Power Ploy

   As violence continues across America, the president said he will designate Antifa "a terrorist organization," despite lacking any legal authority to do so.  It was the latest in a series of vocal power ploys he has used to solidify his right-wing support base.
   The name Antifa is a contraction of the term "anti-fascist," and is used to describe any of several groups engaged in political -- sometimes violent -- activities. Antifa has been defined as "a protest movement that strongly opposes neo-Nazis, fascism, white supremacists and racism," according to a BBC web posting. Its members often oppose many policies that the president has enacted.
   The president blamed the protests on "radical-left anarchists," and accused the news media of "doing everything in their power to foment hatred and anarchy."
   Before the president used the term to fix blame, there have been no reports of involvement by Antifa related groups.
   And on a TV interview, the mayor of Atlanta said the president's tweets are making things worse, and "he should just stop talking."
   Meanwhile, organizers of groups protesting police mistreatment of minorities maintain that their activities have been peaceful, but have been disrupted by others deliberately causing violence.
   As journalists document the disturbances, there have been several instances of police arresting or shooting rubber bullets or tear gas at television news crews, some as the cameras continue to roll, so the nation watches as it happens. Normally, police warn demonstrators before taking such action, but as reported by Ali Velshi of NBC, there was no advance warning, and police were some 200 yards away when they fired tear gas and rubber bullets against the people.
   Separately, the president took credit for the successful launch of astronauts to join the space station. Before he took office, he said in speech, "There was grass growing through the cracks" of NASA's launch areas. "With this launch," he added, "the decades of lost years and little action are officially over."
   The vice president added that the launch was "the culmination of three and a half years of renewed leadership in space."
   But the project of sending astronauts into space on a commercial vehicle began more than ten years ago, long before the current president took office.
   As the resident cynic Pug Mahoney often says of political leaders, "If it's good, they claim credit. If not, they blame their predecessor."

Warning

"When the looting starts, the shooting starts."
"It was spoken as a fact, not as a statement."

   The president made the first comment in reference to the civil unrest in American cities after the death of a man under a police officer's knee. The second was made in an attempt to play down the widespread negative reaction to the first, and after Twitter flagged the first as "glorifying violence."
   The president later denied knowing the history of the first quote. It was used by several Deep South segregationist state officials in the 1960s as a warning to civil rights demonstrators. The warning phrase was used by Miami police chief Walter Headley, who reportedly borrowed it from Eugene (Bull) Connor, public safety commissioner in Birmingham, Alabama. The phrase was also used by presidential candidate George Wallace in 1968.
   The president's defense doesn't hold up, and for two reasons: He has claimed often in the past of having the world's greatest memory, and the second comment makes no sense. When is a fact not a statement? And when is something that is spoken not a statement? Unless he meant to say it was an opinion, in which case he should have said so.
   American voters expect their elected leader to have good communication skills. This one does not.

Editor's Revenge

Big Brother is ungood.

Donald Trump is a liar

   Both phrases would be deleted from social media postings under guidelines in the executive order signed by the president.
  In it, he said "a small handful of social media monopolies controls a vast portion of all public and private communications in the United States."
   Note the mismatch of subject-verb agreement.
   He said the companies "have unchecked power to censor, restrict, edit, shape, hide, alter, virtually any form of communication between private citizens and large public audiences."
   Reality: If in fact they have such power, they don't use it. If they did, his flood of lies and misinformation would have been blocked long ago.
   Fact: Twitter, Facebook and Google, the largest of the social media firms, call themselves "platforms" for public communication. They do not claim to be publishers, which would make them liable for libel or slander perpetrated on their web sites.
   Therefore, the liability for such remarks would be on the perpetrator, and that would include the president of the United States, who is not above the law, according to a Supreme Court ruling made decades ago.
   Also, if he wants totally unrestricted comments to be posted on social media platforms, that would apply to anyone and everyone who wants to say things about him. Any system that blocks disparaging remarks about the nation's leader would reflect the dictatorial system described in the book "1984," by George Orwell.
   Meanwhile, Twitter has hidden the president's Tweet about recent disturbances in Minneapolis, saying it glorifies violence. This is the third time in two days that the company has flagged his postings as inappropriate. The first two ran the postings, but inserted a short item referring readers to fact checking on other sites. That was what prompted the presidential rant about free speech.
   But speech in America is not totally free. There are laws against libel and slander.

Priorities

-- One thousand people die each day from the corona virus.
-- The total number of American deaths crossed 100,000 in just four months.
-- The U.S. economy fell by 5 percent in the first quarter of this year.
-- The nation now has a double-digit unemployment rate, which may soon hit 20 percent.
-- Millions of Americans are unemployed.
-- Major companies are going bankrupt.
-- Local retailers are closing permanently because of the virus-induced shutdown.
-- The nation is likely to suffer its worst economic decline since the Great Depression of the 1930s.

   Meanwhile, the president plays golf.
   In his spare time, when not playing golf, he accuses a critic of murder and mocks an opponent as unmanly for wearing a facial covering during the current plague.
   He threatens to shut down Twitter for daring to point out factual errors in his diatribes.

   Priorities.

Chief Twit

He's got a big mouth, but I have a pencil. -- Pug Mahoney, editor

   The Twitter in Chief has been flagged. For years, the president has been posting misleading information, innuendos and flat-out lies on his Twitter feed, but unlike many other users, his falsehoods have not been interrupted, even as the company has done just that when other people posted defamatory comments, obscenities and lies.
  Now, however, after many months of spouting on Twitter about anyone who disagrees with him on anything at any level, the president has a warning notice on one of his postings, urging readers to check the facts.
 Others faced nearly instant deletion of comments that were in any way false or obscene.  The president's daily tirades, however, continued to take up e-space, and his supporters complained at great length about free speech violations when the company attached a fact check notice to a posting that alleged TV host Joe Scarborough may have been responsible for the death of one of his aides.
   In addition, the president threatened to shut down Twitter if they edited or removed any of his postings.
   How he might do that is an open question. He has no legal authority to close a company just for doing something he doesn't like. Moreover, it would cancel his own ability to mount a platform and exercise his First Amendment right to free speech.
   Even so, while that right applies to all, it is not unlimited. There are laws against libel and slander, and the president himself has threatened libel suits against others who printed things he didn't like.
   For the record, the death of Scarborough's aide happened many years ago, and was officially ruled an accident. The widowed husband wrote to Twitter asking that the president's posting be removed.
   Meanwhile, the American free press continues to collect and print the president's lies and empty threats, along with details on how and why he's wrong.

Semantics

Cover your mouth when you cough.

   Dominating the news cycle over the weekend was the president's comment that unless states withdraw the guidance that houses of worship stay closed because of the corona virus, "I will override the governors."
   But does that mean he will grant permission for them to reopen or that he will order them to reopen? Or that he will order governors to cancel their guidelines?
   Scholars point out that he has no authority to do any of the above. That, however, assumes the meaning inherent in "overrule." They pointed to three passages in the Constitution -- Article VI as well as the First and the Tenth Amendment -- which stipulate that the federal government cannot intervene in religious matters, and that any powers now specifically given to the federal government remain with the states.
   As for whether he can "override" the states, that can refer to influence over popular opinion, not legal authority.
   Moreover, it can be argued that leaders of churches, synagogues and mosques do not answer to a political leader in religious matters. Nor can it be argued that political leaders answer to a religious leader when it comes to civil issues. That issue was first settled in the time of King Henry VIII, and later put in writing when Americans wrote the Constitution.
   Nonetheless, the issue still arises occasionally. For example, when John F. Kennedy ran for president, many argued that he would take orders from the Pope, and not do what was appropriate for all Americans regardless of religious affiliation.
   This week, Americans face a choice of following the advice of health experts and avoiding close contact with others because of the danger of viral infection, or resuming a practice that is proven to be dangerous to their health, in the name of individual freedom and civil rights.
   Parents have long warned their children, "Cover your mouth when you cough," so they don't pass their cold or flu to others. This is no different.
   Your civil rights end where my nose begins.

Rude Questions

Never assume -- Pug Mahoney

   Journalism's duty is to report what government officials say and do. Part of the oath that politicians take when they assume office is to protect and serve the people. Members of the public assume that elected officials will do their best to live up to that oath and not use their positions to benefit themselves at public expense.
   Sadly, that is too often a heroic assumption, and things don't always work out that way, so when government officials say and do things that harm others and enrich themselves, journalists step in.
   In order to do their job, journalists must ask questions. Pointed questions. Questions designed to elicit answers that are relevant to the issue at hand. It's not being rude. It's doing the job.
   But rather than answer a question, no matter how straightforward and courteously it is presented, government officials instead attack the questioner, calling him or her "rude," or "nasty," or other terms in the lexicon of abuse, displaying an attitude that says, "How dare you ask me that question. Anyone who asks me a question that I don't like is a mean, horrible, nasty person."
   Implicit in that attitude is the idea that journalists should be team players, and report only things that support and praise whatever the politician says or does in an particular situation.

   Get over it, big guy. Reporters ask questions because they need to be asked, based on the classic Five Ws of journalism -- Who, What, Where, When and Why.
   Government officials can easily answer the first four, but sometimes the most difficult to deal with is the final W -- Why.
   To attack the questioner when you don't have an answer does not make the question go away. Instead, abusive behavior displays insecurity. Too often, insecure people overcompensate for their lack of knowledge or ability by being overly aggressive, sometimes to the point of being obnoxious.
   Moreover, obnoxious behavior toward journalists is pointless. Most have heard all those insults before, and learned early in their careers to ignore them. Abusive behavior toward the news media may work well on television when speaking to a crowd of supporters, but that has no effect on how reporters will write the story and how producers will select the footage for broadcast.
   They will, of course, be straightforward in their presentation of the story. But they will also cover both sides, and include reaction from the political opposition.
   Professional journalists are not propagandists for political leaders or candidates. If that ever comes to be, the American democratic republic will be in deep trouble.

Economic Wreck

   To say that the national economy is heading for a crash is perhaps an understatement.
   A projection from the Congressional Budget Office puts the decline at minus 3.5 percent for the first three months of this year and estimates the second quarter drop to be a negative 38.7 percent. By definition, two consecutive quarters of negative growth in GDP (gross domestic product) equals an economic recession. And depending on the harshness of the drop, a downturn is called a Great Recession, as happened some 12 years ago, or the Great Depression, which describes the catastrophe of the early 1930s.
   The question now becomes whether the nation and the world is stumbling into an economic pit to match or exceed either of those two 20th Century disasters.
   Even the chairman of the Federal Reserve Board has testified before Congress that the downturn could well last through the rest of this year. This conflicts with the CBO projection for a sharp recovery of some 22 percent in the third quarter and another 10 percent as the year ends, with substantial recovery continuing throughout next year.
   Will it happen? And what will the consequences be to politicians running for office this year?
   In the past, the party in office during an economic downturn typically is turned out and replaced by those promising a return to prosperity. And during the campaign, they blame the incumbents for failing to prevent the crash or refusing to do enough to alleviate the problem and help the economy recover.
   This year, however, is different. The downturn is largely because of a national shutdown to combat the effects of the corona virus plague. Nonetheless, the incumbent party leaders -- this year, the Republicans -- blame the political opposition -- Democrats -- for all the woes afflicting America in an effort to distract attention from their own failures.
   Will they succeed? That will depend on the gullibility of American voters.

Cascade

You're all fired.

   Add a fourth inspector general to the list of senior officials fired by the president in just two months, whose sin seems to have been leading an investigation into allegations of presidential improprieties.
   Meanwhile, the national death toll from the corona virus went above 90,000, but the president focuses instead on anyone who questions his actions and motives, even to alleging, without specifics or evidence, that his predecessor Barack Obama committed some sort of crime.
   Also, the president still refuses to wear a face covering and he volunteered the information that he is taking the pill hydroxychloroquine as a preventative against the corona virus. He has touted the drug for weeks as a "potential game changer," even as the government's Food and Drug Administration warned that the anti-malaria medication has not been proven to work against covid-19, and may cause "serious health problems."
   Perhaps he will issue an executive order exempting himself from any viral infection, and will fire the FDA director for contradicting him on health issues.
   And despite his continuing attacks on the news media, independent outlets continue to publicize presidential comments and actions, especially those that conflict with truth.
   For example, here's a comment from the Los Angeles Times web site:
   "Experts have struggled to think of a historical parallel where a U.S. president has turned the world’s most powerful and influential office into a megaphone for wholesale fabrications and bizarre claims in an effort to confuse voters and salvage his own political future."

"Grossly Incompetent"

   This weekend, the president accused his predecessor of being "grossly incompetent," but walked away from the microphone without providing evidence or background to the remark.
   Earlier, he coined the term "Obamagate" to imply that the former president was guilty of criminal activity, but when asked for details, he responded, "You know what they are," and left.
   Historical background: The most recent economic downturn, known as the Great Recession, began during the administration of President George W. Bush, a Republican. The crisis was inherited by Democrat Barack Obama, who led the country out of the crisis and back to prosperity, balanced the federal budget and posted a surplus for several of his final years in office.
   So much for an allegation of incompetence.
   Since Donald Trump took office in January 2017, the surplus he inherited evaporated and the federal budget plummeted into historically high deficits.
   As for allegations of criminal activity by Obama, there is only the current president's word that such activity exists, since he refuses to provide details. Meanwhile, allegations of his own criminal activity are numerous, and refer to things that occurred both before and during his term in office. Moreover, he refuses to divulge personal financial information, and has fought all the way to the Supreme Court investigations into his business dealings before he took office, claiming that as president he is immune from prosecution, even for things that allegedly happened before he took office.
   SCOTUS heard some of the charges last week, and is expected to release its decision soon, certainly before Election Day in November.
   So much for allegations of criminal activity.
   In any other situation, such talk would be clear grounds for a libel suit. Politicians, however, must put up with such talk as the price they pay for being in the public eye. Nonetheless, Trump has warned news media and others several times that if they say negative things about him they will face a libel suit.
   So far, that has been just talk. The news media's response has been, in effect, bring it on. We'll see you in court and we'll read you the First Amendment to the Constitution.
   But until then, perhaps it would be useful if Trump finally got around to reading the document that he pledged to defend.

Ignorance vs Stupid

"Where ignorance is bliss,
'Tis folly to be wise." -- Thomas Gray, 1768

Some politicians behave as if  people are just as intelligent as they are. That can be a major problem. -- Pug Mahoney.

   There's a difference between ignorance and stupidity, and it can be a puzzlement whether some political leaders and their aides are both.
   Example: Jared Kushner was asked by a Time magazine interviewer whether the November election could be postponed because of the corona pandemic. His reply: "I'm not sure, ... but right now that's the plan."
   He later retracted.
   So whether his comment was plain ignorance of the 1845 federal law fixing the date, which high schoolers learn is the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November, or he was deliberately planting a seed of thought to justify stalling the election, is immaterial. Either one is wrong. The danger in the second part is that it follows a pattern set by the president when he talks about his 12 years in office. That, too, is unconstitutional, and when later challenged, the president claimed to be joking.
   But there is no joking about a presidential election date. And even if the Trumpistas do persuade Congress to change the date for the election, the president's term in office ends January 20, and if he is not re-elected, he would have to leave.
   Unless the plan is to suspend the Constitution, delay the election, and extend (indefinitely?) his term in office.
   Meanwhile, the GOP is also trying to prevent postal voting, alleging that it leads to widespread voter fraud. That's a variation of the claim four years ago that millions of illegal immigrants overwhelmed the polls, and if all those illegal votes were taken out, the president would have won the popular vote.
   As it is, he lost, but took up residence in the White House because of a victory in the Electoral College.
   Add this to the questionable legality of many of the current president's other activities, and you have a seriously negative forecast for American democracy.
   Ignorance itself is simply not knowing, and in many instances that's not a danger. However, at the highest levels of government, ignorance can be a hazard to a nation's political health.
   Stupidity is knowing the potential danger of saying or doing something, but saying and doing it anyway.
   So which of the two, if not both, apply to the current occupants of the Oval Office?
   American voters will decide that in November, assuming Election Day is not suspended or cancelled and terms in office are not extended indefinitely.

Staggering

   America is staggering as the number of deaths from the corona virus hits 77,000 and the number of infections goes above 1.3 million. At the same time, the unemployment rate soared to 14.7 percent and 20.5 million people lost their jobs in April.
   Airlines are seeing a near total drop in passengers, and major retailer Neiman Marcus has gone bankrupt.
   All this as several states move to reopen despite warnings from health experts that any slowing of the death curve will be cancelled because of it.
   For many workers, however, the choice comes down to this: With their income slashed, they must choose between buying food or paying the rent. Therefore, they go back to work and hope the virus does not strike their families.
   The president said in a TV interview that those jobs "will all be back, and very soon." Economists, however, warned that more than 40 percent of those jobs might be permanently lost.

Above the Law

Arrogance plus ignorance equals stupidity. -- Pug Mahoney

   "I can do whatever I want," says the president.
   Does this mean he is above the law? Two examples in history come to mind, one in America and one in Germany.
   In 1832, President Andrew Jackson ignored a Supreme Court ruling and carried out his plan to remove the Cherokee and members of other tribes from their home in the Carolinas to Oklahoma -- an episode that became known as "The Trail of Tears."
   One hundred years later, in Germany in 1932, the Hitler regime suspended constitutional guarantees of a free press and other rights after a fire at the Reichstag building, and jailed people suspected of being members of an opposition political party.
   Two other similarities come to mind. One was widespread popular support, regardless of legal and constitutional guarantees. A second was government violation of human rights. The Trail of Tears and the Holocaust both had widespread popular support.
   In America today, there is widespread support for the jailing of refugees, a ban on immigrants of a certain religious tradition, and a refusal by a political leader to comply with the law and Congressional subpoenas.
   So far, however, we still have a free press in America, and news media regularly report details of government violations of legal, moral and constitutional rights, as well as the president's refusal to comply with law.
   Journalists will continue to do so, despite the president's virulent and sometimes obscene assaults on what he calls "fake media," as well as anyone who disagrees with him in any detail on anything he may say or do, even when what he says is proven false by reruns of his own earlier comments as well as neutral, objective fact.
   At the same time, there is substantial pressure on traditional news media and on individual journalists to comply with presidential policies, wishes and desires. In addition to the dismissal and resignation under pressure of diplomats and senior government officials who refuse to toe the presidential obedience line, White House tentacles reach out to the news media in attempts to force removal of journalists who report realities that contradict what the White House insists is "true."
   The most flagrant example is the resignation of Shepard Smith, chief news anchor at Fox News, who left rather than slant his coverage to be favorable to the administration.
   It is true that other major cable news operations have commentators during their prime time evening hours, and they have been critical of the president, just as Fox network commentators praise him.
  It is their right to do so.
  Only at Fox has there been pressure to force news anchors to slant their coverage toward favorability, and not to ask probing or critical questions.
   Will things change? One can only hope, and expect that news operations continue to speak truth to power.
   The First Amendment depends on it.