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FIVE MAPS TO SOUTHERN INFAMY: PART ONE (OF TWO)

In Bureaucracy, History, Medical, Politics, Social commentary on April 3, 2025 at 12:05 am

Throughout its history the South has been a hotbed of treason, racism and ignorance.

Today, it proudly continues holding fast to these traditions—as it threatens the entire country with a Fascistic dictatorship under Donald Trump.

Infamy 1: 1860 – 1865 – The Confederate States of America.

Union (blue) and Confederate (red) states: 1860 – 1865

Júlio Reis, CC BY-SA 3.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0>, via Wikimedia Commons

From 1860 to 1865, the South—Texas, Arkansas, Louisiana, Tennessee, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, Florida, South Carolina, North Carolina and Virginia—produced the greatest case of mass treason in America’s history.

According to The Destructive War, by Charles Royster, it wasn’t the cause of “states’ rights” that led 13 Southern states to withdraw from the Union in 1860-61. It was their demand for “respect,” which, in reality, translates into “e-g-o.”

“The respect Southerners demanded did not consist simply of the states’ sovereignty or of the equal rights of Northern and Southern citizens, including slaveholders’ right to take their chattels into Northern territory.

“It entailed, too, respect for their assertion of the moral superiority of slaveholding society over free society,” writes Royster.

It was not enough for Southerners to claim equal standing with Northerners; Northerners must acknowledge it. But this was something that the North was increasingly unwilling to do.

Finally, its citizens dared to elect Abraham Lincoln as President in 1860.

Lincoln and his new Republican party damned slavery—and slaveholders—as morally evil, obsolete and ultimately doomed. And they were determined to prevent slavery from spreading any further throughout the country.

Southerners found all of this intolerable.

Lincoln—during his First Inaugural Address—bluntly said that he did not intend to “directly or indirectly…interfere with the institution of slavery in the States where it exists. I believe I have no lawful right to do so, and I have no inclination to do so.”

Abraham Lincoln

But that was not enough for Southerners.

Only 10% of Southerners owned slaves. The other 90% of the population “had no dog in this fight,” as Southerners liked to say.

Yet they so admired and aspired to be like their “gentleman betters” that they threw in their lot with them.

On April 12, 1861—just over a month since Lincoln’s inauguration on March 4—Southern batteries opened fire on Union Fort Sumter in Charleston Harbor, South Carolina.

This ignited the American Civil War, costing the lives of 750,000 Americans—at a time when the population of the United States stood at 31,443,321.

Four years later, Confederate General Robert E. Lee surrendered the Army of Northern Virginia to Union General Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox Courthouse.

Huge sections of the South had been laid waste by Union troops and more than 258,000 Southerners had been killed.

And slavery, the mainstay of Southern plantation life, had been ended forever.

The South had paid a high price for its investment in treason.

Infamy 2: 1964 – 2024 – Racism breeds Southern Republicans.

In 1964, Democratic President Lyndon B. Johnson pushed the Civil Rights Act through Congress, ending more than a century of blatant discrimination against blacks.

The South—which before the Civil War had been solidly Democratic—suddenly went solidly Republican.

To understand this mammoth shift, it’s vital to realize: In Lincoln’s time, the Republicans were the party of progressives.

The party was founded on an anti-slavery platform. Its members were thus reviled as “Black Republicans.” And until the 1960s, the South was solidly Democratic.

Democrats were the ones defending the status quo—slavery—and opposing the rights of freed blacks in the South of Reconstruction and long afterward.

When, in the early 1960s, Democrats championed the rights of blacks, Southerners bolted for the Republican party—which held to the same values that slavery/discrimination-supporting Democrats once did.

After signing the Civil Rights Act of 1964 into law, President Lyndon B. Johnson told an aide: “We have just lost the South for a generation.”

Johnson was wrong: A generation lasts 20 to 30 years. It’s been 60 years since the signing of the Act, and the South is still solidly within the Republican camp.

To compete successfully in this region, Democrats would need to demand the reinstatement of segregation—if not slavery.

1968 election

Infamy 3: 2016 – Fascist racism elects Donald Trump as President.

Repeatedly, when asked why they supported Trump, his followers said: “He says what I’ve been thinking!”

And what Trump appealed to, above all else, was racist hatred.

From June 15, 2015, when he launched his Presidential campaign, until October 24, 2016, Trump fired almost 4,000 angry, insulting tweets at 281 people and institutions that had somehow offended him.

Donald Trump

The New York Times needed two full pages of its print edition to showcase them.

Among his targets:

Women
Blacks
Hispanics
Asians
Muslims
The disabled
Prisoners-of-war

Red States voted for Donald Trump – 2016

BobWyatt07, CC BY-SA 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons

Whites comprised the overwhelming majority of the audiences at Trump rallies. Not all were racists, but many of those who were advertised it on T-shirts: “MAKE AMERICA WHITE AGAIN.”

And the vast majority of the white votes Trump got were in the South.

The 2008 election of Barack Obama as the first black President had shocked whites. His 2012 re-election had deprived them of the hope that 2008 had been an accident.

In 2016 macho, largely uneducated, anti-black Southern males couldn’t accept a woman—Hillary Clinton—occupying the White House.

They ignored reputable reports—later confirmed—that Trump’s campaign was backed by Russian oligarchs linked to Russian dictator Vladimir Putin, the former head of the KGB.

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THE AFGHAN-AMERICAN TALIBAN: PART THREE (OF FOUR)

In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Military, Politics, RELIGION, Social commentary on February 12, 2025 at 12:09 am

Bernardo Gui was the chief inquisitor of the Dominican Order during the Medieval Inquisition (1184 – 1230s).

Gui closely studied the best methods for interrogating “heretics.” He set forth his findings in his most important and famous work, Practica Inquisitionis Heretice Pravitatis: “Conduct of the Inquisition Into Heretical Wickedness.”

Here’s how such an interrogation might go:

When a heretic is first brought up for examination, he assumes a confident air, as though secure in his innocence. I ask him why he has been brought before me. He replies, smiling and courteous, “Sir, I would be glad to learn the cause from you.”

Interrogator: You are accused as a heretic, and that you believe and teach otherwise than Holy Church believes.

Accused Heretic: (Raising his eyes to heaven, with an air of the greatest faith) Lord, thou knowest that I am innocent of this, and that I never held any faith other than that of true Christianity.

Interrogator: You call your faith Christian, for you consider ours as false and heretical. But I ask whether you have ever believed as true another faith than that which the Roman Church holds to be true?

Accused Heretic: I believe the true faith which the Roman Church believes, and which you openly preach to us.

Interrogator: Perhaps you have some of your sect at Rome whom you call the Roman Church. I, when I preach, say many things, some of which are common to us both, as that God liveth, and you believe some of what I preach. Nevertheless you may be a heretic in not believing other matters which are to be believed.

Accused Heretic: I believe all things that a Christian should believe.

Interrogator: I know your tricks….But we waste time in this fencing. Say simply, Do you believe in one God the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Ghost?

Accused Heretic: I believe.

Interrogator: Do you believe in Christ born of the Virgin, suffered, risen, and ascended to heaven?

Accused Heretic: (Briskly) I believe.

Interrogator: Do you believe the bread and wine in the mass performed by the priests to be changed into the body and blood of Christ by divine virtue?

Accused Heretic: Ought I not to believe this?

Interrogator: I don’t ask if you ought to believe, but if you do believe.

Accused Heretic: I believe whatever you and other good doctors order me to believe.

Inquisitor: Those good doctors are the masters of your sect; if I accord with them you believe with me; if not, not.

Accused Heretic: I willingly believe with you if you teach what is good to me.

Inquisitor: You consider it good to you if I teach what your other masters teach. Say, then, do you believe the body of our Lord, Jesus Christ to be in the altar?

Accused Heretic: (Promptly) I believe that a body is there, and that all bodies are of our Lord.

Interrogator: I ask whether the body there is of the Lord who was born of the Virgin, hung on the cross, arose from the dead, ascended, etc.

Accused Heretic: And you, sir, do you not believe it?

Interrogator: I believe it wholly.

Accused Heretic: I believe likewise.

Men like Bernard Gui—and Franklin Graham—do not seek a golden future. They crave to return to a “golden” past—which includes the power Christians once held to forcibly impose their religious beliefs on others.

Among those slated for forced conversions by the Religious Right:

Atheists
Jews
Women
Homosexuals
Lesbians
Non-Christians
Liberals

To gain absolute secular power over the lives of their fellow Americans, the Religious Right will support any candidate, no matter how morally despicable.

During the 2016 and 2020 Presidential races, evangelicals—and their leaders such as Franklin Graham and Jerry Falwell, Jr.—fervently supported Donald Trump, despite:

His being twice divorced;
His multiple affairs (including one with porn star Stormy Daniels);
His documented ties to Russian oligarchs and Mafia chieftains;
His viciousness, greed, lying and egomania.

Donald Trump and Jerry Falwell, Jr., at Liberty University

And they continue to fervently support him.

They expect Trump to sponsor legislation that will—-by force of law—make their brand of Christianity supreme above all other religions.

Legislation such as The Religious Freedom Restoration Act.

This was signed into law on March 26, 2015, by Mike Pence, then Governor of Indiana.

This allows any individual or corporation to cite its religious beliefs as a defense when sued by a private party.

Officially, its intent is to prevent the government from forcing business owners to violate their religious beliefs.

Unofficially, its intent is to appease the hatred of gays and lesbians by the religious Right, a key constituency of the Republican party.

Thus, a bakery that doesn’t want to make a cake for a gay wedding or a restaurant that doesn’t want to serve lesbian patrons now has the legal right to refuse to do so.

And a hospital can legally turn away a gay patient if it wants to.

Islamic countries are notorious for their persecution of non-Muslims. Now the Religious Right wants to impose its own version of sharia law on American citizens.

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THE AFGHAN AMERICAN TALIBAN: PART TWO (OF FOUR)

In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Military, Politics, RELIGION, Social commentary on February 11, 2025 at 12:14 am

American Right-wing elements relentlessly claimed that President Barack Obama was waging “a war on religion.”

GOP candidates like Rick Santorum, Newt Gingrich and Mitt Romney intended to make this a major theme of their respective campaigns for President in 2012.

Obama supported a woman’s right

to obtain abortion—including in cases of rape and incest;
to obtain birth control; and
to obtain amniocentesis (pre-natal testing).

By promoting women’s rights, Obama was “waging a war against religion”—according to American fundamentalists.

Since access to such medical procedures as birth control and pre-natal testing has long been entirely legal, what’s all the fuss about?

It’s simple: The Right is not waging a “war for religious liberty.”

It’s waging a bitter struggle to establish a government that uses force or the threat of it to impose reactionary religious beliefs on those who do not share such religious beliefs.

And on atheists or agnostics, who share none at all.

These Rightists and their theocratic allies have less in common with Jesus Christ than with Tomas de Torquemada (1420 – 1498), the infamous Grand Inquisitor of the Spanish Inquisition.

Christ never ordered the torture or death of anyone. Torquemada—claiming to act in “defense” of the Roman Catholic Church—presided over the deaths of at least 2,000 “heretics.”

Tomas de Torquemada

Nor did these unfortunate victims of religious fanaticism meet their death quickly or painlessly. They died by perhaps the cruelest means possible—by being burned alive at the stake.

Torquemada didn’t hesitate to pronounce someone a heretic. He “knew” who such people were: Jews, Muslims, atheists. They were “lapsed Catholics” who, in his view, failed to show fervent devotion to the religious authorities—like himself—who tyrannically ruled their lives.

For such people, Torquemada believed, the only road to salvation lay in being “cleansed” of their sins. And nothing burns away impurities like fire.

But before the fire-stakes came the fire-mindset: The arrogance of “knowing” who qualified as “saved” and who would be forever “damned.”

Unless, of course, his or her soul had been “purified” by fire.

“Heretic” burned at the stake

Fundamentalist Christians can no longer sentence “heretics” to the stake.

But the mindset that ruled the Spanish Inquisition has not disappeared. It has been vividly displayed by no less a religious authority than Franklin Graham, son of America’s most famous preacher, Billy Graham.

Franklin Graham

Appearing on the MSNBC program, “Morning Joe,” on February 21, 2012, Graham was asked if he thought that Barack Obama, Rick Santorum, Newt Gingrich and Mitt Romney qualified as Christians.

On Obama: “Islam sees him as a son of Islam… I can’t say categorically that [Obama is not Muslim] because Islam has gotten a free pass under Obama.”

On Santorum: “I think so. His values are so clear on moral issues. No question about it… I think he’s a man of faith.”

On Gingrich: “I think Newt Gingrich is a Christian, at least he told me he is.”

On Romney: “Most Christians would not recognize Mormons as part of the Christian faith. They believe in Jesus Christ. They have a lot of other things they believe in too, that we don’t accept, theologically.”

Thus, Graham pronounced as “saved” a notorious multiple-adulterer like Gingrich. He also gave a pass to Santorum, who married a woman who had lived “in sin” with an abortionist for six years.

But he unhesitatingly damned a longtime churchgoer like Obama or a devout Mormon like Romney (whose faith, most evangelicals like Graham believe, is actually a non-Christian cult).

Six years later, in 2018, Graham defended President Donald Trump, a notorious womanizer and multiple-adulterer, against charges that, in 2006, he had slept with porn star Stormy Daniels.

“I believe at 70 years of age the president is a much different person today than he was four years ago, five years ago, 10 years ago. He is not President Perfect.”

This differs greatly from his position on President Bill Clinton’s affair with Monica Lewinsky: “If he will lie to or mislead his wife and daughter, those with whom he is most intimate, what will prevent him from doing the same to the American public?”

It’s easy to imagine Graham transported to the French city of Toulouse in the 14th century. And to imagine him wearing the robes of Bernardo Gui, the chief inquisitor of the Dominican Order during the Medieval Inquisition (1184 – 1230s).

Gui closely studied the best methods for interrogating “heretics.” He set forth his findings in his most important and famous work, Practica Inquisitionis Heretice Pravitatis. or “Conduct of the Inquisition into Heretical Wickedness.”

In this, he offered a vivid example of how such an interrogation might go. The following is taken from that manual:

This is not a dialogue between equals. The Inquisitor literally holds the power of life or agonizing death over the man or woman he is interrogating.

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THE AFGHAN-AMERICAN TALIBAN: PART ONE (OF FOUR)

In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Military, Politics, RELIGION, Social commentary on February 10, 2025 at 12:02 am

Hamza Kashgari, a 23-year-old columnist in Saudi Arabia, decided to celebrate the birthday of the Islamic prophet Muhammed in a truly unique way.

Hamza Kashgar

In early February, 2012, he posted on Twitter a series of mock conversations between himself and Muhammad:

“On your birthday, I will say that I have loved the rebel in you, that you’ve always been a source of inspiration to me, and that I do not like the halos of divinity around you. I shall not pray for you.

“On your birthday, I find you wherever I turn. I will say that I have loved aspects of you, hated others, and could not understand many more.

“On your birthday, I shall not bow to you. I shall not kiss your hand. Rather, I shall shake it as equals do, and smile at you as you smile at me. I shall speak to you as a friend, no more.

“No Saudi women will go to hell, because it’s impossible to go there twice.”

The tweets sparked some 30,000 infuriated responses. Many Islamic clerics demanded that he face execution for blasphemy.

Kashgari posted an apology tweet: “I deleted my previous tweets because…I realized that they may have been offensive to the Prophet and I don’t want anyone to misunderstand.”

Soon afterward, Abdullah bin Abdulaziz Al Saud, then King of Saudi Arabia, ordered his arrest.

Saudi King King Abdullah

Kashgari fled to Malaysia, another majority-Muslim country. He was quickly arrested by police as he passed through Kuala Lumpur international airport. Three days later, he was deported to Saudi Arabia.

Human rights groups feared that he would be executed for blasphemy, a capitol offense in Saudi Arabia.

After nearly two years in prison, Kashgari was freed on October 29, 2013. Kashgari used Twitter to inform his supporters of his release.

Outrageous? By Western standards, absolutely.

Clearly there is no tolerence in Saudi Arabia for the freedoms of thought and expression that Americans take for granted.

Meanwhile, Right-wing American ayatollahs are working overtime to create just that sort of society—where theocratic despotism rules the most intimate aspects of our lives.

One of these was the former GOP Presidential candidate and U.S. Senator Rick Santorum. In early January, 2012, he said that states should have the right to outlaw birth control without the interference of the Supreme Court.

Rick Santorum

In an interview with ABC News, Santorum said he opposed the Supreme Court’s ruling that made birth control legal:

“The state has a right to do that [ban contraception]. I have never questioned that the state has a right to do that. It is not a Constitutional right. The state has the right to pass whatever statutes they have.

“That’s the thing I have said about the activism of the Supreme Court—they are creating rights, and it should be left up to the people to decide.”

In the landmark 1965 decision, Griswold v. Connecticut, the Court struck down a law that made it a crime to sell contraceptives to married couples. The Constitution, ruled the Justices, protected a right to privacy.

Two years later, in Eisenstadt v. Baird, the Court extended Griswold by striking down a law banning the sale of contraceptives to unmarried couples.

Santorum has left no doubt as to where he stands on contraception. On October 19, 2011, he said:

“One of the things I will talk about that no President has talked about before is I think the dangers of contraception in this country, the whole sexual libertine idea. Many in the Christian faith have said, ‘“Well, that’s okay. Contraception’s okay.’

“It’s not okay because it’s a license to do things in the sexual realm that is counter to how things are supposed to be. They’re supposed to be within marriage, they are supposed to be for purposes that are, yes, conjugal, but also…procreative.

“That’s the perfect way that a sexual union should happen. We take any part of that out, we diminish the act….And all of a sudden, it becomes deconstructed to the point where it’s simply pleasure.”

“How things are supposed to be”—according to Right-wing fanatics like Santorum and the evangelicals who support them.

Like the Saudi religious zealots who demand the death of a “blasphemer,” they demand that their religious views should govern everyone. That means Jews, Catholics, Islamics, atheists and agnostics.

American Christian fundamentalists and Islamic fundamentalists fervently agree on the following:

Women should have fewer rights than men.
Abortion should be illegal.
There should be no separation between church and state.
Religion should be taught in school.
Religious doctrine trumps science.
Government should be based on religious doctrine.
Homosexuality should be outlawed.

The important difference—for Americans who value their freedom—is this:

The United States has a Supreme Court that can—and does—overturn laws that threaten civil liberties. Laws that GOP Presidential candidates clearly want to revive and force on those who don’t share their peculiar religious views.

Eleanor Roosevelt once said: “No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.”

The same holds true—in a democracy—for candidates who seek dictatorial power over their fellow citizens. Don’t give them your consent.

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A LIFE–AND PRESIDENCY–BASED ON HATRED

In Bureaucracy, Entertainment, History, Politics, Social commentary on February 6, 2025 at 12:28 am

During his 1992 Presidential campaign, Bill Clinton had “It’s the Economy, Stupid,” as his mantra for staying focused on the issue that recession-suffering Americans most cared about.

Donald Trump’s mantra—as Presidential candidate and President—could be summed up as: “It’s the Hatred, Stupid.”

From June 15, 2015, when he launched his first Presidential campaign, until October 24, 2016, Trump fired almost 4,000 angry, insulting tweets at 281 people and institutions that had somehow offended him— in politics, journalism, TV and films.

Donald Trump

The New York Times needed two full pages of its print edition to showcase them. Among his targets:

Women
Blacks
Hispanics
Asians
Muslims
News organizations
The disabled
POWs

And his base is equally motivated by hatred—of the same persons and organizations whom Trump regularly attacks. During the 2016 campaign, countless such voters told interviewers: “He says what I’ve long been thinking!”

Trump didn’t implant hatred in them—he simply gave it legitimacy. And they love him for it.

And since coming to power once again as President on January 20, Trump has given his lust for hatred free reign.

Issued pardons to about 1,500 of his followers who violently tried to overturn the outcome of the 2020 Presidential election in the January 6, 2021 attack on Congress. Move than 250 of those pardoned had been convicted of assaulting police.
Withdrew the United States from the World Health Organization (WHO).
Suspended all foreign aid for at least three months.
Withdrew from the Paris climate agreement.
Ordered the dismissal of 5,000 FBI agents who investigated his incitement of the January 6 riot and his own hoarding of classified documents at Mar-a-Lago.
Declared “a national emergency” targeting migrants—legal and illegal.
Sought to cancel automatic citizenship for U.S.-born children, known as birthright, and enshrined within the United States Constitution.
Withdrew the security detail assigned to former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley for rightly criticizing him as a wannabe dictator.
Cancelled travel to the United States for refugees, including those who had been approved to resettle within the country.
Committed to pursue federal death sentences and pledged to ensure that states have sufficient supplies of lethal injection drugs for executions.
Withdrew the security detail assigned to Anthony Fauci, the former director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease. Fauci’s crime: Contradicting Trump’s lies about the dangers of COVID-19.
Put federal employees working to halt discrimination on paid leave.
All Federal Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Accessibility offices, positions, plans, actions, initiatives or programs will be scrapped within 60 days.

United States District judge Loren AliKhan granted a temporary halt to Trump’s intended “pause” after several advocacy groups argued this would devastate programs ranging from healthcare to road construction.

Just as Adolf Hitler moved quickly to make himself absolute dictator upon being named Chancellor on January 30, 1933, so has Donald Trump within a week of falsely promising to “preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.”

* * * * * * * * * *

As non- and anti-Fascist Americans have watched Trump’s behavior with fear and morbid fascination, many of them have asked: “What makes him do the things he does?”

It’s a question asked—and answered—in the 1993 Western, Tombstone. And the answer given in that movie may just hold the answer to the question so many Americans are now asking about Trump.

Tombstone recounts the legendary blood feud between the Ike Clanton outlaw gang and the Earp brothers—Wyatt, Morgan and Virgil—in the famous gold-mining town in 1880s Arizona.

Wyatt Earp has been challenged to a gunfight by quick-trigger gunman Johnny Ringo. Although he impulsively accepted the challenge, Wyatt now realizes he’s certain to be killed. Thus follows this exchange with his longtime friend, the pistol-packing dentist, John H. “Doc” Holliday:

WYATT EARP: What makes a man like Ringo, Doc? What makes him do the things he does?

JOHN H. “DOC” HOLLIDAY: A man like Ringo’s got a great empty hole right through the middle of him. He can never kill enough or steal enough or inflict enough pain to ever fill it.

EARP: What does he need?

HOLLIDAY: Revenge.

EARP: For what?

HOLLIDAY: Bein’ born.

Donald Trump was born into a world of wealth and privilege. His father gave him $200 million, which he channeled into a real estate empire. He has claimed to be worth a billion dollars.

He has been linked—often by his own boasts—to some of the most beautiful women in the world. He has been a major force on TV through his “reality show,” The Apprentice. He has literally stamped his name on hundreds of buildings.

And now he holds the Presidency of the United States, the most powerful office in the Western world.

Yet he remains filled with a poisonous hatred that encompasses almost everyone.

Since taking office, he has offered nothing positive in his agenda. Instead, he has focused his efforts on what he can take from others. At the top of his list: Declaring war on millions of illegal immigrants—many of whom hold menial jobs most other Americans refuse to take.

As first-mate Starbuck says of Captain Ahab in Herman Melville’s classic novel, Moby Dick: “He is a champion of darkness.”

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PUSSYGRABBER FOR PRESIDENT—PART TWO (END)

In Bureaucracy, History, Politics, Social commentary on December 27, 2024 at 12:33 am

On October 12, 2016, The Palm Beach Post, The New York Times and People all published stories of women claiming they had been sexually assaulted by Donald Trump.

Trump’s reaction: “Every woman lied when they came forward to hurt my campaign. Total fabrication. The events never happened. Never.”

For “proof,” he attacked their physical appearance.

Of one accuser, Natasha Stoynoff, he said: “Take a look. You take a look. Look at her. Look at her words. You tell me what you think. I don’t think so. I don’t think so.”

Of another accuser, Jessica Leeds, Trump said: “Believe me, she would not be my first choice, that I can tell you. Whoever she is, wherever she comes from, the stories are total fiction. They’re 100% made up. They never happened.”

In short: They were too ugly for Trump to consider them worth sexually harassing.

And he threatened: “All of these liars will be sued after the election is over.”

To date, Trump has not filed a single lawsuit for defamation. No doubt he realizes:

He would have to take the witness stand and testify under oath; and
There is simply too much evidence stacked against him.

By October 14, 2016, at least 12 women had publicly accused Trump of sexually inappropriate behavior.

Donald Trump

Many Right-wingers defended Trump’s misogynist comments as mere “frat boy” talk. Said Corey Lewandowski, a former Trump campaign manager and now CNN commentator: “We are electing a leader to the free world. We’re not electing a Sunday school teacher.”

And Fox News host Sean Hannity went Biblical to excuse Trump: “King David had 500 concubines for crying out loud!”

But Washington Post Columnist Micheal Gerson took a darker—and more accurate—view of Trump’s comments.

Appearing on the PBS Newshour on October 7, Gerson said: “Well, I think the problem here is not just bad language, but predatory language, abusive language, demeaning language. That indicates something about someone’s character that is disturbing, frankly, disturbing in a case like this.”

By April, 2019, the total number of women accusing Trump of making improper advances had risen to 23.

And, in June, yet another woman came forward to accuse Trump of sexual assault: E. Jean Carroll, an advice columnist for Elle magazine.

E. Jean Carroll

Carroll alleges that Trump attacked her in the fall of 1995 or the spring of 1996 at the Bergdorf Goodman department store in New York.

She claims claims that, while gift shopping, Trump pressured her to try on lingerie and grabbed her arm to pull her toward the dressing room.

“The moment the dressing-room door is closed, he lunges at me, pushes me against the wall, hitting my head quite badly, and puts his mouth against my lips.

“I am so shocked I shove him back and start laughing again. He seizes both my arms and pushes me up against the wall a second time, and, as I become aware of how large he is, he holds me against the wall with his shoulder and jams his hand under my coat dress and pulls down my tights.

“The next moment, still wearing correct business attire, shirt, tie, suit jacket, overcoat, he opens the overcoat, unzips his pants, and, forcing his fingers around my private area, thrusts his penis halfway —or completely, I’m not certain—inside me.”

True to form, Trump responded by exonerating himself on the basis of the woman’s appearance: “I’ll say it with great respect: Number one, she’s not my type.”

Then he accused the accuser: “Shame on those who make up false stories of assault to try to get publicity for themselves, or sell a book, or carry out a political agenda….

“It’s just as bad for people to believe it, particularly when there is zero evidence. Worse still for a dying publication to try to prop itself up by peddling fake news—it’s an epidemic.”

Also, predictably, he portrayed himself as the innocent victim of yet another vast conspiracy: “If anyone has information that the Democratic Party is working with Ms. Carroll or New York Magazine, please notify us as soon as possible.”

On May 9, 2023, a New York jury jury found Trump liable for sexually abusing Jean Carroll in 1996, awarding her $5 million in a judgment.

Jurors also found Trump liable for defaming Carroll over her allegations. Trump did not attend the civil trial and was absent when the verdict was read.

And, just as predictably, Republicans rallied around Trump.

“Quite honestly, as somebody who had a front-row seat to the Kavanaugh hearings, we’ve seen allegations that were false,” said Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.). “We’ll let the facts go where they are, but I take [Trump’s] statement at face value.”

“Yes, I believe the president.” said House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy when pressed on whether he believed Trump.

There’s an old saying: “If one person tells you you’re drunk, and you feel fine, ignore him. If ten people tell you you’re drunk, you need to lie down.”

More than a score of women have come forward to say that Donald Trump—the former and future President of the United States—is a sexual predator.

Yet no one in the Republican party is willing to acknowledge it.

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PUSSYGRABBER FOR PRESIDENT—PART ONE (OF TWO)

In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Politics, Social commentary on December 26, 2024 at 12:05 am

Donald Trump—the soon-to-be President of the United States—has a woman problem.

Or, to be more accurate, a series of women problems.

First, he’s been married three times—and divorced twice:

In 1977, Trump married Czech model Ivana Winklmayr. The couple divorced in 1992, following Trump’s notorious affair with actress Marla Maples.
Maples and Trump were married in December 1993—and divorced in 1999.
In 1998, Trump met Slovenian model Melania Knauss. They married in 2005.

Ivana Trump and Donald Trump

Donald and Melania Trump

And Trump has never been known for marital fidelity:

He was still married to Ivana when he carried on a highly publicized extramarital affair with Marla Maples.
Trump was still married to Maples when he entered into an affair with Melania Knauss.
And only four months after Melania gave birth to their son, Barron, Trump had his now-infamous tryst with porn “actress” Stormy Daniels.

He has often boasted about his sexual prowess:

When his 2016 Republican rival, Marco Rubio, joked that Trump’s hands were small, Trump said: “Look at those hands, are they small hands? And, [Rubio] referred to my hands—‘if they’re small, something else must be small.’ I guarantee you there’s no problem. I guarantee.”
Trump equated avoiding STDs during the late 1990s with serving in Vietnam: “I’ve been so lucky in terms of that whole world, it is a dangerous world out there. It’s like Vietnam, sort of. It is my personal Vietnam. I feel like a great and very brave solider.”

John F. Kennedy—another notorious womanizer—never felt the need to boast of his prowess.

Trump’s most infamous “take” on women appeared during the 2016 Presidential race. The remarks happened during a 2005 exchange with Billy Bush, then the host of Access Hollywood.

The two were traveling in an Access Hollywood bus to the set of the soap opera Days of Our Lives, where Trump was to make a cameo appearance. A “hot” microphone caught Trump’s boast of trying to pick up a married woman:

“You know and I moved on her actually. You know she was down on Palm Beach. I moved on her and I failed. I’ll admit it. I did try and fuck her. She was married.

“No, no, Nancy. No this was—and I moved on her very heavily. In fact, I took her out furniture shopping. She wanted to get some furniture. I said I’ll show you where they have some nice furniture.

“I took her out furniture [shopping]. I moved on her like a bitch, but I couldn’t get there, and she was married. Then all of a sudden I see her, she’s now got the big phony tits and everything. She’s totally changed her look….

“You know I’m automatically attracted to beautiful—I just start kissing them. It’s like a magnet. Just kiss. I don’t even wait. And when you’re a star they let you do it. You can do anything. Grab them by the pussy. You can do anything.”

When the Washington Post broke the story on October 7, 2016, the reaction was immediate—and explosive.

Trump quickly released a statement: “This was locker room banter, a private conversation that took place many years ago. Bill Clinton has said far worse to me on the golf course—not even close. I apologize if anyone was offended.”

During the second Presidential debate on October 9, moderator Anderson Cooper asked Trump: “Have you ever done those things?”

Trump: “And I will tell you—no I have not.”

On October 12, 2016, The Palm Beach Post, The New York Times and People all published stories of women claiming to have been sexually assaulted by Trump.

Among his victims:

MINDY MCGILLLIVRAY: Told the Post that Trump groped her buttocks when she, then 34, visited Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach, Florida, in 2013.

Within a week of accusing Trump, she told the Palm Beach Post that she and her family were leaving the United States. The reason: She feared for her family’s safety.

“We feel the backlash of the Trump supporters. It scares us. It intimidates us. We are in fear of our lives.’’

NATASHA STOYNOFF: A People magazine writer, in December, 2005, she went to Mar-a-Lago to interview Donald and Melania Trump for a first-wedding-anniversary feature story.

During a break in the interview, Trump said he wanted to show Stoynoff a “tremendous” room in the mansion.

Recalled Stoynoff: “We walked into that room alone, and Trump shut the door behind us. I turned around, and within seconds he was pushing me against the wall and forcing his tongue down my throat.”

Natasha Stoynoff

Fortunately, Trump’s butler soon entered the room, and Trump acted as though nothing had happened. But as soon as he and Stoynoff were alone again, Trump said: “You know we’re going to have an affair, don’t you?”

Stoynoff asked her editors—and received permission—to be removed from writing any further Trump features.

JESSICA LEEDS: More than 30 years earlier, Trump had made equally unwelcome advances toward businesswoman Leeds, then 38.

Jessica Leeds

She said she was sitting next to Trump in the first-class cabin of a New York-bound flight when Trump lifted the armrest, grabbed her breasts and tried to put his hand up her skirt. She fled to the back of the plane.

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FIVE MAPS TO SOUTHERN INFAMY: PART TWO (END)

In Bureaucracy, History, Medical, Politics, Social commentary, Uncategorized on October 3, 2024 at 12:12 am

Southern treason, racism and ignorance have given the United States five periods of infamy.

Infamy 4: 2000 – COVID-19 pandemic.

Donald Trump’s four-year Presidency produced a legacy of unprecedented racism, criminality, abuse of power and treason.

But the crime which brought him down was his unwillingness to protect Americans from the deadly COVID-19 pandemic.

The COVID-19 catastrophe slammed into the United States in January, 2020. It was the inevitable result of a natural disaster colliding with an evil and incompetent administration.

Trump’s “cures” for COVID-19 included denial, lies, Republican subservience, chaos, extortion, propaganda as news, quackery as medicine, demands to “re-open the country,” Ignoring the danger and—finally—resignation (“Learn to live with the virus”).

Trump quickly made the virus a referendum on himself. If you supported him, you didn’t wear a mask in public—even though no vaccine was available and hospitals were rapidly overwhelmed by debilitated and dying casualties of the virus.

On the July 21, 2021, edition of the PBS Newshour, Washington Post Columnist Jonathan Capehart outlined the catastrophic results of Trump’s behavior: “If we had had a president of the United States who took this seriously when this first came on the scene, if we had a Republican party that took this seriously enough to warn everyone, their constituents, saying, ‘Wash your hands, then put on a mask, then go get the vaccine,’ we wouldn’t be where we are right now.”

Jonathan Capehart

But neither Trump nor the Republican party urged Americans to “wash your hands, put on a mask, then go get the vaccine.”

It took the election of Joseph R. Biden to fashion a comprehensive attack on COVID-19.

By March, 2021, three vaccines—by Pfizer, Moderna and Johnson & Johnson—became available. A total of 90.4 million doses of these vaccines had been given. And 30.7 million Americans had been fully vaccinated against the virus.

But after a triumphant beginning, the pace of vaccinations slowed, then halted. By late July, 2021, only 49.6% of Americans had been fully vaccinated.

COVID-19 vaccination map – July 21, 2021

George Karabassis, CC BY 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons

Many of those who had gotten one shot of the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines refused to get the necessary second one.

What had happened?

“The people I know personally who are not getting the vaccine, for them, it was like, ‘They rushed this thing,'” theorized conservative New York Times columnist David Brooks on the PBS Newshour on July 23, 2021.

David Brooks

And leading the way to this catastrophe of self-destruction were the states of the South and Midwest: Mississippi (47.1%,), Alabama (50.5%), Arkansas (53.2%), and Tennessee (52.9%) with the lowest rates of residents who have gotten at least one shot.

By late July, 2021, three states—Florida, Texas and Missouri-–with lower vaccination rates accounted for 40% of all cases nationwide.

And colliding head-on with the refusals of millions to get vaccinated was the newer—and deadlier—Delta variant of COVID-19.

Just as the South unleashed the Civil War on America, it had ignited a new wave of COVID-19 on America.

Infamy 5: 2024 – Backing Trump again

Donald Trump is the only American President to be impeached twice—once for trying to extort “a favor” from Ukraine and again for inciting a violent attack on Congress.

On January 6, 2021, having failed to win re-election, he incited a deadly attack on Congressional members who were counting Electoral College votes. His goal: To intimidate them into throwing out the results and allowing him to become “President-for-Life.”

As a Presidential candidate in 2024, he has constantly repeated the lie that he won in 2020 but was cheated by massive vote fraud.

He has viciously attacked immigrants—both legal and illegal. During his September 11 debate with Vice President Kamala Harris, he falsely charged that legal Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio, were “eating the dogs. They’re eating the cats. They’re eating the pets of the people that live there.”

The results: In Springfield, a string of bomb threats have shut down city and school buildings. Public events have been canceled. And state troopers have been sent in to guard students going to school.

Most ominously, Trump intends to implement Project 2025, the Right-wing Heritage Foundation’s blueprint for a Fascistic dictatorship. Under this:

Career civil servants will be fired en masse and replaced by fanatical Right-wingers whose only loyalty is to Trump.
The FBI director will be personally accountable to Trump—just as the KGB director is accountable to Vladimir Putin.
The Department of Homeland Security will be abolished.
Fossil fuels—the leading cause of global warming—will be favored and environmental regulations to combat climate change abolished.
Abortion will be outlawed.

And, once again, it’s the South that threatens to end American democracy.

His attacks on nonwhites speak directly to Southerners’ longstanding racism. His attacks on the federal government feed into their resentment over losing the Civil War 159 years ago.

Most Southerners have abandoned democracy and lustily embraced the creation of a Right-wing dictatorship. Where they were once fiercely anti-Communist, they are now fiercely anti-liberal.

In 1776, Southerners’ fervent embrace of slavery almost aborted the Declaration of Independence and the birth of the American Republic.

In 2024, Southerners’ fervent embrace of racism, hatred and treason may signal its demise.

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FIVE MAPS TO SOUTHERN INFAMY: PART ONE (OF TWO)

In Bureaucracy, History, Medical, Politics, Social commentary on October 2, 2024 at 12:08 am