from the White House. Multiple sources report that she was physically restrained and escorted—cursing and screaming—from the Executive Mansion.
The White House
Next day—December 14—Manigault-Newman appeared on “Good Morning America.”
The woman who had been Donald Trump’s ambassador to blacks now sang a different tune: “I have seen things that made me uncomfortable, that have upset me, that have affected me deeply and emotionally, that has affected my community and my people. And when I can tell my story, it is a profound story that I know the world will want to hear.”
On August 8, 2018, news broke that Omarosa Manigault-Newman had secretly taped Trump during several phone conversations in the White House. And that she planned to use these to promote an upcoming—and highly critical—book on the President.
The book—Unhinged-–was released on August 14. Omarosa has since launched her book tour blasting Trump as a racist, a misogynist and in mental decline.
- On Trump as a racist: Interviewed on The PBS Newshour, she said: “One of the most dramatic scenes in Unhinged where I talk about taking him to task for the birther movement.”
- On Trump as a misogynist: In an Associated Press interview, she claims she saw Trump behaving “like a dog off the leash” at numerous events he attended without his wife, Melania Trump.
- On Trump’s mental decline: On the PBS Newshour: “We’re in the White House and Donald Trump couldn’t remember basic words or phrases. He couldn’t read the legislation that was put in front of him.”
On August 12, Manigault-Newman appeared on NBC’s “Meet the Press”—with an audio of the exchange that had occurred between her and White House Chief of Staff John Kelly on the day of her firing.
Kelly had directed her to meet with him in the Situation Room.
In the Executive Mansion, this is the “holy of holies”—the inner sanctum where the most secret exchanges of information occur.
It was from this room that President Barack Obama and his topmost officials tensely listened as U.S. Navy SEALS assaulted Osama bin Laden’s fortified compound in Pakistan—and killed him.
It is, in short, the room where recording devices of any type are strictly forbidden.
So Kelly naturally assumed that the exchange he was about to have with Omarosa—the director of communications for the Office of Public Liaison—would be totally private.
He didn’t know that Omarosa had smuggled in a recording device—which picked up the following:
JOHN KELLY: “It’s come to my attention, over the last few months, that there’s been some pretty, in my opinion, significant integrity issues related to you and use of government vehicles and some other issues.”
OMAROSA: “That I—that I did?”
KELLY: “Just stay with me, just stay with me. Yep. That it would be a a pretty serious offense. So with that I’m just going to ask you—these gentlemen will explain it. We’ll bring a personnel person in after after they talk to you. But just to understand that I’d like to see this be a a friendly departure.
“There are pretty significant legal issues that we hope don’t develop into something that, that’ll make it ugly for you. But I think it’s important to understand that if we make this a friendly departure we can all be, you know, you can look at, look at your time here in, in the White House as a year of service to the nation.
“And then you can go on without any type of difficulty in the future relative to your reputation. But it’s very, very important I think that you understand that there are some serious legal issues that have been violated. And you’re, you’re open to some legal action that we hope, I think, we can control, right?
“So with that, if you would stay here with these gentlemen they’ll lay this thing out—“
OMAROSA: “Can I ask you a couple questions? Does the President—is the President aware of what’s going on?”
KELLY: “Don’t do—let’s not go down the road. This is a non-negotiable discussion.”
OMAROSA: “I don’t want to negotiate. I just, I’ve never talked—had a chance to talk to you General Kelly so if this is my departure I’d like to have at least an opportunity—”
KELLY: “No.”
OMAROSA: “––to understand.”
Omarosa revealed this tape to the public on the August 12, 2018 edition of NBC’s “Meet the Press.”
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In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Politics, Social commentary on August 21, 2018 at 12:04 am
“When they go low, we go high!” was an inspiring line from then-First Lady Michelle Obama during the 2016 Presidential election.
Unfortunately, it proved only that good guys finish last.
During the campaign, supporters of Republican candidate Donald J. Trump repeatedly threatened violence against his opponent, Hillary Clinton.
Among those threats:
- In Cincinnati, a Trump supporter threatened to forcibly remove Clinton from the White House if she won the race: “If she’s in office, I hope we can start a coup. She should be in prison or shot. That’s how I feel about it,”
- Dan Bowman, a 50-year-old contractor, said of Clinton: “We’re going to have a revolution and take them out of office if that’s what it takes. There’s going to be a lot of bloodshed. But that’s what it’s going to take….I would do whatever I can for my country.”
Even Fergus Cullen, former chairman of the New Hampshire GOP, expressed fear of what might happen if Trump lost the election.
Fergus Cullen
“That’s really scary,” Cullen said, recounting the violence at Trump rallies around the country leading up to the Republican National Convention. “In this country, we’ve always had recriminations after one side loses. But we haven’t had riots. We haven’t had mobs that act out with violence against supporters of the other side.
“There’s no telling what his supporters would be willing to do at the slightest encouragement from their candidate,” he said.
Trump even began encouraging his mostly white supporters to sign up online to be “election observers” to stop “Crooked Hillary from rigging this election.” He urged them to act as poll watchers in “other” [non-white] communities to ensure that things are “on the up and up.”
And many of his supporters promised to do so.
“Trump said to watch your precincts. I’m going to go, for sure,” said Steve Webb, a 61-year-old carpenter from Fairfield, Ohio.
“I’ll look for…well, it’s called racial profiling. Mexicans. Syrians. People who can’t speak American,” he said. “I’m going to go right up behind them. I’ll do everything legally. I want to see if they are accountable. I’m not going to do anything illegal. I’m going to make them a little bit nervous.”
Knowing that large numbers of angry—and possibly armed—Right-wingers planned to descend on polling places could only have had a chilling effect on untold numbers of Democratic voters. And this would have been especially true in heavily conservative states.
Both the USA Patriot Act and the Racketeer Influenced Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act have statutes dealing with making terrorist threats against government institutions to influence their members.
If Trump’s remarks did not violate one or both of those laws, certainly remarks made by his surrogates did.
Thus, the Justice Department could have cited the Patriot Act in indicting Trump and/or any number of his followers for “activities that…appear to be intended…to influence the policy of a government by intimidation or coercion [and]…occur primarily within the territorial jurisdiction of the United States.”
The Justice Department could have also demanded that the results of the election be invalidated on the basis that widespread voter and candidate intimidation played a massive role in it.
But that, of course, did not happen.
So far, only one person has proven Trump’s equal—if not superior—in fighting fire with fire: Omarosa Manigauot-Newman, his onetime “Apprentice” protégé.
The relationship between Donald Trump and Omarosa dates to 2004, when she became a participant in the first season of “The Apprentice,” NBC’s “reality” TV series.
Her rudeness and ruthlessness toward other contestants quickly made her “the woman America loved to hate,” according to Jet magazine.
TV Guide included her in its 2013 list of “The 60 Nastiest TV Villains of All Time.”
In 2008, she appeared on “Celebrity Apprentice”—where she was again fired after failing to sell more artwork than a rival team.
During the 2016 Presidential race, she served as Trump’s Director of African-American Outreach, although she had absolutely no credible ties to the black community.
Omarosa Manigault-Newman
(By Photography by Glenn Francis of PacificProDigital.com)
And, in September, 2016, she famously predicted: “Every critic, every detractor will have to bow down to President Trump. It’s everyone who’s ever doubted Donald, who ever disagreed, who ever challenged him. It is the ultimate revenge to become the most powerful man in the universe.”
When Trump moved into the White House on January 20, 2017, Manigault moved in with him as his director of communications for the Office of Public Liaison.
Her arrogance and rudeness quickly won her as many enemies among White House staffers as among her former “Apprentice” rivals.
A typical example: On April 8, 2017, she married John Allen Newman, the senior pastor at The Sanctuary at Mt. Calvary, a church in Jacksonville, Florida. Afterwards, in full bridal attire, Omarosa took her 39-member bridal party to the White House for an extended photo shoot.
According to Politico, White House senior aides and security officials were caught by surprise. Omarosa hadn’t alerted them in advance. Her visitors—lacking security clearances—“loudly wandered around” the Rose Garden and West Wing.
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DIFFERENT ENEMIES, SAME GOAL: PART ONE (OF TWO)
In Bureaucracy, History, Military, Politics, Social commentary on October 2, 2018 at 12:27 amA CNN headline says it all: “Obama asked question everyone’s been wondering about GOP”
“What happened to the Republican Party?”
That’s the question former President Barack Obama asked at the University of Illinois on September 7. And he quickly answered it:
“Its central organizing principle in foreign policy was the fight against communism, and now they’re cozying up to the former head of the KGB. Actively blocking legislation that would defend our elections from Russian attack. What happened?”
Barack Obama as President
On the surface, it seems the Republican Party has drastically changed. But, in reality, there has been no substantial change at all.
Let’s start at the beginning—in this case, 1932.
Democratic nominee Franklin D. Roosevelt wins election against Republican President Herbert Hoover. So popular is he that he wins an unprecedented four terms—12 years!—in the White House, seeing America through the Great Depression and World War II,
In 1945, Roosevelt suddenly dies in office, leaving Vice President Harry S. Truman in command. He lacks the imperial magnetism and eloquence of FDR, so Republicans assume that 1948 will be a cakewalk for them.
But it isn’t. Instead, Truman wins a second term—and rubs it in by holding up the now-defunct headline, “DEWEY DEFEATS TRUMAN” for reporters to photograph.
By 1952, Republicans have been locked out of the White House for 20 years. They’re desperate to return—and angry enough to do anything to win.
They find attacking the integrity of their fellow Americans a highly effective tactic.
During the 1950s, Wisconsin United States Senator Joseph R. McCarthy rides a wave of paranoia to national prominence—by attacking the patriotism of anyone who disagrees with him.
Elected to the Senate in 1946, he rises to national prominence on February 9, 1950, after giving a fiery speech in Wheeling, West Virginia:
“The State Department is infested with communists. I have here in my hand a list of 205—a list of names that were made known to the Secretary of State as being members of the Communist Party and who nevertheless are still working and shaping policy in the State Department.”
Senator Joseph R. McCarthy
Americans are already growing increasingly fearful of Communism:
Anti-communism as a lever to political advancement sharply accelerates following McCarthy’s speech.
Any American can be accused of being a Communist or a Communist sympathizer—”a Comsymp” or “fellow traveler” in the style of the era.
Among those accused:
Even “untouchable” Republicans become targets for such slander.
The most prominent of these is President Dwight D. Eisenhower—labeled ”a conscious, dedicated agent of the Communist Conspiracy” by Robert Welch, founder of the John Birch Society in 1958.
In 1953, McCarthy attacks the leadership of the United States Army as “a hotbed of traitors” and convenes an inquiry through the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations.
But the hearings backfire, exposing McCarthy as a bullying demagogue. A Senate committee condemns his behavior as acting “contrary to senatorial ethics and tended to bring the Senate into dishonor and disrepute.”
Yet even without McCarthy, Republicans ride the issue of anti-Communism to victory from 1948 to 1992. “Respectable” anti-Communists—like Richard M. Nixon—depict themselves as the only ones who can be trusted to safeguard America.
Republicans hold the White House for eight years under Dwight D. Eisenhower, then lose it in 1960 to John F. Kennedy and again in 1964 to Lyndon B. Johnson.
By 1968, with the nation mired in Vietnam and convulsed by antiwar demonstrations and race riots, Americans turn once more to those who prey upon their fears and hates.
They elect Richard Nixon, who promises to end the Vietnam war and attack “uppity” blacks and antiwar demonstrators—and, above all, “the Communist menace.”
The same strategy re-elects him in 1972.
Jimmy Carter wins the Presidency in 1976 and loses it in 1980 to Ronald Reagan. Republicans hold the White House until 1992.
Reagan doesn’t want to continue the “stalemate” of “containing” Communism. He intends to roll it back. Tensions rise between the United States and the Soviet Union—the highest since the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962.
American proxies fight Soviet proxies in Afghanistan and Central America, but the world escapes nuclear holocaust.
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