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Trump’s Pandemic

It’s become clear that the mid-January Chinese lockdown sent a powerful signal globally that a public health tsunami was coming, but corporatist governments, left and right, chose to ignore it. There’s even now a xenophobic hubris in some segments of both the UK and US that “it can’t happen here” and “we’re not China”. They continue in minimization or outright denial, desperate to get back to business as usual, willing to sacrifice the most vulnerable on the altar of profit. The bitter irony in the US is that those who might suffer most are the Trump loyalists foolish enough to believe him.

» Posted By Ray Cunneff On March 25, 2020 @ 8:25 am

Is my article still under review? It’s not in the Home Page rotation.

» Posted By Ray Cunneff On March 20, 2020 @ 4:15 pm

A ‘Sham Trial’ Will Not Exonerate Trump

What part of this don’t people understand? What Mitch McConnell is doing in the Senate impeachment trial of Donald J.Trump isn’t merely a “cover-up”. This is a further consolidation of executive power, stripping the authority of Congress as a co-equal branch of government, the enshrinement of a supreme leader.

» Posted By Ray Cunneff On January 21, 2020 @ 8:29 am

Trump has put Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell in a nearly impossible position. An unseemly, rancorous ‘show trial’ spectacle in the Senate will tarnish that body’s reputation and possibly cost him his majority. Allowing witnesses and documents at trial could fatally damage the Trump presidency even if they acquit him. And the president is demanding either total exoneration, or to shut the whole proceeding down with a motion to dismiss.

Only one thing is certain. McConnell will choose the path of least political damage.

» Posted By Ray Cunneff On January 18, 2020 @ 9:38 am

“In his conversations with advisers on Thursday, Mr. Trump repeated once again that he could not believe he was facing such a predicament as impeachment. He said he wanted people to be prepared for a motion to dismiss and has hoped for one, even though Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the majority leader, has said the Senate will have to take up the matter.” – New York Times Friday January 17, 2020

» Posted By Ray Cunneff On January 17, 2020 @ 8:36 am

Justice Roberts can be overruled on any decision by a simple majority. It’s not like the Supreme Court. As Justice Rehnquist said following the Clinton impeachment, “I did next to nothing and I did it very well.”

» Posted By Ray Cunneff On January 16, 2020 @ 3:10 pm

Trump, the Usurper

Coming soon…

2020: A Trump Odyssey

A Blogger’s Guide to the
Rise of America’s Fascist Dictator

WHAT WE KNEW
WHEN WE KNEW IT
HOW IT DIDN’T MATTER

By Ray Cunneff

» Posted By Ray Cunneff On August 5, 2019 @ 3:14 pm

Short Posts

Does America Long For A Fascist Dictator?

We really didn’t know what to expect when Donald Trump descended his golden escalator to announce his candidacy in June of 2015.

Our insights were limited to tone, temperament and body language, Trump’s assurances that he would break government gridlock and “get things done”. And we had his promise to “Make America Great Again”.

For those who felt aggrieved, disenfranchised, threatened by change, those who feared a loss of power or privilege, it was a message that resonated powerfully, even angrily.

But all of this had the echoes of tyrants, the strutting, scowling destroyers of democracies that in the past have ruthlessly risen to power and authoritarian rule with promises to make their nations “great again”.

The rise of Donald Trump is more than a rejection of facts, or truth, more than a rejection of law or tradition, a rejection of science and reason, it is a rejection of history.

» Posted By Ray Cunneff On January 21, 2020 @ 9:49 pm

“Axis of Evil” Part II

I just had an “a-ha!” moment, realizing I’d been slow to connect these particular dots. Yesterday, I mentioned that VP Mike Pence was inexplicably claiming that Iran was involved in the 9/11 attacks “all evidence to the contrary”.

No one had ever made such a claim before, nothing presented to the 9/11 Commission supported such a claim. But it’s a ‘tell’ of Trump’s intent. By claiming a linkage to Iran, they apparently believe they don’t need Congress, that they already have authorization in the 2002 War Powers Resolution that Bush I used to invade Iraq.

So once again a Trump surrogate, in this case Pence, is laying the rhetorical groundwork for war without oversight and the unilateral power of a king to attack whomever he pleases. Iran and Soleimani were never mentioned in the 2002 resolution, the (limited) authorization was specific to Saddam Hussein and Iraq. Bush/Rumsfeld/Cheney used it to justify invading Iraq. And now Trump intends to use it against Iran.

Congress was duped into war in 2002, but this ploy by Trump is even more blatant. In retrospect, the 2002 resolution was crafted to negate the 1973 War Powers Act that constrained a president’s ability to initiate or escalate military action abroad. Republicans used 9/11 as a pretext to invade Iraq in 2003, and now they’re using 9/11 to justify war against Iran in an effort to bolster Trump’s re-election.

Another case in which a war of words escalates into the real “fog of war”. Ask David Frum…*

*Bush speechwriter who authored the “Axis of Evil” speech that derailed Ambassador Ryan Crocker’s peace plan with Soleimani in 2002.

» Posted By Ray Cunneff On January 4, 2020 @ 10:05 am

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