Category Archives: Trump

Trump and Nixon

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Yes, this is Donald Trump and Richard Nixon. The photograph was taken at the Westin Galleria March 11, 1989, at a fundraising event, Houston High Society’s Party of the Year. Nixon would have been about 76 years old. He had resigned the presidency fifteen years earlier. Trump would be about 43 years old, working on building his empire. Trump had been courting the disgraced Nixon at least since 1983 when he invited Nixon to move into Trump Tower in Manhattan, where Trump lived. A series of letters between the two, previously unknown, was revealed to the public by the Nixon Foundation just two years ago.

A footnote is appropriate here. The image Donald Trump paints of himself as a self-made, tremendously wealthy, successful businessman has always been a fraud. That Donald Trump is a fictional character created as the star of the NBC television program, The Apprentice. The image was crafted by television producer Mark Burnett in 2004 and promoted heavily by NBC under the guidance of then CEO Jeff Zucker. That character never existed.

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Trump and Ellsberg

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I was researching a column on the connection between Donald Trump and Richard Nixon when the news broke, Daniel Ellsberg had died at the age of ninety-two. The report was not a surprise. In March, Ellsberg had announced that he had been diagnosed with inoperable pancreatic cancer. He had been, in recent weeks, giving a series of interviews recapping the tumultuous events that made his name a household word in the 1970s and warning that those events continue to have relevance today.

Ellsberg’s words ring true. The case of Daniel Ellsberg prompted actions by Richard Nixon which triggered events eerily like the actions of Donald Trump and the events they have triggered today. The more things change, the more they stay the same.

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Trump: Indicted. Again.

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Donald J. Trump, twice impeached while President of the United States, has now been indicted twice since leaving the White House. I never imagined I’d be writing a lead line like that.

Trump has been charged by a federal grand jury sitting in Miami with putting the United States at risk by mishandling nuclear and military secrets after he left office. The indictment contains thirty-eight counts, alleging Trump:

  • Retained top-secret documents detailing U.S. nuclear secrets, military vulnerabilities, and plans for retaliating in the event of an attack after he left the White House.
  • Left such documents in boxes inside his Mar-a-Lago club’s ballroom, even as large gatherings were held within it.
  • Was caught on tape showing secret U.S. battle plans to private citizens, admitting as he did so that the plans had not been declassified.
  • Moved boxes of secret documents out of a storage room so his lawyers would not find them when they searched for papers that needed to be returned to the National Archives in compliance with a subpoena.
  • Asked an attorney to hide or destroy any “really bad” documents that were in his possession instead of returning them to the government in compliance with the subpoena.

Conviction on any one of these courts could result in a substantial fine and a jail sentence. Trump has now been arrested and arraigned on these criminal charges.

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Stormygate.

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The headlines say it all. Donald J. Trump, the first American President to be impeached twice while in office, is about to be the first ex-President indicted for a criminal offense after leaving office.

The impending event has seen the chattering heads of cable television and social media wagging with speculation ever since the news, quoting “sources,” broke last Thursday. Trump and his lawyers confirmed the news Friday, announcing that the Donald would travel to New York on Monday and would report to court on Tuesday for his formal charging and arraignment.

As is tradition in New York, the grand jury’s formal accusation is under seal until the arraignment and the district attorney has said nothing, meaning all comment is made in the absence of any factual knowledge of the sum and substance of the charges. That hasn’t stopped the speculation. Nor has it stopped the clear calls for protest demonstrations, bordering on violence, coming from Trump and his acolytes. The New York Police Department is on full alert.

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A Grammar Lesson

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There are scores of serious, issue-oriented problems I have with today’s Republican Party. I would love an opportunity to engage their leaders in serious debate. But the first problem I face is that it is not clear who those leaders are. And the loudest people who run for election under the Republican banner seem to have little or no interest in debating anything.

This is evident from the moment most of the Republicans open their mouths and complaint about the “Democrat party” or a “Democrat position.” It is not the “Democrat Party” it is the “Democratic Party” and their purposeful error of grammar reeks of the playground name calling I remember so well from my childhood. There is nothing cute about being called childhood names. Gravy, groovy, garbage, I heard them all.

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The Fox Lies Channel

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Here’s a shocker. The people on the Fox News Channel lie. They knowingly lie. They lie all the time. Anyone with the common sense to distinguish between fact and fiction has known this for a long time. But the facts were never so clear as they are in a recent court filing by Dominion Voting Systems.

Here are the basic facts:

  • Dominion Voting Systems is suing Fox News for $1.6 billion for spreading false claims that Dominion rigged the 2020 presidential election.
  • A new court filing shows that Fox anchors and executives privately ridiculed former President Trump’s lies about the election even while promoting them on air.
  • The filing also reveals that Fox ignored warnings from its own staff, experts, and lawyers that the claims were baseless and harmful.
  • The filing includes internal emails, text messages, and transcripts that show how Fox hosts and guests knowingly spread misinformation to boost ratings and appease Trump.
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The Hypocracy Committee

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Kevin McCarthy was so desperate to become Speaker of the House of Representatives he not only gave Jim Jordan chairmanship of the judiciary committee and membership on the oversite committee, he also created a special sub-committee, on the so-called “weaponization” of the federal government for Jordan to run.

This gives Jordan the power, among others, to hire dozens of staff members, paid for by we the taxpayers, to dig up dirt and blast away at President Joe Biden and Democrats.

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