You Want Military Dictatorship, Trump? Read Your History!

 

In 1989 a religious leader László Tőkés criticised Romanian dictator Nicolae Ceausescu and was threatened and beaten up. Romanians protesting were gunned down by Ceausescu’s soldiers. Protests broke out everywhere. 

Ceausescu, a megalomaniacal egotist who had destroyed opponents and surrounded himself with yes-men and sycophants, was now so enabled that he thought he was invincible and fatuously believed that a single televised mass rally playing pre-recorded cheering over loudspeakers would ‘restore his image’. On the day of the rally, he stood with his wife Elena on the balcony facing onto Bucharest’s Palace Square (now called Revolution Square), packed with people, many of whom had been bussed in. The sounds of cheering were deafening. From the speakers. 

But not from the people. Shortly into the speech, sounds of screaming and shouting came from the crowd. Ceausescu realised they weren’t part of the sound track. Elena heard gun shots, then guards shouted that protestors had broken into the building down below, beneath the balcony. 

Ceausescu and Elena yelled at the crowd, and guards managed to keep them back. But after the rally, protesters spilled out onto the streets of Bucharest, filled with frustration and rage at too many years of suppression and savage dictatorship. Ceausescu unleashed tanks, soldiers, police and his own secret army – much like Trump’s ICE – on the crowds with brutal violence. By morning there was so much blood on the streets that fire engines had to hose them down. 

Blind to the country-wide hatred for him, Ceausescu thought the danger was over. He was wrong. The next day, protesters moved en masse towards the centre of Bucharest, joined by the soldiers and police,  who now refused to follow orders given to shoot them. 

A panicked Ceausescu and his wife Elena escaped in a helicopter from the roof, with two officials and two bodyguards, minutes before protesters reached it. The pilot took them to their residence in Snagov, where Ceausescu ordered two more helicopters with soldiers as an escort. The response? "You’re on your own." The pilot took off immediately, without the officials. 

Then a message played on the radio that all flights were grounded and unidentified aircraft in the air would be shot. They had to land. The pilot put the pair down on a road with just two security guards. They managed to flag down a car, whose driver took them to an agricultural institute on the outskirts of  Târgoviște and persuaded them to hide in it. It was a trap. They were locked in then arrested and handed over to a military barracks where they were tried. 

Even during this sham trial, Ceausescu laughed scornfully, still believing he was invincible. He wasn’t, though. Found guilty, he and Elena were executed by firing squad.

The circumstances leading to their execution has some chilling similarities to the US at the moment. It’s hard to know who is directing everything but Trump is the public face and he’s the one with the power. An over-entitled megalomaniac, felon, adjudicated rapist and serial liar, he too has surrounded himself with sycophants who shield him from the reality of how unpopular he is. He’s choosing to let ICE tactics become increasingly savage and lawless, watching Americans’ outrage grow exponentially, possibly believing he can turn that into a justification to declare a state of emergency and martial law. And cancel the mid-terms to avoid impeachment, trial and jail. The cynicism is jaw-dropping. 

There are a couple of things he hasn’t thought about though. He’s popularity is plummeting as Ceausescu's did, and his base could be diminishing. At all events, he's losing Independents. His own party writhes under his stranglehold, longing to be rid of him because being loyal means betraying angry constituents. Also, lot of people in the military and police do not want to visit misery on regular Americans, or see their democracy destroyed. They certainly don’t want to be the tools. The momentum to get rid of Trump is growing visibly by the day – from politicians to people in the streets – and though Trump is trying hard to destroy the free press and present a false narrative, he isn’t succeeding with the majority.

Ceausescu’s Achilles heel was his entitlement and oblivion to how much his own people wanted to get rid of him. They had clearly plotted behind his back for some time. It’s the consequence of surrounding yourself with yes-men and women. It also never occurred to him that the good men and women in the military and police would refuse orders. Trump, hell bent on using the military in the same way, would probably face the same kind of rebellion, then where would he be?

He would do well to read up on history. Obviously he wouldn’t be put on a sham trial or face a literal firing squad, but a real trial ending in a jail cell would be better, anyway.

House Democrats Introduce Article of Impeachment

House Democrats have introduced an Article of Impeachment against Donald Trump for high crimes and misdemeanours, charging the president with “inciting violence against the government of the United States” and including a reference to the 14th Amendment, which prohibits anybody who has engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the US from holding future office. The measure has 218 co-sponsors to date, enough to guarantee passage, and Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif) has said that if the Vice President doesn’t invoke the 25th by Wednesday, the House will move forward with the impeachment.

Watching/reading coverage of the thuggery and criminality on Capitol Hill, driven by white supremacists, it's reassuring to see how US politicians with normal integrity - mostly Democrats - can't swallow the behaviour of Republican congressmen and women who enabled Trump for four years then were either silent in the face of all the lies and bogus attempts to overturn a democratically successful election, or joined in and supported that travesty.

Who even now are mute and in hiding – apart from those who have the gall to accuse Democrats of fostering disunity with their insistence on holding Trump to account and going ahead with impeachment.

How about Vice President Mike Pence? The mob was chanting "hang Pence, hang Pence". Neither he nor any other Republican believes that Trump didn't cause the violence on Capitol Hill that led to the deaths of five people, or that he has any sanity left at all.

They are fully aware that Trump could start a nuclear war today, within five minutes – and that internationally the US has been shamed horrendously, its reputation for being a bastion of Western democracy shredded. The damage done by this president has rippled out across the globe. The planet.

But Pence and members of Trump's cabinet who haven't resigned don’t want to invoke the 25th. Are none of them worried that they could have more blood on their hands? Do they think they'll get a warning before Trump does something worse? You’d have to be brain dead to believe they’re not thinking about it, or to think they don’t know full well the risk they’re taking, on behalf of those whose lives they have been elected to protect.

No wonder Democrats are wild with righteous anger. Which of us can accept behaviour like that of this band of Republican politicians? It's counter-intuitive to decent people. Humans aren't supposed to be like this. Intellectually we can understand the rank betrayal of normal values and point to all the examples of it in history – past, recent, and still going on - but our heart sand souls still react violently. We’re not built to believe that humans can be evil, cynical, consumed with greed and lust for power.

So, thank you Nancy Pelosi, Joe Biden, Kamala Harris and all the Democrats and a couple of Republicans who have always spoken out against Trump and are calling for him to be thrown out and banned from ever running again. Who show their faces on TV and speak openly of their disgust, outrage, disdain and horror despite the very real and present danger that doing so exposes them to.

The world owes them a debt of gratitude for their clear headedness, strength of purpose and huge courage.

GOP Candidate Justin Amash Speaking Truth to Power

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It takes courage to speak to truth to power when you're the lone voice in an entire political party but Rep Justin Amash is undaunted. The only Republican to call for Donald Trump's impeachment, he held a town hall in Grand Rapids Michigan on May 28 and drew standing ovations from a crowd of about 900.

Afterwards, he tweeted a long thread highlighting how Attorney General Barr distorted the truth of the Mueller Report to protect the president from impeachment.

It may have worked in the interim, primarily because Democrats are holding back on making a commitment that could cost them in the 2020 elections, but eventually this corrupt house of cards will collapse and all who have enabled the wannabe demagogue in the White House will go down with him.

Whatever Justin Amash's fate as a Republican politician, he will be the only one who can sleep with a clear conscience. The man deserves a medal, and a wealth of gratitude, not just from Americans, but from people around the world, as Trump's policies—and the lust for power that keeps GOP politicians slavishly enabling his neuroses and his attacks on equality, human rights and the health of the planet—increasingly threaten world peace and economic stability and open the door to the far right.

Amash's tweet and the content of the full thread are below.

Attorney General Barr has deliberately misrepresented key aspects of Mueller’s report and decisions in the investigation, which has helped further the president’s false narrative about the investigation.

— Justin Amash (@justinamash) May 28, 2019

The text of the full thread is below:

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Trump Impeachment Threat Gets Real

On impeaching the president, House Oversight Committee Chairman @RepCummings told @bobschieffer he "isn't there yet," but he "can foresee that possibly coming."https://t.co/dQk6oqvkTm pic.twitter.com/htrlRspVEj

— Face The Nation (@FaceTheNation) April 21, 2019

Two narratives have emerged since the release of the redacted version of the Mueller report. One is fiction, that Trump was fully exonerated by it. AG William Barr did what he could to support the distortion, saying there's no there there, releasing a 4 page summary of the 448 page report, then, when pressured, putting out a redacted version of it.

Democrats were on him like a hive of angry super-bees. But in the first few days there was a lot of focus on this exoneration narrative, even by liberal media, with many saying there was no countering it and that Democrats would shoot themselves in the foot to pursue it. There were reports that some Democrats are afraid it will make a martyr of Trump and give him such a boost that he wins in 2020. They suggested it would be better to focus on the election to get rid of Trump.

He, of course, has marched around waving at crowds, shooting his mouth off. Seemingly triumphant. Hysteria patently visible just below the surface.

The other narrative, supported by facts, is that the Mueller report, far from exonerating the president, provides a launch for impeachment proceedings and possible criminal indictment because, while collusion doesn't have a legal definition and isn't a federal crime, obstruction of justice does and is. Among many others, NYT, The Guardian, Vox have covered this and exposed Trump's real vulnerability.

Now Democrat Representative Jerry Nadler (NY), chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, has issued a subpoena for the unredacted report and its accompanying evidence to be submitted by 1 May, with a pledge to hold "major hearings".

Speaker Nancy Pelosi has indeed been wary of jumping the gun unless there's bi-partisan support for impeachment in the House and Senate. But, she isn't saying it won't happen. She's just being very measured in her response, making sure that all bases are covered. She's a great strategist and has never taken her foot off the pressure pedal. Her Communications Director and Senior Adviser Ashley Etienne said "as the Speaker has said repeatedly, one step at a time." House Committee Oversight Chairman Democratic Rep Elijah Cummings echoed that (see tweet above).

However, Senator Elizabeth Warren has publicly called for impeachment. "To ignore a President’s repeated efforts to obstruct an investigation into his own disloyal behavior would inflict great and lasting damage on this country, and it would suggest that both the current and future Presidents would be free to abuse their power in similar ways. "

Charles Blow argues for impeachment in his NYT column, writing, "An impeachment vote in the House has, to this point, been the strongest rebuke America is willing to give a president. I can think of no president who has earned this rebuke more than the current one. And, once a president is impeached, he is forever marked. It is a chastisement unto itself. It is the People’s House making a stand for its people."

It is a fundamental moral issue, but ultimately, impeachment by the House could also be good strategy. It might give Trump a boost, but it will put a nuclear rocket under and unite Democratic voters who are phenomenally frustrated and have been crying out for action against this corrupt president ever since he was elected.

Also, it will put the Senate in the same position the House is in now. If they refuse to indict, Democratic voters will be incandescent. Either way, Trump loses.

Walking on eggshells around a bully never works. It gives them power. You can't back down from a fight for what's right out of fear that justice won't be found. It's a mistake to think that Nancy Pelosi and those like her are doing that or that they're cowards. They're not. They're girding their loins. It doesn't hurt Democrats overall that they're not united; in fact the two positions reinforce each other. And for all his insistence that he's been cleared, Trump is terrified, ranting and scapegoating on Twitter, truth be damned as always.

He's on the run. Democrats are keeping it that way. They're circling him. Closing in on him. From every direction.

Senator Elizabeth Warren Calls for Trump's Impeachment

I was out in Utah talking about environmental issues & on the plane back, the Mueller report came out—so I started reading, & read late into the night. The report hands this now to Congress & the fundamental question for us is: "Is there going to be some accountability here?" pic.twitter.com/3Wk7ZFC8I0

— Elizabeth Warren (@ewarren) April 20, 2019

'The Mueller report lays out facts showing that a hostile foreign government attacked our 2016 election to help Donald Trump and Donald Trump welcomed that help. Once elected, Donald Trump obstructed the investigation into that attack.

Mueller put the next step in the hands of Congress: “Congress has authority to prohibit a President’s corrupt use of his authority in order to protect the integrity of the administration of justice.” The correct process for exercising that authority is impeachment.

To ignore a President’s repeated efforts to obstruct an investigation into his own disloyal behavior would inflict great and lasting damage on this country, and it would suggest that both the current and future Presidents would be free to abuse their power in similar ways.

The severity of this misconduct demands that elected officials in both parties set aside political considerations and do their constitutional duty. That means the House should initiate impeachment proceedings against the President of the United States.'

Senator Elizabeth Warren

AG Jeff Sessions Will Appear Before the Senate Intelligence Committee

Attorney General Jeff Sessions has agreed to appear before the Senate Intelligence Committee on Tuesday. He will be attempting to clear his name, after former FBI Director James Comey's explosive testimony last week, in which he spoke about the pressure he felt coming from the President to drop the investigation into Mike Flynn. Comey specifically called the President a liar, and also had something to say about Jeff Sessions' possible involvement in the investigation into Russian involvement in the 2016 election.

“Our judgment, as I recall, was that [Jeff Sessions] was very close and inevitably going to recuse himself for a variety of reasons. We were also aware of facts that I can’t discuss in an open setting that would make his continued engagement in a Russia-related investigation problematic.”

In his confirmation hearing, Sessions said he had not met with Russian officials during the Trump campaign, when in fact he had met with Russian Ambassador Sergei Kislyak. There was enormous Democratic resistance to Sessions' nomination before the truth was revealed, but Democrats were over-ridden. In the hearing, Elizabeth Warren tried to read out part of a letter written thirty years ago by Coretta King, widow of Martin Luther King Jr. It related to Sessions' failed judicial nomination in 1980 because of his racism.

Mitch McConnell shut Elizabeth Warren down, on the grounds that Senate rules prohibit one Senator from bad-mouthing another on the floor, and Republicans voted to support his move. It backfired spectacularly. Firstly it was pointed out that the rule could not apply during a confirmation hearing, and secondly McConnell had said nothing when Ted Cruz had accused him of being a liar. But worse, Elizabeth Warren ended up being heard by a much wider audience. She first tweeted about the incident, triggering off a viral hashtag #LetLizSpeak.

I will not be silent while the Republicans rubber stamp an AG who will never stand up to the @POTUS when he breaks the law.

— Elizabeth Warren (@SenWarren) February 8, 2017

Then she read the letter outside the Senate, on camera, and posted the video on her Facebook page. To date, the video has had 12 million views.

“During the debate on whether to make Jeff Sessions the next Attorney General, I tried to read a letter from Coretta Scott King on the floor of the Senate. The letter, from 30 years ago, urged the Senate to reject the nomination of Jeff Sessions to a federal judgeship. The Republicans took away my right to read this letter on the floor – so I’m right outside, reading it now.”

In Sessions' confirmation hearings, on the 10th of January, Senator Al Franken asked (at 3:18 in the video), "If there is any evidence that anyone affiliated with the Trump campaign communicated with the Russian government during the course of this campaign, what would you do?" Sessions replied, "Senator Franken, I'm not aware of any of those activities. I have been called a surrogate at a time or two in that campaign, but I did not have communications with the Russians."

On the 17th, Senator Leahy asked him; " Several of the President-Elect’s nominees or senior advisers have Russian ties. Have you been in contact with anyone connected to any part of the Russian government about the 2016 election, either before or after election day?" Sessions said, "No".

Also on the 17th, Senator Feinstein asked if he would recuse himself "from any FBI or Justice Department investigation into whether Flynn’s communications were permissible under the law, including the Logan Act." Sessions replied "I am not aware of a basis to recuse myself from such matters. "

On the 1st of March, the Washington Post, which had exposed Mike Flynn's dissemination, leading to Trump being forced to fire him, reported that Sessions had spoke twice with Kislyak. At first Sessions dug his heels in, but later, amid Democratic calls to resign, was forced to recuse himself from the Russia investigation. Trump was enraged, and called it all a witch hunt of an 'honest man'. But then he thought Mike Flynn was a 'good guy', even after his lies were exposed.

Since his inauguration Trump has been dogged the Russia investigation which, in spite of all his efforts to distract from it, continues to gather momentum. Having gotten his way his whole life, Trump took on the presidency believing it would be business as usual. He took a page from Putin's playbook, attempting to control the narrative and create an alternative to the truth.

But Putin, frightening as he is, is a clever man. Trump is not. So where Putin has succeeded, Trump's considerable efforts are failing miserably. Out of control, he is his own worst enemy. He continues to paint himself into an ever-diminishing corner.

Republicans and Trump supporters consistently insist that there's no there, there. No evidence of collusion. The process of unearthing it is moving along swiftly, the overriding response to Trump supporters being that this president has attacked every person under the sun, practically every world leader. Except Putin. And one after another of his staff, including his own son-in-law, have been exposed as having communications or suspected deals of some sort with Russians, including officials and/or people very close to Putin.

So Sessions' insistence that he didn't know of any activity between Trump campaign officials and Russians, apart from being a blatant lie on his own account, is unlikely to be true with regards to those who have now been exposed. And his recusal from the Russia investigation wasn't water-tight. Subsequently, he did get involved again, potentially violating his recusal pledge. On the 9th of May, Sessions wrote a letter to the president, recommending that Comey be fired.

Trump has admitted—and subsequently tried to deny—that he fired Comey because the Russia investigation was causing a cloud; it was irritating him.

In his testimony, Comey expressed said the president lied. Trump's response was to double down and accuse Comey of perjury. The problem for Trump is that he is, by his own hand, an established liar, and Comey, in his long career at the FBI, is a known truth-teller. Sessions has also been exposed as a liar. It looks like the chickens have come home to roost for him. It is unknown yet whether he will testify openly or in a closed hearing. 

#TrumpRussia: The Mother of All Crises As Trump Provokes Sociopath Leaders

The other day Donald Trump gave a press conference to speak about the mother of all bombs dropped in Nangahar Province in Eastern Afghanistan, 'targeting' a tunnel complex used by ISIS.

As usual, Trump didn't tell the truth, which is that the Obama administration set up the preparations for using the bomb there, against ISIS. All Trump, or somebody at the Pentagon, had to do was give the order. Who actually did is still unclear, notwithstanding Trump's boast that he told his military, the best military in the world, to use the bomb, making it sound as if the whole idea was his from the first, and was the result of well-thought out strategy.

He made no mention that the Intelligence regarding the tunnels was gathered in the Obama Administration, or that he has widened the powers of the Pentagon, so they didn't actually need his permission, and glaringly, he did not directly say that he personally approved of the mission, giving himself an out. He can blame the generals if the mission is proved a failure, as he did of the strike in Yemen, which killed too many civilians.

Trump did say, however, that the Obama Administration could have used the MOAB—Massive Ordinance Air Blast, aka Mother of All Bombs—but failed to do so, implying weakness on their part.

No mention that all the preparation had been done by them, or that the bomb has never been used before because it cannot be targeted and the possibility of massive collateral damage was too enormous to just drop it without thought. As has been proved time and time again, thoughtful planning is not a requisite in this Administration.

In an email to motherjones.com, Ian Overton, Executive Director of Action on Armed Violence, explained that the MOAB sucks all the oxygen out of the air for a mile in all directions and sets it alight, so the collateral damage is extensive. In an unpopulated area such as Nangahar, 25% of those killed or injured will be civilians. And extensive damage will have been done to infrastructure, making the harmful impact a great deal more extensive than injuries and deaths.

All of these facts contribute to the reason the Obama—and even the Bush—Administration had been hesitant to use the MOAB. Not so Donald Trump. In full-flight bragging mood, he said that the strike was another tremendous success.

For "success" read "failure", not least of which are that National Security Advisor Mike Flynn, caught lying with his pants on fire, was forced to resign; AG Jeff Sessions, also caught lying, had to recuse himself from the Russian intervention investigation; two Muslim bans masquerading as Travel bans have been blocked; Trumpcare was a disaster; the utterly unfounded accusation that Obama wiretapped Trump and that GCHQ knew about it made Trump a laughing stock of the world.

Devin Nunes, leading the House Investigation into #TrumpRussia, is now in the crosshairs of Washington ethics watchdogs for attempting to divert the Russia probe, mishandling classified information, and—you got it—lying. Like Jeff Sessions he had to recuse himself. The only success in 83 days has been Neil Gorsuch's confirmation as Supreme Court Justice. And that had nothing to do with Donald Trump.

Militarily, there have been no successes either. The strike in Yemen, which killed 30 innocent civilians, including 10 women and children, was such a failure that Trump distanced himself from it and blamed the failure on the generals. Then there was the Syrian airstrike which has turned into a total fiasco. Everybody was talking about Syria and how Trump's strategy has centered on a turnaround on Russia, and supporting the UN.

Then MOAB, and now Trump is provoking Kim Jong-un. Strategy has nothing to do with it. Trump is fumbling in the dark. He's never had any coherent plan; you have to understand your subject to be able to formulate one. Trump has no knowledge of anything. He's just a mean spirited, extremely unintelligent, compulsive liar with impulses he can't control. He instinctively knows how to rabble-rouse, how to con people, and how to create chaos.

He's followed that instinct since he started campaigning. By instinct he's wagging the dog. It's not intelligent strategy. Trump doesn't have the smarts for that.

For heaven's sake, he reads speeches and signs executive orders (or forgets to) without understanding the content, or having any knowledge of the subject. When he was reading his speech on Syria after the strike, he couldn't afford to take his eyes off the sheet of paper for more than a couple of words. Somebody could have written gobbledygook and, none the wiser, he would have read it out with his ludicrous attempt at a Churchill imitation which fools nobody and only succeeds in making Trump look like a very dull-witted praying mantis.

He's never had to deal with consequences. Suddenly he had to. He was told what to do regarding the fall-out with Putin and Assad after the airstrike, but again, it wasn't his strategy, or anybody else's. They were all just frantically trying to put out fires, amid infighting and back-stabbing. The idea that a strike that didn't take out the runway and was never going to be followed up could possibly be effective in scaring either Putin or Assad is laughable.

Putin is way, way ahead of Trump, Nikki Haley, and of Rex Tillerson too. He knows more about American politics than any of them. So this whole affair will settle down with absolutely nothing achieved for America and with some wretch having to wipe the egg off Donald Trump's face.

It would have gradually faded from the news, as the #TrumpRussia investigation, which is still in full sway, hit the headlines again. But then there was MOAB, the largest non-nuclear bomb in the world, to suck up everybody's attention. The shock wave could be heard for miles and miles, And the headlines made shock waves around the world. International news broadcasters had a field day.

In the meantime, whether it's in the news or not, Putin has come out of the Syrian episode having entrenched his bully position and confirmed his understanding that the Trump administration is putty in his hands, the UN is utterly toothless in the matter of Syria, and Assad is free to continue doing whatever he wants, perpetrating crimes against humanity.

And the military industrial complex is off and running again. Donald Trump's Pentagon is free to drop bombs, cause collateral damage, waste lives. Somebody's making a lot of money out of this. One MOAB costs the US taxpayer $16 million to manufacture.

This reckless president, who doesn't have a clue what he's doing, who is influenced by the Machiavellian agenda of whoever talks the sweetest at any given moment, shoots his mouth off whenever he feels like it. People found his antics laughable when he was campaigning. Not so laughable now is the mess he has already made of domestic policy and the chaos that has descended on international relations.

Least laughable is the reality that Trump, in the Syrian airstrike, in taking out ISIS tunnels the way he did, and in his previous rabid anti-Muslim rhetoric, has no doubt enraged ISIS leadership and members, securing a target on his own back and that of his family and Administration, but worse than that, on the entire US. Add to that the dick-waving, childish and dangerous threats he is leveling at Kim Yong-un, a sociopath megalomaniac who is fast developing the capacity to nuke the US, and who has a large stockpile of chemical weapons, weapons that could be attached to modified long-range missiles.

Vladimir Putin recently accused the US of destroying world order. Ironically, although his reasoning is spurious, there's truth in what he says. Ultimately, this is a game of wag the dog, its sole purpose being to distract Americans from Trump's involvement in Russia. That he's going about it so clumsily doesn't diminish the lethal effects of the game.

Cool Reception to Mike Flynn's Request for Immunity

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“When you are given immunity, that means that you probably have committed a crime.” So said Mike Flynn on September 25 last year, speaking on NBC's "Meet the Press". Then-Republican candidate Donald Trump said "if you haven't committed a crime why would you ask for immunity, right?"

Flynn, conspiracy theorist, arbiter of fake news prior to the election, was also a "lock her up" cheerleader at the Republican National Convention. He and Trump were, of course, speaking about then Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton and the alleged crime for which she was endlessly investigated and publicly hung, drawn and quartered despite having been found to have committed no crime. 

In the week prior to the 2016 election, Flynn tweeted "U decide - NYPD Blows Whistle on New Hillary Emails: Money Laundering, Sex Crimes w Children, etc… MUST READ!" The allegations were of course baseless. This was the man Donald Trump chose for White House National Security Adviser. 

In the previous year, Flynn spoke at a Russian state-owned media RT Television gala in Moscow. Jill Stein also attended the gala. Flynn, however, was paid $45,000 plus  expenses. RT is well known to be a propaganda outlet controlled by Vladimir Putin. It has been used successfully to propagate fake news and influence both the ultra right and the ultra left in the US and countries in Europe.

Flynn was forced to resign his post within a month when it was revealed, in an ironic twist, by  Intelligence, that he had lied in his confirmation hearing about meeting any Russian officials. In fact he met with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak. Speculation about deeper involvement has been rife.

Now Flynn has offered his testimony to the FBI and the House and Senate Intelligence Committees, in exchange for immunity. So far the reception has been cool.  Ranking member of the House Intelligence Committee Rep Adam Schiff, D-Calif, released a statement, saying, "We should first acknowledge what a grave and momentous step it is for a former National Security Advisor to the President of the United States to ask for immunity from prosecution." 

It is unclear what Mike Flynn's motivation is, but he has the support of Donald Trump, as expressed, naturally, in a tweet, which undermines the idea that Flynn has any real information to offer, especially considering his past obsession with conspiracy theories, and his predilection for alternative facts. 

The White House has recently made significant efforts to distract attention from the investigations into possible collusion between Russian officials and members of the Trump campaign—and indeed Donald Trump himself. But Democrats on the hill are not fooled, and nor will they be taken in by any games if Flynn is playing them, with or without the president's endorsement. As Adam Schiff added in his statement,

"Additionally, as with any investigation—and particularly one that grows in severity and magnitude by the day—there is still much work and many more witnesses and documents to obtain before any immunity request from any witness can be considered. 

As but one example, during our open hearing I made a formal request of the agencies to provide Mr. Flynn's background check document, SF-86, so we can determine whether he properly reported any work he may have conducted on behalf of a foreign entity. We have yet to receive those documents. 

Moreover, when the times comes to consider requests for immunity from any witness, we will of course require a detailed proffer of any intended testimony." 

Democrats Triumph: GOP Health Care Bill Collapses, Obamacare Remains

Things are not going well for Republicans. Last week started with a 37% favorability rating for a president who loves to win, who thinks of himself as a winner and pronounces that he has won even when he lost. 

Donald Trump has bragged forever and a day about his ability to make a deal and about the book he wrote on the subject. But as Timothy O'Brien, author of  TrumpNation: the Art of Being the Donald pointed out on CNN, Trump was never any good at complex business deals. In fact, those were the deals that failed the most spectacularly. And The Art of the Deal was written by a ghost writer, who subsequently spoke of his remorse at promulgating a lie, saying "I put lipstick on a pig".  

The Trump Administration has seen nothing but failure since January 20.  Trump began with low popularity and his ratings are now the worst in history for a new president.  

The first Muslim travel ban was blocked, and so was the second. Trump's promises to build the wall on the Mexican border, and make Mexico pay, fell flat. His relationship with Russia is going south.  Mike Flynn was forced to resign and Jeff Sessions to recuse himself from a core investigation. The Trump campaign and possibly even Donald Trump himself are under Congressional and FBI investigations for suspected collusion with Russia regarding the 2016 election. Collusion that could lead to criminal prosecution and jail time for treason.

Then Trump's ludicrous and potentially libellous wiretapping accusations were exposed as pure fiction and he was scorned internationally. Now his first piece of legislation, Trumpcare, has failed to make it out of the gate. Speaking to Dana Bash of CNN, Jake Tapper called it an "ignominious defeat". 

It's been a tension-filled two days. After a lot of posturing from Paul Ryan, threatening from Donald Trump, spinning from Sean Spicer and categorical assertions that there was no plan B because plan A would definitely pass, the vote was postponed. Thursday was spent in frantic attempts by Paul Ryan and the president to convince House Republicans to vote yes for this Republican health care bill that nobody liked. As the day  wore on, opinion that the vote was close shifted from cautious predictions of failure, to certainty of it.

The idea of the bill being pulled a second time started circulating. Within an hour CNN broke the news that Trump had told Paul Ryan to do the deed.  Later it was reported that Ryan had had to talk Trump off the ledge, so keen was he to name and shame Republicans who wanted to vote against him. He's not likely to forget their names.  

Repealing Obamacare was the major, fundamental campaign issue that won the House for Republicans in 2010 and won Congress and the Presidency in 2016. Republicans have been obsessed with it for seven years, making more than 50 repeal attempts, hankering after the power to get rid of it. In that time, nobody ever came up with anything that remotely resembled a replacement. As Politico reported, ex Speaker of the House Jim Boehner said in February that he laughed when 'Republicans started talking about moving lightning fast on repeal and then coming up with an alternative.'

"In the 25 years that I served in the United States Congress, Republicans never, ever, one time agreed on what a health care proposal should look like. Not once. And all this happy talk that went on in November and December and January about repeal, repeal, repeal—yeah, we'll do replace, replace—I started laughing, because if you pass repeal without replace, first, anything that happens is your fault. You broke it.”

They tried to break it but failed even at that. On camera, House Republicans are praising the president and Paul Ryan, and it’s a love fest between the two of them. But Trump is clearly furious, Ryan is visibly taking strain, and off camera the blame game is in full swing.

Who needs cameras these days when there are so many aides in the Trump camp willing to talk? Republicans who wanted to vote yes are pointing fingers at the Freedom Caucus, who refused to budge on their no vote position. This is the group who shut down the government in an attempt to repeal Obamacare during President Obama's second term. They thought they could blackmail the President. Their ruse failed. He played hardball and they had to back down. Rep Devin Nunes, a Jim Boehner ally, called them "lemmings with suicide vests".

The Freedom Caucus were heavily criticized by more moderate Republicans at the time. “You’re not going to repeal Obamacare while a guy named Obama is President of the United States,” said Rep Tom Cole.

It seems they're not going to repeal Obamacare while a guy named Trump is president, even though the GOP has complete control of Congress. Long ago they labeled the ACA Obamacare in derision. Then, out of pure spite, they chose the anniversary of Obama signing it into law for their original date to vote on Trumpcare. Their mean-spiritedness has succeeded only in highlighting their abysmal failure. Now for the foreseeable future Obamacare will be a constant reminder of it. The very real and powerful presence of former President Barack Obama and his tremendous success will haunt them.

Kudos to Democrats for the fight they put up and to voters who voiced their objections with their representatives and at town hall meetings, putting the fear of God into moderate Republicans.

This is another triumph of good over evil and a reminder that winning an election by colluding with a foreign power and gaining total control of government is not a free ticket in a strong democracy. Especially when that government does not have the interests of the majority of the people at heart.

Today was a victory for all Americans. pic.twitter.com/LX6lzQXtBR

— Hillary Clinton (@HillaryClinton) March 24, 2017

Ukraine vs Putin - a Metaphor for US Democrats vs Donald Trump

On Thursday I went to a talk by Councellor Liubov Abravitova and Defense Attaché Andriy Kuzora from the Ukraine embassy. It was fascinating. Ukrainians are a people who have no desire for or inclination towards aggression; they just want to be respected and allowed to live in peace. Militarily they have no weapons to match those that Putin has. Their only weapons are freedom of speech, passion for their culture, and diplomacy. It's all they want to use, anyway.

Learning something about a country I didn't know much about, I felt transported for a few hours away from the rabid megalomania in Putin and Trump's administrations, the angry, hateful rhetoric and intolerance in the US, UK and from the rising alt-right in Europe.

I asked if Ukraine has a problem with brainwashing from Putin's state-controlled media machine. Liubov Abravitova said that Ukraine itself has free speech and a free press, and there's no censorship, so people who want to be informed can access information. Andriy Kuzora added, however, that during the day, you listen to people speak and they're anti-Putin. But at night, if you walk along the street, where there are no high walls—like the ones here in South Africa, he said with a smile—you can see inside people's windows. And Russian TV is on. Information influence, he called it. And yes, he said, it is a problem.

It's a big problem for all of us. How on earth do we counter this plague gone viral that threatens to halt us in our evolutionary tracks? I had thought that our evolutionary drive had itself evolved from using the physical to survive to relying on mental and spiritual capacities and empathy. If we care about each other and the planet we'll be sensible in our actions. We won't want or need to go to war. We'll control the greed in our own countries, get rid of leaders who are destructive. 

Democracy will function the way it's supposed to. With challenges, but always forward moving. As it was doing during the Obama years.  

People have always revolted against abuse of power. But the 2016 election was the anti-revolution! People bucking at a president who had worked miracles—testament to which is the state of the economy at the moment, notwithstanding Trump's bragging to the contrary. 

I saw a comment on Facebook after the election results, "I feel truly American for the first time in eight years." With an intellectually challenged president who's a paranoid bully, a believer in conspiracy theories, a serial liar and manipulator, a sexual abuser, a racist, a bigot. Who tweets obsessively at three in the morning and seems to be lusting for the opportunity to get his fat little fingers on the red button.

The mind boggles. With Obama in the White House, I felt safe. The most powerful country in the world had a huge shield against the kind of things Putin does in Russia. The shield protected people round the world. Against all the things that most sane people revolt against. But now? The Trump administration is dialing back every achievement Obama made, all the progress towards equality for all and a safer planet. And he's opened the door wide for the alt-right to march through, victorious. He's turning America into their best role model.

Trump is too asinine to see how much he is being used by every Tom, Dick, Harry and Harry's pal with malevolent intent, from Mike Pence to Paul Ryan to Steve Bannon, to Vladimir Putin. And his followers either don't see it or don't care.

It's tempting to think that evolution just did a kind of mind-bending backward flip. Intelligence, alert minds, empathy and being properly informed weren't enough to counter the mindlessness that put power in Trump's hands and, by virtue of who he is, in the hands of people with truly malevolent intent. But, evolutionary progress doesn't happen in perfectly forward movement. The power of Trump and his pals, the alt right, and Putin, is bully power.  And bullies are inherently weak.  

As for information influence, it can only affect a limited number of people before it hits an impenetrable barrier—those of us who haven't lost control of our minds and are never going to. 

Putin has cyber warfare tentacles in many countries, influencing France, Germany, the Netherlands, and of course the US. The more he gets his disruptive message out to people thirsty for anything that will justify their fear of a changing status quo, the more people he influences, of course. But outside of Russia he doesn't have control of the narrative. He can't control how much is written about his methods by those he hasn't reached. 

The harder he pushes, the harder liberals will push back and spread truth. Some of that is going to filter back to Russians, who perhaps believe in Putin because they haven't had access to any truth. It will affect them. They'll start thinking. Those who already oppose Putin will be strengthened, invigorated. Bad ideas spread. But so do good ones.

One of these days Vladimir Putin will realize he overstepped himself. But by then he'll have a revolution on his hands. Hopefully until that happens, Ukraine's weapons of free speech and independent thinkers will be enough to protect their autonomy and preserve that beautiful spirit. A fitting metaphor for us vs. Trump.

Mike Pence, President In Waiting, Sits on the Wiretap Fence

Embed from Getty Images

Paul Ryan to Mike Pence "I give him a month. Then it's you and me, baby."

When the current president was inaugurated, the world was treated to spectacular verbosity from him, with follow-up clean-up operations from Sean Spicer and Kellyanne Conway, and the occasional back-up from Mike Pence and Paul Ryan. It was double-down and treble-down overload on the news, the legitimate media, talk shows, panel discussions and Twitter.

Kept afloat by the ballast of his own bombast, the president threw his weight around all over the place. China, N. Korea, NATO, Mexico, Russia—no, not that one. The majority of the American people who didn't vote for him, the press...

I have the best people, this administration is running perfectly, like a well oiled machine. I have the best ideas, even God stopped it raining during my inauguration. Can you believe it, Arnold Schwarzenegger's a loser, Sad! You're gonna love it, we're gonna get the bad dudes out. I tell you, I have the best ideas, the best people, the press, they're the enemy of the people. The American people they love me, I have the best.

So many words. Thank God some of them were leaks. There were occasional moments of stark humor. Like when Sean Spicer gathered all his staff and commandeered their phones to check if any of them were the leak. Which pleasant occasion was leaked.

And the leak about the president roaming the corridors of the WH in a dressing gown, not knowing what to do.

That was fun. There haven't been many of those moments. Mostly it's been one dark day after another as the gigantic tidal wave of alternative facts threatened to wipe truth off the face of the planet. And the flood of stinking tweeting words just kept oozing. The oozer-in-chief on a high. Nothing's gonna stop me now.

Unaccountably things started going wrong. The momentum against the bigot that had started with Hillary Clinton was a counter-tidal wave that didn't stop at the inauguration. You can lie about the truth but you can't make it go away.

Messy noisy town hall meetings affecting Republicans, Mike Flynn caught lying red-handed, push back from Democrats, investigations up the kazoo, Republicans breaking ranks, Kellyanne Conway advertising for Ivanka Trump on national TV and sitting on the WH couch without her shoes. Sean Spicer in the dog house for wearing the wrong color suit and plugging his cheeks with too much gum. SNL - damn that SNL, the losers! And Putin very silent on the mutual-admiration society.

Then Jeff Sessions. Full-blown catastrophe for the president. The runaway train of his garbled mind that we thought was already in full bolt, really bolted. Or, to use another metaphor, the pressure-cooker exploded. What had been silly tweets, annoying tweets, weird tweets, clownish, childish, suddenly became actionable lies.

And the whole well-oiled verbiage-spewing machine shut down. Silence. Sweet silence. No presidential tweets, no Sean Spicer, no Kellyanne Conway, no Mike Pence or Paul Ryan. Odd, that. But the New York Times reports that behind the scenes, various (unnamed) staff called each other and the White House counsel, Donald F. McGahn II, in a panic. Others told the Times that the president was on a high at first, but then sounded unsure of how wiretaps were actually executed, and asked "aides and associates" if an independent source could substantiate his claims. 

This would be the president who lambasted the press for using anonymous sources and whose government refuses to insist on an independent investigation into Russian interference in the elections and possible connections between Russia and Trump and/or his staff during his campaign.

On Monday at an off-camera gaggle, Sean Spicer, clearly off his game, chose to speak about  the president's complaints at CPAC that the press used anonymous sources. Spicer was of course quizzed on the wiretap accusations made by the president without evidence. He referred vaguely to "numerous reports out there". Nobody could pin him down. Not quite business as usual.

Then yesterday Mike Pence was interviewed on Fox News Radio's Kilmeade & Friends and broke his silence in a way that spoke volumes.

“I think the president’s tweet speaks for itself. He’s expressed himself on it. And we’re very pleased that the congressional committees have made it clear that they will look into that matter, just as they’re looking into every aspect of it.”

Double-speak for, "This is too hot to touch. He made his bed. And, when congressional committees look into the matter, I'll be pleased with whatever the outcome is." Which is double speak for "Hallelujah! We're finally going be rid of this jerk so I can be president as God has ordained." Does Mike Pence want to be President? The Indy Star reported in 2016 that as Governor, he did think of it and even "stoked talk of it". He refrained from making a commitment until the April 2015 session ended.

Indiana law prohibits anybody running for state and local office on one ballot. So a bill was put forward by Sen. Mike Delph to change the law, but it was iced, and Democratic Party Chairman John Zody said that Pence "Appears willing to let others do his dirty work for him and refuses to get his hands dirty when it comes to his presidential ambitions or running state government." 

The man doing the dirty work, Mike Delph, lost his press secretary, his title as ranking member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, and his leadership role of Senate assistant majority floor leader of communications. His seat was also moved into the minority, with Democrats, and across the aisle from Republican leadership. Punished by his own party.

The reason for such severe punishment? Delph violated GOP caucus protocol that prohibits public discussion of caucus affairs. He tweeted about a same-sex marriage amendment.  

Trump WH Dislikes Freedom of Info, Blocks NYT, CNN, BBC, Politico, Buzzfeed from Gaggle

Reporters from Time magazine and The Associated Press chose not to attend in protest of the White House’s actions https://t.co/0kixlsnzVu

— The New York Times (@nytimes) February 25, 2017

"We have great respect for the press when it comes to government. That is something you can't ban an entity from – Conservative, Liberal or otherwise. I think that's what makes a Democracy a democracy versus a dictatorship." Sean Spicer December 16 2016

On Feb 24 2017 the White House held a press gaggle  instead of its daily press briefing and barred NYT, Politico, CNN, LA Times, Buzzfeed, BBC, the Guardian and Daily Mail from attending. Allowed to attend were Breitbart News, Hearst, McClatchy, Wall Street Journal, Washington Times, One American News Network, AP, Time, and TV networks CBS, NBC, Fox and ABC. 

AP and Time heard in advance and boycotted the gaggle. Alarmingly, when some journalists gathered outside in frustration, they were removed by Secret Service, on the order of the White House.

It's not unusual to hold in camera press gaggles, but it is unusual to cherry-pick who can attend. Gaggles with the press secretary usually limit the pool of reporters when they conflict with the president's travel arrangements, in which case they often happen on Air Force One.  

This gaggle, however, simply replaced the daily press briefing. The motive was ludicrously transparent. They wanted to avoid uncomfortable questions about the FBI's refusal to accommodate the White House demand that coverage of possible relationships between Trump staff and Russia be censored. They also wanted to minimize damage done by Donald Trump's manic, rambling, non-sequitur-packed, contradictory, nonsensical  tirade against the media at CPAC, where he revved up the crowd of adoring fans into virtual hysteria.

Much like Mitch McConnell's attempt to muzzle Elizabeth Warren in Jeff Sessions' confirmation hearing, and as all the Trump Administration moves have done so far, this one backfired on the White House. Interest in the Russian connection has ballooned and liberal outlets have gotten good publicity already over this gaggle. Public outrage has flared up again, and legitimate media are expressing their disdain. 

Wall Street Journal issued a statement saying that it had attended not knowing about the exclusions and "had we known at the time, we would have participated, and we will not participate in such closed briefings in the future." Executive editor of  McClatchy Washington said the same.

Marty Baron, Executive Editor of The Post  called it appalling and added "This is an undemocratic path that the administration is travelling… We are currently evaluating what our response will be if this sort of thing happens again."

The Committee to Protect Journalists and the National Press Club condemned the move and  White House Correspondents Association president Jeff Mason said, "We encourage the organizations that were allowed in to share the material with others in the press corps who were not. The board will be discussing this further with White House staff."  New York Times White House correspondent Peter Baker wrote to the WH press corps email list, "Congratulations to Time and AP for not attending today's gaggle in protest."

Ben Wizner, Director of the Speech, Privacy and Technology Project at the American Civil Liberties Union said that this is "Another disturbing example of the Trump administration’s contempt for the vital role a free press plays in our democracy."

Is there a sector of western democracy that the Trump Administration has not assaulted in some way in the  past month? Each one is worse than the last as Bannon gains power and Trump believes more and more that he can get away with anything.

It's clear that they and their close team are trying to replicate Vladimir Putin's assault on freedom of the press. But they're missing a couple of important factors, the first one of which explains why they're missing them. Putin is a nasty and dangerous man but he's really intelligent, insightful and strategic, which none of the Trump camp are. Secondly, Putin does love to boast, but not about his underhanded moves. Trump and Bannon can't stop themselves. Thirdly, Putin never exposes himself in writing—i.e. in tweets.

Again, Trump can't stop himself. Fourthly, most Americans aren't as brain-washable as Russians seem to be. Alexander Solzhenitsyn wrote, in The Gulag Archipelago, “In keeping silent about evil, in burying it so deep within us that no sign of it appears on the surface, we are implanting it, and it will rise up a thousand fold in the future. When we neither punish nor reproach evildoers, we are not simply protecting their trivial old age, we are thereby ripping the foundations of justice from beneath new generations.” 

That appears to be happening again in Russia, as Putin's popularity increases for no reason that has any sense or moral good to it, but it will never happen in America.

Bannon, Trump, Priebus, Conway, Spicer can all rant and rave about the corrupt press as much as they want. But they're only reaching a negligible number of Americans in comparison to the huge number they are inspiring to take a stand. Most of America, and the whole world, can see the truth. An enormous amount of pro-democracy activity is happening at every level, people of all ages, including the youth, getting involved in politics beyond just voting, going to town hall meetings, voicing their protest, joining and/or volunteering for pro-democracy organizations. Democratic politicians are stepping up in response to demands from their electorate that they fight.

Hillary Clinton has resurfaced, as have the Obamas. And of course the FBI is continuing with its investigation into the Russian Connection.

The stupidity, the lies, the constant denials are intensely frustrating. Trump's attempt to disenfranchise the press as part of a larger strategy to disenfranchise every non-white and every poor and middle-class white in America is terrifying. But it's feeble in the face of the sleeping giant that his dictator-type tactics have awoken. To quote Representative John Lewis:

We must work together to make a way out of no way. #goodtrouble pic.twitter.com/LPk18qCoIS

— John Lewis (@repjohnlewis) January 30, 2017

The Enemy of the People – the Free Press or Donald Trump?

"If a nation expects to be ignorant & free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was & never will be. The functionaries of every government have propensities to command at will the liberty & property of their constituents. There is no safe deposit for these but with the people themselves; nor can they be safe with them without information. Where the press is free and every man able to read, all is safe." Thomas Jefferson to Colonel Yancy, Jan 6 1916

Not too long ago Donald Trump the candidate was boasting about how the press was giving him so much coverage that he didn't have to buy expensive campaign ads. He loved the press in those days. They loved him back. Then the liberal media developed a conscience, unequivocally condemning Trump as a dog's breakfast. Bigoted, sexist, racist, unworthy, unstable, unqualified.

Since his inauguration, they have been on him like an army of red ants. Reporting truthfully. Investigating. Doing their job with journalistic integrity and courage in a way that recalls Watergate. There is nowhere for the president to run, nowhere to hide. His attacks on the press have been constant and well-documented—mostly by himself, as they're executed in his tweets. Lately the current president's attacks on the media have intensified. His message has gone from labeling the press corrupt, fake news to calling it the enemy of the people. (To see his tweets in handwriting that matches his emotional maturity, download Trevor Noah's app.

The FAKE NEWS media (failing @nytimes, @NBCNews, @ABC, @CBS, @CNN) is not my enemy, it is the enemy of the American People!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 17, 2017

It has a sinister and familiar ring to it. Initially it was used correctly, to describe Nero who, when Rome fell into ruin, took an expensive vacation and then ignored a revolt. The Senate declared him an enemy of the people. Nero committed suicide to avoid arrest and execution. In 1882 Ibsen wrote a play Enemy of the People, about a doctor who is persecuted for rightly and publicly criticizing the mayor. At first the townspeople are grateful, but they're manipulated and turned against him. Anybody thinking of Hillary Clinton at this point?

When focus of press was on Hillary's server--by same 'fake news' orgs/'enemies of the people' cited by @realDonaldTrump--he saw patriots.

— Carl Bernstein (@carlbernstein) February 18, 2017

The next public figure to use the phrase was Adolph Hitler, allegedly a fan of Ibsen. He twisted it, using it to describe the Jews. His propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels wrote on Nov 16 1941:

"Every Jew is our enemy in this historic struggle, regardless of whether he vegetates in a Polish ghetto or carries on his parasitic existence in Berlin or Hamburg or blows the trumpets of war in New York or Washington. All Jews by virtue of their birth and their race are part of an international conspiracy against National Socialist Germany… Each Jew is a sworn enemy of the people... If someone wears the Jewish star he is an enemy of the people… The Jews are the enemy's agents among us. He who stands by the Jews aids the enemy…"

Stalin and Mao both used the term to describe objectors, some of whom were slaughtered for their courage.

New York national affairs editor Gabriel Sherman had good reason to call the president's latest tweet "full-on dictator speak." Republican Senator John McCain echoed the sentiment, talking to Chuck Todd. 

WATCH: In an interview with @chucktodd - Senator John McCain reacts to Trump's tweet: "That's how dictators get started" pic.twitter.com/aZq6wnvxYe

— Yashar (@yashar) February 18, 2017

Reince Priebus' response to the president's tweet was "I think you should take it seriously. I think that the problem we've got is that we're talking about bogus stories like the one in the New York Times, that we've had constant contact with Russian officials. The next day, the Wall Street Journal had a story that the intel community was not giving the president a full intelligence briefing. Both stories grossly inaccurate, overstated, overblown, and it's total garbage."

Shades of Richard Nixon. On the December 1972 tape he's recorded as saying "the press is the enemy of the people." In July 1974 he said that Watergate, "the broadest but the thinnest scandal in American history… would have been a blip [but for the press] who hate my guts with a passion..." In August he resigned.

The current US president should take heed. Fun as it is for him to use the tactics of  Stalin, Mao, Hitler and his propaganda machine and to echo Nixon, those men all met their just deserts for being, like Nero, the true enemy of the people. The thing is, how many people will have to suffer before this US president meets his fate? Trump's attack on the press has been well mixed up with exploitation of fear of Muslims and Mexicans. He's upping that ante every day. His Muslim ban didn't succeed but his message got through to his supporters and now he's planning another executive action to replace it. Again, taking a page out of Hitler's playbook, using Joseph Goebbels as his mouthpiece.

"It is the job of the government to deal with [the Jews]. No one has the right to act on his own, but each has the duty to support the state's measures against the Jews, to defend them with others, and to avoid being misled by any Jewish tricks. The security of the state requires that of us all."

For "Jews" read "Muslims," "Mexicans" and "the press". The truth is that the Roman Senate's use of the phrase enemy of the people was the one we need to revert to. The security of the state requires that the president is held to account. Hopefully the Judiciary and Democratic politicians will continue to fight for all civil rights. But without a free press there is nothing to protect democracy from becoming a dictatorship. Again, to quote Carl Bernstein, 

The most dangerous 'enemy of the people' is presidential lying--always. Attacks on press by @realDonaldTrump more treacherous than Nixon's.

— Carl Bernstein (@carlbernstein) February 18, 2017

But the final words go to former President Barack Obama, speaking at his final press conference (the link takes you to the NYT page with the full transcript).

"...You’re not supposed to be fans [or] to be complimentary. You’re supposed to cast a critical eye on folks who hold enormous power and make sure we're accountable to the people who sent us here. 

It goes without saying that essential to [our democracy] is a free press... Our democracy needs you, to establish a baseline of facts and evidence that we can use as a starting point for the kind of reasoned and informed debates that ultimately lead to progress. And so my hope is that you will continue with the...hard work of getting to the bottom of stories and getting them right and to push those of us in power to be the best version of ourselves and to push this country to be the best version of itself.

I have no doubt that you will do so... I want to thank you all for your extraordinary service to our democracy."