Showing posts with label US presidential elections. Show all posts
Showing posts with label US presidential elections. Show all posts

Tuesday, 3 August 2021

Two More US Police Officers Involved in Capitol Riot Response Die by Suicide

 AUGUST 2, 2021

Two More US Police Officers Involved in Capitol Riot Response Die by Suicide

By Staff, Agencies

Two more police officers who responded to the Jan. 6 riot at the US Capitol have died by suicide, bringing to four the number of suicides by officers who guarded the building during the attack by Trump supporters.

Washington DC police Officer Gunther Hashida was found dead in his home, the District of Columbia’s police department said on Monday. He died on July 29, one week before his 44th birthday, according to his obituary.

Hashida joined the District of Columbia’s Metropolitan Police Department [MPD] in May 2003, according to media.

US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi hailed Hashida as a “hero” who “risked his life to save our Capitol, the Congressional community and our very Democracy” in a written statement.

Just hours after the MPD confirmed Hashida’s death, department spokesman Hugh Carew said in a statement that another Metropolitan Police Officer who responded to the Capitol riot, Kyle DeFreytag, was found dead on July 10.

DeFreytag’s cause of death was also suicide, Carew said. The suicide was not reported until Monday.

MPD chief Robert Contee wrote in a message to the department last month that, “I am writing to share tragic news that Officer Kyle DeFreytag of the 5th District was found deceased last evening. This is incredibly hard news for us all, and for those that knew him best.”

MPD Officer Jeffrey Smith and US Capitol Police Officer Howard Liebengood also committed suicide in the days after the riot.

Hundreds of former president Donald President supporters stormed the Capitol building that day to stop Congress from certifying Democratic President Joe Biden’s election win.

Four people died on the day of the violence. More than 100 police officers were injured.

A Capitol Police officer, Brian Sicknick, who had been attacked by protesters, died the following day.

The Capitol riot led to Trump’s second impeachment trial. More than 500 people have been arrested for their roles in the violence.

Last week, four police officers told a House of Representatives special committee that they were beaten, threatened, taunted with racial insults, and thought they might die as they struggled to defend the Capitol against the mob.

Republican House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy dismissed the investigation regarding the Jan.6 Capitol attack, insisting that “Republicans will not be party to their sham process and will instead pursue our own investigation of the facts.”

Trump also described the House investigation as “a fake and highly partisan” political move.

Trump has been accused by his critics of inciting his supporters to violence by peddling what they call “the big lie”, a baseless claim that Biden won the presidency through a stolen election.

Pelosi portrayed the violence, in which rioters clashed with police and sought to hunt down lawmakers, including Pelosi, as an attempt to “overthrow” the government.


River to Sea Uprooted Palestinian   
The views expressed in this article are the sole responsibility of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of the Blog!

Thursday, 1 July 2021

Top Rabbi: America is Collapsing, Israel must Step Up as new World Superpower

Rabbi Eliyahu

June 30, 2021

https://www.israel365news.com/164050/top-rabbi-america-is-collapsing-israel-must-step-up-as-new-world-superpower/

One of Israel’s most respected rabbis, Rabbi Shmuel Eliyahu, has released a statement on the status of America as a waning world superpower and a message of hope for Israel to fill the void. Rabbi Eliyahu is the Chief Rabbi of Safed and a member of the Chief Rabbinate Council

The big crisis that is currently happening in America

Regarding the outcome of the US elections, Rabbi Eliyahu explains that the schism is deeper than last week’s incident on Capitol Hill saying: “The big crisis that is currently happening in America didn’t start with the storming of Capitol Hill. It started with the Democratic party’s’ lack of confidence in Trump’s presidency expressed in fiery protests across the United States, and his being labeled in every possible derogatory manner.”

The rabbi added that the lack of Republican trust in America’s election process also contributes to the crisis.

“With tremendous sorrow we can recall this event as part of the process of the US descending from the stage of world history. It’s a sad moment, but it’s happening.”

Pharaoh fell too

Recalling the fall of ancient Egypt, the rabbi uses historic precedent to back up his claim saying: “This is not the first time a superpower fell because of a crisis of values and returns to being an ordinary country among other nations. That is what happened to Egypt and Rome in the old days. That is what happened to the Ottoman Empire approximately a century ago, all the way to the Russian Empire that collapsed 30 years ago, both of whom collapsed due to a failure of values that led to their demise as well as a decline in their great power as world leaders.”

Rabbi Eliyahu also recalled the collapse of France and Great Britain who were once “considered part of the four powers that rule the world,” He added that they collapsed just as Europe as a whole is collapsing because of values…or lack thereof.

Values of political correctness

“The values ​​of justice were replaced with those of political correctness. The family values have been replaced with those ​​of hedonism. The birthrate that fell below the red line caused European leaders to open the floodgates to mass Muslim migration that would fill the void, and Europe started to totally lose its character.”

Rabbi Eliyahu sees the developments unfolding as an opportunity for Israel to step up and take America’s place as the world superpower. He supports his proposition by calling Israel a world leader in family values saying: “We’ve been called upon to fill this vacuum. There are problems inside the State of Israel as well, but unlike Europe, Israel leads the world in the stability of family values. The average amount of children per Israeli woman is double the average of the Western world, and this is what propels Israel’s economy and creativity forward. Israel also leads the globe in the least amount of children from single mothers.”

Regarding a potential insurrection, Rabbi Eliyahu refers to the destruction of the second Temple as evidence that a similar situation cannot reoccur saying “As far as governmental stability is concerned, we are not similar in any way. There cannot be an antigovernmental revolution in Israel. With all the allegations we have regarding this and that corruption in the system of government, none of us have aspirations of a military revolt. We all recall the heavy price of the destruction of the 2nd Temple and it can’t be repeated.”

The rabbi also said that because Israel trails the western world in alcohol and drug consumption.

Not Pretentious, but Torah

Acknowledging that his proclamation could come across as condescending, the rabbi explains that it’s all part of God’s plan saying:  “Israel is stable and is called upon to take its place as a world leader in values. I realize that to many people this sounds very pretentious, but this is the template that G-d promised our forefather Abraham.”

And all the families of the earth Shall bless themselves by you (Genesis 12:3)

Reflecting on the Jewish people who he says don’t recognize the opportunity, the Rabbi notes: “The only ones who do not see this is us, and the time has come for us to recall our destiny. We need to prepare for it so that we can fulfill it with all the necessary responsibilities and not make the mistakes that they made.”


River to Sea Uprooted Palestinian   
The views expressed in this article are the sole responsibility of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of the Blog!

Wednesday, 25 November 2020

The 4-year (neoliberal) radicalisation of US media & Bidenites’ ‘unradical radicalism’

US Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) (L) talks with Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) during a rally with fellow Democrats before voting on H.R. 1, or the People Act, on the East Steps of the US Capitol on March 08, 2019 in Washington, DC. (AFP photo)
In this file photo, Joe Biden speaks during a press conference at The Queen in Wilmington, Delaware on November 16, 2020. (AFP photo)
The 4-year (neoliberal) radicalisation of US media & Bidenites’ ‘unradical radicalism’
(Ramin Mazaheri is currently covering the US elections. He is the chief correspondent in Paris for Press TV and has lived in France since 2009. He has been a daily newspaper reporter in the US, and has reported from Iran, Cuba, Egypt, Tunisia, South Korea and elsewhere. He is the author of ‘Socialism’s Ignored Success: Iranian Islamic Socialism’ as well as ‘I’ll Ruin Everything You Are: Ending Western Propaganda on Red China’, which is also available in simplified and traditional Chinese.)

Monday, 23 November 2020 6:50 AM  [ Last Update: Monday, 23 November 2020 7:01 AM ]

By Ramin Mazaheri

For four years The New York Times editorial page has been unreadable because into every column – no matter the subject – an anti-Trump diatribe was inserted. For the world’s many billions who think there actually are issues other than the president of the United States, their obsession was incredibly tedious.

It reminded me of how the World Socialist Web Site ends every column with a reminder that the only solution – no matter the subject – is Trotskyist revolution. At least they keep that at the bottom, so you can avoid it if you want.

The difference between the two is that one is openly opposed to neoliberalism and neo-imperialism, while the other censors any discussion of these enormously crucial and socially-devastating concepts.

Joe Biden recently made waves for snapping at a reporter asking a difficult question, and it reminded us of how very coddled he was during the presidential campaign. But a possible change from Sleepy Joe to Cranky Joe may or may not be a problem – that depends on if his apparent election win survives the judicial oversight of the vote, something which is supported by 46% of America (per a poll by The Economist) but 0% of their mainstream media.

The bigger potential issue – and it’s a global one, because foreign journalists often ape the US, in what Iranians have called for 75 years “Westoxification” (being intoxicated by Westernism) – is what the US media actually evolves into post-Trump (if he loses).

In one of the many positive unintended consequences of Donald Trump, the US media went from the slavish sucking up to power during the Dubya Bush era of “wars without bodybags”, to “everybody loves Obama (even though in 2012 he beat Mitt Romney just 51% to 47%), to rediscovering that the press is not actually merely the public relations team of the government.

If Biden wins, will the US mainstream media quickly revert to sucking up to power? Will it be still only softball questions for President Biden?

Or does four years of decent reporting – sadly combined with a concurrent journalistic era of hysterical fear-mongering, Russophobia, urging hatred of one’s differently-voting neighbour and a moral outrage which rested upon a wilful ignorance regarding what Trump supporters really believe – actually have an impact?

The question reminded of an ancient Chinese aphorism: “The murder of a ruler by his minister, or of a father by his son, is not the result of events of one morning or one evening.”

The radicalisation of fake-leftists into faker fake-leftists? Or will the US truly reform its imperialist ways?

The larger point of that aphorism is that actions have consequences, and that if we allow things to go too far down the wrong road an unjust ruler gets murdered, or a country becomes as incredibly internally divided as the US now is.

Journalists are supposed to be combative and even provocative, but the problem here is entirely with the never-stated ideology of Bidenism. (Please note that is entirely different from me writing: the problem is with the rabidity of the never-Trumper ideology.)

Because actions have consequences, we should grasp that Bidenism is not just a “return to (the 2015) normal” but also includes a vindictive, ever-more flaming evangelical insistence that US-led Westernism (neoliberalism and neo-imperialism) is the one true religion, which Donald Trump was heretically and treasonously wrong to even partially call into question.

Who are these unreadable new and old columnists of The New York Times? I can tell you what they are not: they are not journalists who openly denounce imperialism, the Israeli occupation of Palestine, the oppression of the Wall Street high finance class or the other key ideas which differentiate leftism from centrism and rightism.

No, the loudest Bidenites are people who are upset that Trump is now trying to pull out of Afghanistan and Iraq; are upset that Trump did not bomb Syria; could not care less about the famine in Yemen; and who would not have expressed outrage at all for the assassination of Iranian anti-terror hero Qasem Soleimani if Barack Obama had killed him.

The idea that Biden’s foreign policy is going to be less belligerent than Trump’s is something based only on hope and not on the past four years (nor Biden’s 47 years in public service). Just look at how Bidenites are preparing to deal with Trumpers and ask yourself: is the neo-imperial hegemon really going to treat foreigners – especially Muslims in oil-rich areas – better than their very own neighbors?

Bidenites essentially want to criminalise working for Trumpism, censor Trumpist analyses, and make Trump the very first president to ever be prosecuted (what happened to the outrage of Trump’s calls to prosecute “crooked Hillary”?). These are all “radical” in the very worst sense of the word. The obstacle in implementing such radical policies is that Trumpism won at every level on November 3rd except the presidency, in a total concretisation and not repudiation of Trumpism, whether one likes that or not; the problem is that Bidenites at this time in 2016 were, incredibly, already talking publicly about impeaching the then-president-elect Trump, gutting their credibility.

These do not seem like the people who are going to herald a new era of tolerance for non-American ideas because they can’t even tolerate half of America’s ideas. Bidenism may turn out to be “Western universal values” on steroids because Bidenites realise there truly is a threat to the 2015 status quo, which they are obviously hell-bent on suppressing.

These do not seem like the people who are going to become more tolerant of those who do not accept America’s fake-leftist and divisive identity politics, which are entirely based around one thing: distracting from opposition to and the discussion of both neo-imperialism and neoliberalism.

Like Obama, will Biden get a Nobel Peace Prize for his election campaign?

Many of us are old enough to have seen the failure of this idea, currently held by many non-Americans, that the switching from a Republican to a Democrat will herald an entirely new era free from American belligerence.

The younger class may not remember the intense hatred Democrats had for George W. Bush, but the proof of it is in that shocking, totally unmerited Nobel. In 2013 Obama would be credibly quoted as saying, “Turns out I’m really good at killing people. Didn’t know that was gonna be a strong suit of mine.”

If things really do change for the better if Biden wins, journalists will have to have changed as well. Of course, we cannot expect their publishers and editors to allow them to be towards Biden but a fraction of how oppositional they were with Trump, but the younger generation of reporters have now been weaned on journalistic ideas which may prove hard for neoliberal and neo-imperialist forces to rein in.

However, the problem of their essential fake-leftism – of Bidenism – remains, no?

And this is a problem for journalists worldwide, who often read the US mainstream media and are so proud that they can understand a foreign language so well that they may fail to realise they are also imbibing Biden’s latent, never-stated neoliberalism and neo-imperialism; they are so happy Trump is gone they forget the corruption and anti-“universal values” stances which got him elected in the first place. 

The worry is that instead of a genuine move away from American rightism, journalists in the US and abroad only imbibe a key hallmark of Bidenism: intolerance for dissent and the refusal to engage in dispassionate conversation about vital societal issues. The worry is that they become accepting of Bidenism’s flaming insistence that Western liberalism is the only acceptable form of human society worldwide – this is all adds up to the “unradical radicalism” of Bidenism.

Journalists must be skeptical, but they must be accurate – refusing to report on the reality of American Trumpism is as bad as those Americans whose family relations who have become frozen because of their inability to tolerate their relative’s right to vote as they wish.

That’s an American problem, but the idea that Bidenism is actually an anti-imperial and anti-neoliberal movement, or that it will continue Trump’s relative drawdown of American forces worldwide – that’s something you’ve never actually heard from Bidenites.

Think you will (if Biden wins)?


River to Sea Uprooted Palestinian   
The views expressed in this article are the sole responsibility of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of the Blog!

Tuesday, 24 November 2020

The Fascist neo-left and the Trump Factor

The Fascist neo-left and the Trump Factor

November 21, 2020

by Ghassan Kadi for the Saker Blog

Nearly three weeks after the American elections, Americans and the world in general, are still none-the-wiser; not knowing who really won and if the votes have all been legitimate or otherwise.

And the man who is supposedly trying to make America respectable again, yes, Joe Biden, started his ‘tenure’ ironically by presenting his own disrespect by breaking the law and declaring himself as ‘president elect’ and establishing an illegal entity in the name of the ‘Office of President-Elect’.

There are serious accusations that allege that dead people have voted, that boxes of late illegal ballots (all voting for Biden) suddenly appeared from no-where, that the Dominion machines have been deliberately rigged in a manner that favoured Biden, that ballot observers from the Trump camp were not allowed to scrutineer, and much more.

Whilst all of the above points are considered allegations from the legal point of view, the Democrat camp should not be concerned at all if it has nothing to hide. If anything, if it is serious about restoring America’s respect in the eyes of the world, it should encourage transparency and investigations that prove without a single speck of doubt that they are all false. But that same camp that refused the legitimate results of a Trump win four years ago and then fabricated stories like Russiagate and others, is now urging the whole world to believe that the alleged Biden win is legitimate and that there was no interference.

Apart from allegations, what each of us knows for fact is that the media, especially social media, especially Facebook and Twitter have been instrumental in restricting and censoring posts and comments that favour Trump. At the same time, they implemented a blackout relating to the serious allegations of corruption about Biden and his family. If this is not interference in the election results, then what is?

Given the reach and power of social media, and given that most people are not interested in fact-finding, Facebook and Twitter have been engaged in a deliberate campaign of choosing what they allowed to be published and preventing others based only and only on their political views vis-à-vis the American elections.

Once the dust settles one way or the other, if there is any justice left in this world, social media personnel who have forged and implemented those policies must face trial.

What is most ironic about this whole new world that is everything but brave, is that the filthy rich and corrupt are cloaking themselves with the attire of the Left. There is really nothing left of the original Left in today’s Left.

Many, if not most of today’s ”Lefties” are inclined towards the current version of the political Left without really discerning that much has changed since the days of Castro and Guevara.

Today’s Left does not represent the working class.

Today’s Left is not concerned with achieving social justice.

Today’s Left is not concerned with ending capitalism and feudalism.

Today’s Neo-Left, is the consortium of globalists who own sweat shops in developing countries. They are the war-mongers, the arms dealers, the foot soldiers of thought police and they insist that your six-year-old children and grandchildren must learn about subjects like gender fluidity instead of learning history.

The devolution of the former political Left has been taking place for at least three decades, since the collapse of the USSR perhaps and the emergence of the so-called ‘New World Order’. But the 2016 Trump election has fast-tracked the process. George Soros who has an axe to grind with Communism became overnight the principle benefactor of most post-USSR Left movements. For better or for worse, it was as if he wanted to make sure that he contained the Left in a manner that deviates it from its original ideology. But he is not alone, and he is probably not doing this only and only because of political conviction. His ‘bigger’ partners, whether he is aware of their presence or not, have got a much bigger fish to fry; the fish of global control.

But is globalism what it appears to mean or is it a new form of hegemony? Let us not get into this herein. This will be the subject of the next article. Enough to say that what seems to surface from the actions and agendas of globalists is that they are adamant about destroying Western values; including democracy.

When my wife and I were in Russia on the 70th Anniversary of Victory over Nazi Germany, we were in total awe watching the Eternal Regiment on Nevski Prospect in St. Petersburg. Men and women proudly, silently and dignifiedly marching carrying photos of family members who perished fighting the Nazi malice. What was most amazing was seeing young boys and girls giving flowers to the elderly as a mark of respect. This is because students in Russia study history. The young generations must never take for granted the privileges they have. If they do not understand and respect the sacrifices of their forebears, they will never be able to realize what their own obligations are for today and the future. Many Americans do not know what the 4th of July stands for any more than they know how many States there are in the Union. Children growing up in the West have no idea, no idea at all, how and why they live in affluent countries with public services and government-financed welfare.

And when the million man/woman march was over many hours after it started, we could not see a single empty drink can dumped on the street, not even cigarette butts. And then we remembered that a few days earlier when we were in Moscow admiring among other things, the subway/metro stations, we did not witness any evidence of vandalism or graffiti either on the carriages or in the stations.

A far cry from what we see in the West, because to be proud of who one is has become taboo in the West; courtesy the neo-Left and their henchmen.

Personally, I used to feel concerned of what the armed Right-wing Evangelicals might do if they have it their way. But despite their heavy public display of weapons, I didn’t see any evidence to show that they have taken to the streets for the purpose destroying shops and looting. In saying this, and I am not saying that the pro-Trump militias are incapable of perpetrating organized violence, but recently thus far they haven’t. If anything, with all the BLM-associated violence and the attacks Trump supporters have recently faced, the armed conservatives have thus far displayed a huge degree of self-control and abidance by the rules of the law. They argue that their presence is to protect private and public property, and evidence seems to stack up in their favour.

On the other hand, and despite the bias of mainstream media, videos have emerged showing BLM supporters not only looting, but also terrorizing those who disagree with them and refuse to put their fist up in show of support.

Today’s Neo-Left activists are the ones using Nazi tactics; not the other way around. They are the controlled opposition and the foot soldiers of the thought-police; and these are undeniable facts. If anything, the Trump factor has enhanced their exposure.

And if you resurrect Guevara and catapult him into today’s political world without giving him a crash refresher course, he would not know which side of the political divide is which. If anything, he may think that it is the other way around.

In the event of a Biden win that Trump’s supporters may see as unfair, they may be driven to become violent, I don’t know. What I do know is that I have seen serious and concerning rowdy violent behaviour from the Left that makes me now feel that I am more fearful of organizations such as Extinction Rebellion than I am from the armed Evangelicals.

When the late and great Martin Luther King Jr. made his historic ‘I have a dream’ speech, he did not dream of a day when angry mobs would use the excuse of human rights in order to loot and pillage, gang attack supporters of their political opponents, and break the law and Constitution.

And when John Lennon sang ‘Give Peace a Chance’ and ‘Imagine’, he was hoping that one day political leaders would take heed and start putting their hearts before what they can achieve militarily.

Among other things, the thing with Trump is that he is/was not a politician. What drove him from being a profiteering tycoon to a man who wants to end American wars in the world is not something I can explain or understand. Clearly though, even if he is merely running America as a corporation, he must realize that it is not in America’s interests to be constantly engaged in expensive wars that do not have any benefit for America itself. If this is pragmatism from a profit-and-loss business perspective, then I don’t have any problems with this. I want to see American troops pulling out of conflict regions in the world. They have no business in Japan, South Korea, Afghanistan, Iraq and my beloved Syria to name a few places.

The thing about Trump is that he is not even a typical die-hard Republican. The archetypal Republicans are not a bunch of ‘nice guys’ either. How can anyone forget the legacy of the GOP? How can we forget George W Bush’s war on Iraq and his lies about the alleged Iraqi WMD’s? And what about his gang of infamous neo-cons; Perle, and Wolfowitz; not to forget Cheney, McCain, and many more from the gung-ho Republican Right that invaded both Afghanistan and Iraq, killed at least a million civilians and only ended up creating more problems than the ones they claimed they needed to resolve?

Whether Trump wins or loses the legal battle against what looks like a huge body of evidence of electoral fraud at different levels, between now and January the 20th 2021, unlike what the social media brainwashers want people to think and believe, he is not a ‘presidential candidate’, he remains to be the President of the United States of America and he remains to be the Commander in Chief.

To this effect, in as much as the POTUS is domestically building up a huge legal case against the alleged win of Biden, he equally seems to be preparing for the worst-case scenario on international matters. He is working on the contingencies of losing by seemingly making serious efforts into ending wars and the presence of American troops overseas. May he be successful doing this if he is true to his word.

But Mr. President, if you really want to clean up the slate as much as possible in case you lose the legal battle against the corrupt who serve the Deep State, you must then remember that partial withdrawals do not end wars. A drawdown is not a withdrawal. Stand by your promise and let history festoon you as the man who ended all of America’s wars overseas. For even if you leave one soldier, yes Mr. President, one single American soldier on the soil of Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan, or any other place on earth where his presence is not legitimately requested by the people of that land, then you will be remembered in history as the man who faked withdrawals of American troops; and you despise fake actions Mr. President, don’t you?

Last but not least Mr. President, you must at least stop the oil theft from Syria, repeal the Caesar Act, and pardon Assange.

Assange Mr. President is the victim of your enemies. His ‘crime’ was to expose the dirty works of Hillary. How can you not drop all charges against him?

And Mr. President, should you win the legal battle and prove that your opponents have cheated the public, you MUST then clean up the swamp with an iron fist and a high pressure hose. Zuckerberg, the Clintons, the Bidens, CNN, as well as officials that helped fabricate stories about you. The whole gamut of filthy lying manipulators must face justice and the next four years will be a case of now or never.

The electoral issues are something for the American legal system to decide; provided that the system continues to have the power to reach a decision that is lawful and not dictated by the party machine of the Democrats, their cohorts and henchmen with Facebook, Twitter and Google being on the top of the list.

Martin Luther King Jr. would now be saying I’m having a nightmare, I am having a nightmare because in the name of social justice, in my name, protestors are attacked, shops are looted and elections are getting rigged.

The failings of the Neo-Left do not mean that the neo-Right, Trumpism, is always or even necessarily sometimes right by default. What is pertinent is that the choice between the former and traditional Right and Left has now morphed into a choice of discerning right from wrong, and it is the Neo-Left activists who are behaving like Fascists, courtesy the Trump factor.

River to Sea Uprooted Palestinian   
The views expressed in this article are the sole responsibility of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of the Blog!

Sunday, 15 November 2020

«نيويورك تايمز»: تعرّف إلى المرأة التي تعرقل الانتقال السلس للسلطة في أميركا

 البناء

نشرت صحيفة «نيويورك تايمز» الأميركية تحقيقاً لمراسليها في البيت الأبيض، تناول العقبات التي يمكن أن تمنع الانتقال السلس للسلطة إلى فريق جو بايدن الرئاسي، وأبرزها ضرورة اعتراف مرشحة ترامب، إميلي مورفي، مديرة إدارة الخدمات العامة، بالرئيس المنتخب جوزيف روبينيت بايدن رسمياً لبدء نقل السلطة إليه.

الطريق إلى البيت الأبيض ليس مفروشاً بالورود

في البداية، ذكر معدّو التقرير، الذين غطُّوا السياسة الخارجية للرئيس ترامب وحصل اثنان منهم على جائزة بوليتزر في الصحافة، أنّ المسؤولين الانتقاليين للرئيس المنتخب جوزيف آر بايدن جونيور دعوا واحدةً من كبار الموظفين الذين عيَّنتهم إدارة ترامب يوم الإثنين إلى إنهاء ما وصفوه بأنه عرقلة غير مبرّرة للأموال التي ينص القانون الفيدرالي على ضرورة تدفقها إلى الفائز في الانتخابات الرئاسية.

وقال المسؤولون، الذين تحدثوا إلى الصحافيين على خلفية ما جرى مساء الإثنين، إنّ من غير المسبوق تقريباً لإميلي دبليو مورفي، مديرة إدارة الخدمات العامة، أن ترفض إصدار خطاب «التأكيد»، الذي يسمح لفريق بايدن الانتقالي ببدء نقل السلطة.

وبموجب القانون الأميركي، يجب على السيدة مورفي، رئيسة الوكالة المترامية الأطراف التي تحافظ على عمل الحكومة الفيدرالية، أن تعترف رسمياً بالسيد بايدن باعتباره الرئيس القادم لبدء انتقاله للسلطة. وقد مرت ثلاثة أيام منذ أن توقعت المؤسسات الإخبارية أنه الفائز في الانتخابات، ولم تقم السيدة مورفي بواجبها بعد.

وقال المسؤولون الانتقاليون إنّ تقاعسها يمنع فرق بايدن من الانتقال إلى المكاتب الحكومية، بما في ذلك المرافق الآمنة حيث يمكنهم مناقشة المعلومات السرية. ولا يمكن لفِرق العمل التابعة للرئيس المُنتخب في ظلّ هذا الوضع الاجتماع مع نظرائهم في الوكالات أو البدء في عمليات فحص الخلفية الخاصة بكبار المرشحين لمجلس الوزراء وهو الأمر الذين يتطلب وصولاً سرياً للغاية.

وأشار مسؤول في البيت الأبيض، كما فعل عديد من حلفاء ترامب، إلى أنّ الانتقال للسلطة بعد الانتخابات الرئاسية عام 2000 تأخر بسبب المعركة القضائية التي جرت بين حملتي نائب الرئيس آل جور وجورج دبليو بوش، حاكم ولاية تكساس آنذاك، على مدى عدة أسابيع.

وقال المسؤول سيكون من الغريب أن يرسل الرئيس ترامب نوعاً من الإشارة للسماح ببدء الانتقال في الوقت الذي لا يزال فيه منخرطاً في معارك قضائية. لكنّ مساعدي بايدن قالوا إنّ الخلاف في عام 2000 تضمّن ولاية واحدة فقط بحوالي 500 بطاقة اقتراع كانت تفصل بين الفائز والخاسر، وهو عدد أقلّ بكثير مما عليه الحال في المنافسة الحالية.

وفي كلّ سباق رئاسي آخر على مدار الستين عاماً الماضية، تحدّد الفائز في غضون 24 ساعة، كما قالوا ـ حتى مع استمرار الطعون القانونية وعمليات إعادة الفرز لأسابيع. وقالوا إنهم يدرسون «جميع الخيارات»، بما في ذلك اتخاذ الإجراءات القانونية المحتملة، لدفع السيدة إميلي مورفي للسماح بالبدء في انتقال السلطة.

من هي السيدة إميلي مورفي؟

يقول محرّرو التقرير إنّ السيدة إميلي مورفي، التي وصفت نفسها بأنها «متوترة قليلاً» في جلسة مجلس الشيوخ للتصديق على تعيينها والتي عُقدت في شهر أكتوبر (تشرين الأول) عام 2017، وقالت أيضاً إنها «لم تشغل هذا المنصب لتحتلّ العناوين الرئيسة أو تحقق الشهرة لنفسها»، اختارت حتى الآن الوقوف إلى جانب البيت الأبيض والسيد ترامب، ما يعني وقوفها حائلاً بين فريق السيد بايدن والانتقال السلس للسلطة.

«الغارديان»: بايدن فاز بالرئاسة…ما الخيارات القانونية أمام ترامب؟

ويرفض الرئيس ترامب الاعتراف بنتائج الانتخابات وتعترض حملته الانتخابية على النتائج في ولايات عدة. وأحجم معظم الجمهوريين عن الاعتراف ببايدن، ناهيك عن المُعيّنين في إدارة ترامب مثل السيدة مورفي. وبذلك، فإنّ نقل السلطة الذي يجب أن يتمّ أصبح عالقاً في مأزق. يشير التقرير إلى أنّ متحدثة باسم البيت الأبيض لم تردّ على الفور على سؤال حول ما إذا كان السيد ترامب على استعداد للسماح للسيدة إميلي مورفي بالبدء في الانتقال من دون تنازل من جانب الرئيس، في ظلّ شروعه في خوض معاركه في المحكمة.

إرث ترامب ما زال قائماً

وقال ليزلي داش، الذي كان من المقرّر أن يقود عملية الانتقال في وزارة الصحة والخدمات الإنسانية لو قُدِّر لهيلاري كلينتون الفوز بالرئاسة في عام 2016، إنه على الرغم من العمل المتقدّم الذي قام به فريق بايدن خلال الحملة، لا شيء يمكن أن يحلّ محلّ الوصول المباشر إلى الوكالات، وهذا مستحيل من دون موافقة السيدة إميلي مورفي.

وأضاف السيد داش: «أعتقد أنّ هذا (إرث) ترامب، وهو الآن يرسل إشارة واضحة إلى كل من لا يزال قائماً في الإدارة بأنه لا يزال يتعين عليك الوقوف إلى جانبي في مظالمي وشكواي التي رفعتها». ويعدّ توقف المرحلة الانتقالية جزءاً من رفض شامل للاعتراف بنتائج الانتخابات من جانب إدارة ترامب.

وفي هذا الصدد، أشار مسؤولون في مكتب شؤون الموظفين الرئاسيين في البيت الأبيض إلى أنهم سيفصلون المعينين السياسيين الذين يبحثون عن وظائف جديدة خارج الإدارة خلال هذا الوقت، بحسب ما ذكره شخصان مطلعان على المناقشات الداخلية. وفي مكالمة مع موظفين في الوكالة الأميركية للتنمية الدولية يوم الإثنين الماضي، وصف المسؤولون الانتخابات بأنها ما زالت جارية، وفقاً لتسجيل حصل عليه موقع أكسيوس الإخباري. وفي رسالة يوم الأحد الماضي من المركز غير الحزبي للانتقال الرئاسي، حذَّر المخضرمون في الإدارات السابقة، من أنه «في الوقت الذي ستكون هناك نزاعات قانونية تتطلب الفصل، فإنّ النتيجة واضحة بما فيه الكفاية إلى حد أن عملية الانتقال يجب أن تبدأ الآن».

ويعمل مساعدو بايدن منذ شهور على تطوير خطط انتقالية دقيقة لمساعدة الرئيس المنتخب على الوفاء بوعوده الانتخابية بسرعة. وفي هذا الشأن، تعدّ فرق المراجعة المُشكَّلة من أشخاص على دراية بكلّ وكالة فيدرالية بالغة الأهمية. وتتمتع السيدة مورفي بالسلطة القانونية «لبدء انتقال السلطة»، والإفراج عن 6.3 مليون دولار من الأموال الفيدرالية المخصصة في الميزانية لتحقيق هذا المسعى، وإتاحة قاعات المكتب (اللازمة للاجتماعات) وتمكين أعضاء الفريق الفائز من زيارة مكاتب الوكالة وطلب المعلومات.

ويشير محرّرو التقرير إلى أنّ كلّ هذه الإجراءات غالباً ما يُنظر إليها باعتبارها إشارة البداية الرسمية. وفي ظلّ الظروف العادية، عادةً ما يكون قرار السيدة مورفي مدفوعاً بخطاب التنازل الذي يصل من جانب الخاسر في الانتخابات، وهو وإنْ لم يكن أمراً قانونياً، لكنه يشير إلى أنّ كلا الجانبين يقبلان النتيجة. وفي عام 2016، اتخذ القائم بأعمال إدارة الخدمات العامة في عهد الرئيس باراك أوباما القرار في صباح يوم التاسع من شهر نوفمبر (تشرين الثاني)، أي بعد الانتخابات مباشرةً. ولكن لا يوجد نصّ محدّد يحدّد متى يجب على السيدة مورفي التصرف.

فريق بايدن يلتزم الحكمة والتأني

قالت باميلا دي بنينغتون، المتحدثة باسم إدارة الخدمات العامة، في بيان يوم الإثنين الماضي، «لم يتمّ تأكيد (فوز بايدن) بعد». وأضافت «ستواصل إدارة الخدمات العامة ومديرها الالتزام والوفاء بجميع المتطلبات بموجب القانون وسنلتزم بالسوابق الماضية التي أرستها إدارة كلينتون في عام 2000». وفي بيان سابق، قالت السيدة باميلا إنّ «مدير إدارة الخدمات العامة لا يعلن الفائز في الانتخابات الرئاسية»، وأضافت إنّ «مدير إدارة الخدمات العامة يتحقق من المرشح الناجح الظاهر بمجرد أن يتضح الفائز بناءً على العملية المنصوص عليها في الدستور».

وقال مساعدو بايدن إنهم يتوقعون أن تتصرف السيدة إميلي مورفي في غضون أيام قليلة، لكنهم مستعدون لاحتمالية أن يؤدي الضغط السياسي من الرئيس وحلفائه الجمهوريين إلى منع ذلك. وفي بيان نُشر على تويتر يوم الأحد الماضي، حثت جين بساكي، المسؤول الانتقالي، السيدة مورفي برفق على إصدار الإعلان.

من جانبها، كتبت السيدة بساكي: «الآن بعد أن انتهت الانتخابات على نحو مستقل لصالح جو بايدن، نتطلع إلى أن تقوم مديرة إدارة الخدمات العامة بالتأكيد بصورة سريعة على أن جو بايدن وكامالا هاريس هما الرئيس المنتخب ونائبة الرئيس المنتخب».

وتابعت: «يعتمد الأمن القومي والمصالح الاقتصادية لأميركا على إشارة الحكومة الفيدرالية بوضوح وبسرعة إلى أنّ حكومة الولايات المتحدة ستحترم إرادة الشعب الأميركي وتنخرط في انتقال سلس وسلمي للسلطة».

وكان المسؤولون الانتقاليون لبايدن أكثر تركيزاً ليلة الاثنين الماضي، قائلين إن إدارة ترامب تراجعت فعلياً عن الوعود التي قطعتها على مدار الأشهر الستة الماضية لضمان نقل مناسب للسلطة إذا فاز بايدن. وقال المسؤولون إنهم وقَّعوا ثلاث مذكرات اتفاق منفصلةـ بما في ذلك مذكرة وقَّعها مارك ميدوز، رئيس موظفي البيت الأبيض، حدّدت إمكانية الوصول (إتاحة الفرصة لاستخدام مكاتب البيت الأبيض) والأموال التي سيحصل عليها فريق بايدن في الأيام التي تلي الانتخابات. وقالوا إنه لم يُسمح لأي من تلك الأمور أن تمضي قدماً.

أدَّت جائحة فيروس كورونا المُستجد إلى أن مسألة المكاتب باتت أقلّ أهمية لفريق بايدن الانتقالي، الذي كان يلتقي في الغالب عن بُعد خلال الأشهر العديدة الماضية وسيواصل القيام بذلك، وفقاً لما ذكره مسؤول انتقالي. وهناك عدد قليل من الموظفين في المكاتب التي وفرتها الحكومة قبل الانتخابات. ولكن بمجرد أن تشير السيدة إميلي مورفي إلى أن عملية الانتقال يمكن أن تبدأ، ستُفتح أبواب هذه المكاتب وتُزوَّد بأنظمة الكمبيوتر التي تمنح الإدارة الجديدة إمكانية الوصول إلى الأنظمة والمعلومات السرية، بالإضافة إلى توفير موقع آمن لإجراء محادثات سرية.

وإذا لم يحدث ذلك في الأيام المقبلة، فإنّ لدى إدارة بايدن خيارات أخرى. إذ يمتلك المسؤولون الانتقاليون مساحة مكتبية خاصة يمكنهم الاستمرار في استخدامها، وسيواصل بايدن وفريقه العمل عن بُعد. وعندما التقى الرئيس المنتخب بمجلسه الاستشاري الخاص بالجائحة يوم الإثنين الماضي، كان في ولاية ديلاوير وكان أعضاء مجلس الإدارة مشاركين في الاجتماع عبر شاشة كبيرة، ويتصلون من منازلهم أو مكاتبهم.

«الإندبندنت»: لماذا لن يستطيعترامب التلاعب بنتائج الانتخابات الرئاسية؟

لكنّ المشكلة الأكبر، بحسب التقرير، ستكون في كيفية الوصول إلى الوكالات والمعلومات التي يحتاجونها لبدء تنفيذ أجندة بايدن. لكن الأشخاص المطلعين على انتقال بايدن قالوا إنّ هناك حلاً جزئياً: كان عديد من الأشخاص الذين لا يزالون يعملون في الوكالات الفيدرالية قريبين من مستشاري بايدن وربما يكون لديهم استعداد للعمل معهم لتوفير المعلومات غير السرية التي يحتاجونها.

لكنّ هذا لن يحلّ مشكلة الوصول إلى المعلومات السرية، ما قد يؤثر في قدرة فريق الأمن القومي التابع للسيد بايدن على الاستعداد لحالات الطوارئ التي ربما يتعيّن عليه مواجهتها بمجرد تولي المنصب. وقال المسؤولون الانتقاليون إنّ أحد القيود المحددة في الوقت الحالي هو أنّ السيد بايدن لا يستطيع الوصول إلى منشأة آمنة في وزارة الخارجية والتي تُستخدَم عادةً لتوجيه المكالمات الواردة من القادة الأجانب الراغبين في تهنئة الرئيس المنتخب حديثاً. ويُجرِي بايدن هذه المكالمات، لكن لم يُسمح له باستخدام وزارة الخارجية كما جرت العادة بعد الانتخابات السابقة.

ترامب يواصل هجومه والتاريخ لا يكذب

أشار التقرير إلى أنّ ترامب وحلفاءه انتقدوا الديمقراطيين ووسائل الإعلام الإخبارية لتصويرهم بايدن باعتباره الفائز قبل الانتهاء من الطعون القانونية وعمليات إعادة الفرز. لكن من الناحية التاريخية، لم ينتظر إعلان قرار التأكيد الذي يصدره مدير إدارة الخدمات العامة نتائج مثل هذه الطعون.

وفي عام 2004، انتهت عمليات إعادة الفرز في نيو هامبشاير وأوهايو بعد أن اتخذت إدارة الخدمات العامة القرار. وحُسِمت عدة ولايات بأقلّ من نقطة مئوية واحدة. وفي عام 2016، رُفِعت دعاوى لإجراء خمس عمليات إعادة فرز الأصوات بعد إعلان إدارة الخدمات العامة القرار، وأُجرِيت ثلاث عمليات إعادة فرز للأصوات في ولايات ميشيغان ونيفادا وويسكونسن.

إميلي مورفي… تاريخغير مُشرِّف مع الديمقراطيين

يعاود المحررون الحديث عن السيدة إميلي مورفي باعتبارها شخصية لم يكن من المرجح أن تكون في قلب مثل هذا الوضع المتفجر: إنها شخصية بيروقراطية متواضعة بدأت حياتها المهنية بصفتها موظفة جمهورية في الكابيتول هيل (المجلس التشريعي لحكومة الولايات المتحدة) وتعلن حبها لإصلاح المشتريات وإعادة التفاوض على عقود الإيجار. وقال الديمقراطيون الذين عملوا معها إنهم يتذكرونها بصفتها محترفة مجتهدة. لكن فترة عملها في إدارة الخدمات العامة، التي تديرها منذ شهر ديسمبر (كانون الأول) عام 2017، لم تَخْلُ من الجدل.

وفي عام 2018، خلُص أعضاء مجلس النواب الديمقراطيين إلى أن السيدة إميلي مورفي ضللتهم بشأن قرار وكالتها بإعادة النظر في الخطط الطويلة لمكتب التحقيقات الفيدرالي الخاصة بنقل مقره العتيق في شارع بنسلفانيا إلى منطقة حضارية أخرى. ووجد الديمقراطيون أنّ ترامب تدخل لإلغاء الخطة، ربما لأنه كان يخشى أن يقوم مطوّر تجاري بتحويل مبنى جيه إيدجر هوفر الذي جرى إخلاؤه إلى فندق ينافس فندق ترامب الدولي الخاص به الواقع على بعد مبنى واحد فقط.

ووجد المفتش العام في إدارة الخدمات العامة أنّ شهادة السيدة إميلي مورفي بشأن هذه المسألة إلى الكونغرس في عام 2018 كانت «غير مكتملة وربما تركت انطباعاً مضللاً بأنها لم تجر مناقشات مع مسؤولي البيت الأبيض في عملية صنع القرار» بينما كانت في الواقع قد أجرت تلك المناقشات، بما في ذلك خلال زيارة لها إلى المكتب البيضاوي في عام 2017.

كما خلُص الديمقراطيون في مجلس النواب إلى أنّ السيدة إميلي مورفي كانت بطيئة في تزويدهم بالوثائق والمعلومات الأخرى المتعلقة بتأجير إدارة الخدمات العامة لمبنى مكتب البريد التاريخي القديم في واشنطن، موقع فندق ترامب، لصالح منظمة ترامب.

«ساسة بوست»


River to Sea Uprooted Palestinian   
The views expressed in this article are the sole responsibility of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of the Blog!

CNN’s Jake Tapper: The foreman/overseer keeping all journalists in line (1/2)

 November 13, 2020

CNN’s Jake Tapper: The foreman/overseer keeping all journalists in line (1/2)
Ramin Mazaheri is currently covering the US elections. He is the chief correspondent in Paris for Press TV and has lived in France since 2009. He has been a daily newspaper reporter in the US, and has reported from Iran, Cuba, Egypt, Tunisia, South Korea and elsewhere. He is the author of ‘Socialism’s Ignored Success: Iranian Islamic Socialism’ as well as ‘I’ll Ruin Everything You Are: Ending Western Propaganda on Red China’, which is also available in simplified and traditional Chinese.

By Ramin Mazaheri and cross-posted with PressTV

CNN anchorman Jake Tapper is one of the most widely-seen journalists in the United States, and a recent tweet of his revealed just how very much careerism it takes to climb the ladder so high.

As the US mainstream media continued its unconstitutional and absurd insistence that both the presidential election is over and that discussion around it must cease, a miffed Tapper took to Twitter on November 9th and issued a clear threat designed to intimidate other journalists into silence on these subjects:

“I truly sympathize with those dealing with losing — it’s not easy — but at a certain point one has to think not only about what’s best for the nation (peaceful transfer of power) but how any future employers might see your character defined during adversity.”

I’m a journalist and I don’t think I’m reading between the lines here when I relate that what I just read is: Journalists should promote the idea that Joe Biden is the undisputed victor or else you will never move up the ladder, or possibly ever even get hired as a journalist again.

Tapper was lambasted by some – obviously for intimidation, enforcing groupthink, hindering free press and free speech, overstepping the bounds of a “fourth estate” which has no formal governmental role in deciding US elections, etc. – but it was mostly unaddressed and tacitly condoned by his MSM colleagues.

One thing that struck me about Tapper’s mindset is: As the French say about Americans – “C’est marche ou crève” (It’s march or die). Very, very true.

But what struck me most – as the previous sentence is old news – is: How will my younger colleagues take this?

Tapper’s threat probably caused a lump in the throat of every mid-20s American journalist who is well-steeped in the most necessary virtues a journalist needs – an insistence on accuracy as well as skepticism — but is also just out of college in a horrible job market, probably deep in tuition-related debt, in a field which is known for being perennially low-paid, who is likely expected to smile for the opportunity to work for free as an intern as there is so much job competition in this exciting field, and who is now realising that a questioning US free press extends for less than a week, per the very privileged and powerful Jake Tapper.

It’s huge incompetence and dereliction of duty if Tapper did not realise that he has responsibilities to defend other journalists during chaotic times, given his privileged position, and absolutely to not to attack and threaten them.

It’s beyond pathetic as a human to go around threatening those who disagree with you about politics, but focusing on Tapper’s role in the labor structure in our craft is more interesting because I think it says a lot about US work culture.

Careerism may be the true US (false, divisive, selfish, unpatriotic) religion

Given their total precariousness it’s hard to not be empathetic with a young journalist, in this age where nothing gets deleted (and when Americans are apparently so politically intolerant), who doesn’t want to take an unpopular position. They certainly have every right to expect those with labor seniority – and the many privileges that go along with that – to lead the way during tough and unstable times.

What’s interesting about Tapper’s tweet is how it also reveals his own mind: maybe this tweet is just Tapper talking to himself about how “employers might see” him, Jake Tapper?

Then the tweet becomes him thinking, “Now think about your job here, Tappy old boy. If Ted Turner says Biden won then who cares about the constitution and the 70 million Trump voters and electoral integrity and democratic checks and balances and the alienation, apathy, anger and abstention rushing to judgement in this already-disputed election might cause? Remember what newspaper magnate William Randolph Hearst said: ‘You furnish the pictures, I’ll furnish the war’. So there’s nothing new here – we all do it. Crack the whip, Tappy old boy. How many times have they cracked the whip on you before they let you sit in the big boy chair?”

With that in mind Tapper dutifully sent out a tweet/whip-crack to keep all the other lower workers in line.

And lesser-privileged workers often do get unruly – perhaps they are complaining amongst themselves about increasingly-dangerous working conditions, or talking about the luxurious life of the boss when they haven’t had a raise in years, or they are muttering that the newly announced plans of action are cubicle-drone nonsense which will run the company into the ground, or in this case that many millions of Americans truly are contesting these election results and maybe we should honestly report that? Such anti-1% complaints are why the foreman/overseer so often issues a threat during unstable times (of getting fired, of not getting hired during the next season’s busy work periods, of getting railroaded by cops, etc.).

So we all know people like Tapper, because we have all worked. We all do not like the Tappers – he is a tool of the 1% at our jobs. It’s dangerous to go against the foremen and the Tappers, but the whole idea of post-1917-modelled societies is that we have safety in numbers.

And we do have numbers.

Which is why I can tell Tapper: Take his job and shove it.

(This is a reference to a famous American country song, and while crude: we are working in English here and need to speak their language.)

I don’t want to work at CNN. I don’t even want to be called by CNN for an interview about facts on the ground.

I will happily chitchat and discuss things informally with any journalist, but if you think I want to have to report to people like Jake Tapper, you are totally, totally wrong.

I can sure find a place with better foremen.

And I am hardly alone or exceptional – there are SO MANY great journalists who refuse the lure of careerism that I must use caps there. We are not alone, and Tapper doesn’t realise that: We have big enough numbers, too.

(And wasn’t US democracy especially concerned with minority rights? I guess not for what the Tappers claim is the minority presidential vote in the recent election.)

Tapper also thinks we are powerless – we are not powerless, either.

It’s entirely possible that Tapper is just such a blatant careerist that to him it’s both personally unthinkable and intolerable that others would not be covering the 2020 US election with future employment gains foremost in their minds.

That’s a significant statement to consider, and it is entirely to the demerit of Tapper he has even made us consider it. If he has made a mistake he should clarify it (which he has done yet – his follow-up tweet was nearly as bad as his first), but he still would get demerits because TV journalist are supposed to be clear and understandable the very first time around.

And the US is also just blatantly unstable, which Tapper’s tweet also reminds us:

Even though this is the third election in six which has come under major dispute, what’s not important is dispassionately answering long-standing domestic questions about the integrity of presidential elections, or ensuring ideals such as free press and free votes, but ensuring a “(peaceful transfer of power)”.

Tapper seems to view the US in November 2020 as such a powder keg that totally legitimate questions about the integrity of this election must be tamped down or the United States of America is finished, self-immolated, destroyed, etc.

Is Tapper is saying the US is too unstable to have a transparent vote? If so, that’s a huge, huge, huge problem with the American system.

I disagree: there has been no political violence on or since the election (despite the months of MSM fear-mongering about it). I think that’s a hysterical view which Tapper is manipulatively resorting to so that his candidate wins. Hysteria is the both the American word of 2020 and also a way to intimidate people – via emotional force.

I would finally conclude that it is a careerist view: Tapper wants, above all, power to smoothly transfer from one hand of the duopoly to the other (although it’s true that Trump is a latecomer to the duopoly). Despite all the economic catastrophe, coronavirus health catastrophe, the inner cultural catastrophe of this ongoing disputed election – Jake Tapper is doing just fine, so stop asking questions.

Many will continue to not do so, and we are safe in our numbers.

Lastly, some people may object to my use of “overseer” in the headline, which refers to pre-1917 times in the US (“foreman” refers to modern work culture): I think it’s important to place Tapper in his American historical-linguistic context because we need to be reminded of how careerism is not a 21st century phenomenon. The struggle of workers against unjust managers is something which goes back to the building of the Pyramids, but what would have been the point of using an Arabic word for “overseer”, which only a minuscule minority of readers would understand? The agricultural “overseer” is not used much anymore in America – because it brings up issues of slavery, and few White people can discuss that openly here, much to the chagrin of Blacks – but it is a necessary image to retain in the American consciousness and should not be obliterated from their current era, as pre-modern overseers did so much damage to the 99% for such a long period of time.

This type of pure nonsense is what passes for leftism over here when it is a huge waste of time and space. There are far, far huger issues, such as:

Clearly, Tapper does not believe, “I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it”, which is a summation of the thoughts of the French writer Voltaire by his English biographer Evelyn Beatrice Hall and repeated constantly by Americans: all these countries are huge, huge believers in free speech and free press. This makes us fairly question not the patriotism of Tapper but whether he is authentically championing the grassroots values of the broad nation which he is covering, which I believe is a primary role of journalism, because: don’t the elite have enough mouthpieces, already?

Tapper is not alone.

America is in such hysteria, and eliciting such hypocrisy, and is so dangerously divided that a second part in this series is required to address Tapper’s cohorts who think calling for a judicial review of a highly-contested vote merits such an incredible crackdown on human rights.

*************************************************************

Results are in: Americans lose, duopoly wins, Trumpism not merely a cult (1/2) – November 5, 2020

Results are in: Americans lose, duopoly wins, Trumpism not merely a cult (2/2) – November 6, 2020

4 years of anti-Trumpism shaping MSM vote coverage, but expect long fight – November 7, 2020

US partitioned by 2 presidents: worst-case election scenario realized – November 9, 2020

A 2nd term is his if he really wants it, but how deep is Trump’s ‘Trumpism’? – November 10, 2020


River to Sea Uprooted Palestinian   
The views expressed in this article are the sole responsibility of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of the Blog!

Friday, 13 November 2020

Dr.SHIVA LIVE: MIT PhD Analysis of Michigan Votes Reveals Unfortunate Truth of U.S. Voting Systems.


River to Sea Uprooted Palestinian   
The views expressed in this article are the sole responsibility of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of the Blog!

A 2nd term is his if he really wants it, but how deep is Trump’s ‘Trumpism’?

 Wednesday, 11 November 2020 8:10 AM  [ Last Update: Wednesday, 11 November 2020 8:18 AM ]

US Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) (L) talks with Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) during a rally with fellow Democrats before voting on H.R. 1, or the People Act, on the East Steps of the US Capitol on March 08, 2019 in Washington, DC. (AFP photo)
US President Donald Trump (File photo)

By Ramin Mazaheri

A 2nd term is his if he really wants it, but how deep is Trump’s ‘Trumpism’?
Ramin Mazaheri is currently covering the US elections. He is the chief correspondent in Paris for Press TV and has lived in France since 2009. He has been a daily newspaper reporter in the US, and has reported from Iran, Cuba, Egypt, Tunisia, South Korea and elsewhere. He is the author of ‘Socialism’s Ignored Success: Iranian Islamic Socialism’ as well as ‘I’ll Ruin Everything You Are: Ending Western Propaganda on Red China’, which is also available in simplified and traditional Chinese.

The United States repeatedly has the worst elections of all the Western core democracies.

That’s not “Iranian meddling” but Harvard and their 2019 Electoral Integrity Index. They ranked US elections just 57th in the world.

One wonders how much further they will fall in this year’s ranking?

If we honestly ask if American elections have integrity I think everyone has the same answer, and it’s as serious as a heart-attack:

You don’t want to go there. American elections cannot withstand serious scrutiny.

So if President Donald Trump actually wants a second term, it’s likely there for the taking. He’ll have to ride out weeks of personal stress even worse than the televised Watergate hearings in 1973, but he won’t come out like Richard Nixon just for insisting that American elections finally get looked at honestly. 

I don’t think that Trump has engaged in vote fraud, but I must report that half of the US still believes that Democrats did. Mail-in balloting has unnecessarily stressed an already corruption-filled system, per Harvard. In a democracy it does not matter if perceptions of voter fraud run on partisan lines – if such perceptions are widespread they simply must be resolved satisfactorily.

Nobody has tested the integrity of US elections in recent memory. Not in even in 2000, when they rushed to install George W. Bush 37 days after the election. We later found that an unforgivable 14% of African-American votes had been questionably rejected in they key state of Florida.

Americans shouldn’t forget things like that, and many don’t. Many just permanently stay away from elections and encourage others to do the same.

Democrats want to pin all the blame for the current election mistrust on Trump, but such a view acts as if the world began in 2016.

This is an election system which could not stand serious scrutiny, and now it is cracking at the end of this year of unprecedented pressures.

Half the country is begging Trump: stress it further.

His supporters are asking Trump to be a martyr and refuse to concede

This is an absolutely history-making moment in time, and this hard-news journalist never resorts to such hyperbole: This is the moment when Donald Trump can choose between going down in history likely portrayed as a buffoon, or he can take on the establishment “Swamp” by forcing it to investigate allegations of structural corruption by elites.

It’s a stunning idea, and unthinkable to half the country here, who is being swamped with the insistence that Joe Biden is the president-elect even though the votes counting is still ongoing, even though he leads by a mere average of 21,000 votes over four states, and in an election which has been tainted by corruption accusations for months.

What they are applying as pressure is the cynical power of “inevitability”. Maybe Trump really did get fewer votes, so why put the nation through stress?

That common view should be rejected in favor of the martyrs who came before, such as the disenfranchised Black Floridians of 2000. And how long can honest reckonings be put off without destroying faith in the system? Destroyed faith in society has a price, and America has a problem with honest talk, but this is truly la chance for redemption.

That’s why Joe Biden’s early declaration was so reckless, self-interested and – in the worst sense of the word – Trumpian. Biden’s promised redemption is already false – he did not have faith in allowing the US system to play out.

It seems like a difficult task, but I contend that Trump has everything going for him – he has the one thing nobody really has, which is time. All Trump has to do is let the process play out: if he lost fairly, he will garner much credit for standing up for the common voter; if he wins the presidency, he’s a hero who reversed the tide.

Trump’s Achilles’ heel is that he cannot do this with dignity, but when every other election this century has been disputed, one person’s foolish behavior isn’t the main issue for American society anymore. 

There really is no rush: a new president doesn’t take over until January 20. But imperialists abhor a vacuum. They don’t know who is in charge and, thus who to follow, and thus who to plot to destroy. Imperialist cultures are exceptional and distorted like this in ways smaller countries can’t imagine.

This, “We’re the slave-master,” pride is also why a small country can take their time and get an election right, but the US is rushing to judgement no matter how many it disenfranchises. They know they have to constantly project total strength: every day they do not is another day the colonized will question the slave-master’s true power and abilities.

What is this 21st century “Trumpism” really? We are about to finally find out.

‘Trumpism’ isn’t the name of a proper political party – will one be found or is it over already?

Certainly, like the Yellow Vests in France, it was immediately and falsely slammed as xenophobic. That’s now a pathetic, false and boring argument: Trump won a greater percentage of minority votes than any Republican in 60 years. So we don’t really know what it is, due to this propaganda.

The reality is that their opposition to 1%-benefiting globalization, their demand for patriotic sovereignty and their opposition to 1%-benefiting “universal values” are the reasons for the corporate-mainstream vilification of both.

If Trump gives up the adjective of “Trumpian” Republican will no longer be necessary because the world’s oldest duopoly sucks the revolutionary spirit out of every third-party movement. I doubt you have heard of the “Bull Moose Party”, even though Teddy Roosevelt is on Mount Rushmore?

If Trump really stands his ground right “Trumpian” could shed its perceptions of xenophobia and be associated with a spirit of rigor and democratic egalitarianism. It would be a coup against the 1%’s efforts, and to win that Trump has to get absolutely crucified in the next three months.

We’ve never known just how serious about politics Trump is, no?

He used to be a reality-show star, but he has certainly put in a lot of work for four years. Key senators have said that Trump is within his rights to demand recounts and transparency. Now we will find out how fighting he is willing to do – he still has a ton of power.

Trump been vilified for four years, and revolutionaries are made, not born. Surely he is aware of the problems which those without power cannot possibly stand up to? He who is more aware is necessarily more responsible.

But how deep is Trump’s Trumpism?

It’s very easy to cynically say that Trump will only ever be a tool of the pro-Zionist camp, or that he is only in this to make money, or that all he seeks is fame or even infamy. Maybe all this is quite true, and he’s gone further than he ever imagined or even wanted to?

It doesn’t matter to me: The better point to make is that Trumpism is very real to its supporters. Like the Yellow Vests they actually do have genuine virtues. They see corruption and they want it out, but all they have is one vote each – they are not the president. 

Right now is the time if Trump shows he has learned how to be a public servant after four years, or if perhaps many are right to conclude that “democracy with American characteristics” is incapable of producing humble, selfless public servants, and only corrupt, self-interested ones. 

If Americans cannot have a transparent election they cannot possibly achieve even moderate progress: This is country which has opposed revolutionary tactics for 200+ years – everyone here is committed to reformism of the American system. If Trump does not make a stand here – if he bows to the forces of cynical inevitability – Trumpism remains half a personality cult, half a brand name and certainly half-finished at best. Trumpism will have made a point, but not a real impact.

The average American should not be punished – they have a right to free and transparent elections, and the whole world knows that they don’t get them. 2020 is yet another recent example. It seems unfortunate that it is up to Donald Trump to help him and her, but it is too early to judge: he may yet get added onto Mount Rushmore, as he hopes.

What is certain one week after their initial vote is that the US has had a vote, and a winner (two of them) – there is only one logical conclusion: concession/inauguration.

Until that happens it will be a steadily-increasing drip of chaotic news. That is not a bad thing for the world, nor one to be feared by Americans, but it is intensely feared by their 1%.

(The views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect those of Press TV.)


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River to Sea Uprooted Palestinian   
The views expressed in this article are the sole responsibility of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of the Blog!