Politician, Political Worker or Spy – An Account – Page 2

Unhinged

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The Book of the Week is “Unhinged, An Insider’s Account of the Trump White House” by Omarosa Manigault Newman, published in 2018.

Born in 1974 in Youngstown, Ohio, Omarosa grew up with hardships and deprivation, but with a large extended family. After she became a reality-show celebrity, a writer spied on her eulogizing at her brother’s funeral, and claimed to have exclusively interviewed her in a tabloid story. Omarosa sued because she never consented to an interview, and didn’t even know that a story would be written about her.

In November 2015, Donald Trump appeared as himself on Saturday Night Live, saying that when he was president, everything would be perfect. Of course. Once Trump won the election in November 2016, he lost his sense of humor, and all bets were off regarding his ability to laugh at himself.

Omarosa got caught up in Trump’s cult of personality. She failed to see his character flaws. She wrote of a cancelled March 2016 Chicago rally: “We blamed everything and everyone, except for Donald Trump. No one talked about what we could do to change him or his message. The divide in our nation was simply too big to bridge, even if the candidate wanted to (he didn’t). He relished the conflict.”

One of numerous reasons he won the 2016 election, however, was that he was generous to a handful of people in “protected groups” such as Omarosa, so he could claim he was non-discriminatory in his political practices. He showcased and bragged about this handful whenever possible, but he smeared those protected-groups as a whole, behind their backs.

In her one year working for president Trump, Omarosa was the intermediary communications officer between the U.S. government and organizations of people of color. Most of her time, however, was spent defending her boss and / or enabling him in his whitewashing of history. She did arrange a few meetings between him and the groups, but her biggest achievement was successfully reinstating Pell grants during the summer term (in addition to fall and spring terms) for financially-challenged students.

As have other Trump memoirists, Omarosa described a world in which the political, media and entertainment industries are so full of themselves and so self-absorbed, they think that whenever a big event is televised, the whole world is watching them and their commentary on themselves for at least a day. But the bulk of the idiot-box ratings and Web traffic are derived from their own viewership and workforces! It’s now a selfie-cycle, not a news cycle. But they do tease some viewers all the time on political goings-on. Fortunately, they can’t tease all viewers all the time.

Anyway, read the book to learn a boatload more about Omarosa’s employment experiences in the White House, outside it, and a bit about the rest of her life-history.

EPILOGUE

For now, here is what Trump is singing to his claques, flacks and sycophants in the legal arena.

YOU’RE SCARED OF ME

sung to the tune of “You’re Sixteen” with apologies to Ringo Starr.

You’re all part of my scheme,
my own legal team.
You’re nodding and winking in line.

You’re scared of me, you’re dutiful, and you’re mine.

You’re all making me king.
A wonderful thing.
Our enemies are in decline.

You’re scared of me, you’re dutiful, and you’re mine.

If you support me, we’re all set.
This is great. I’m glad we met.
I’ll pardon you.
I’m at the top.
Ooh, I’m so powerful, I cannot stop.

You’re fulfilling my dreams,
but now I need arms.
I’ve got the law on my side.

You’re scared of me, you’re dutiful, and you’re mine.

If you support me, we’re all set.
This is great. I’m glad we met.
I’ll pardon you.
I’m at the top.
Ooh, I’m so powerful, I cannot stop.

You’re fulfilling my dreams,
but now I need arms.
I’ve got the law on my side.
You’re scared of me, you’re dutiful, and you’re mine.

You’re scared of me, you’re dutiful, and you’re mine.

You’re scared of me, so dutiful, and you’re mine.

All mine, all mine, all mine…

Oath and Honor – EXTRA BONUS POST

The Extra Bonus Book of the Week is “Oath and Honor, A Memoir and a Warning” by Liz Cheney, published in 2023.

As is well known, in November and December 2020, Donald Trump filed sixty-one lawsuits contesting the 2020 presidential election. He lost sixty of those lawsuits, even those decided by judges he himself had appointed. In connection with his political career, he was charged with ninety-one felony counts. Even if a third of all of those felony counts were truly legitimate, that is still a huge amount of criminality, compared to that of other white-collar criminals.

Liz Cheney served as Republican Conference Chair. In late December 2020 (before January 6, 2021), she contacted all former U.S. Secretaries of Defense she possibly could, to ask them to warn Trump that the U.S military was not to be used to bully the nation into an election do-over.

As a member of the January 6 Committee, Cheney held meetings, generated memos and reports, and conducted interviews and attempted to get Americans to understand the vice-president’s role, and what is supposed to transpire in the certification process of votes in a presidential election.

On January 6, specific individuals were permitted to object to the vote counts of any states they chose. A few Republican puppets of Trump did. If the objections had succeeded, the votes of all Americans in those states wouldn’t have counted.

Shortly after January 6, Steve Scalise, a Republican and House minority whip remarked publicly that apparently, Trump could no longer lead the Republican Party. Nevertheless, three and half years later, sufficiently powerful Republicans are keeping Trump in power.

Read this eloquent book to learn about Cheney and the January 6 Committee, and the extreme amount of work, blood, sweat and tears involved in explaining to laypeople– how Trump’s actions on January 6– were so very damaging and dangerous for American democracy. This book was on par with the Pentagon Papers.

Endnote: Eric Trump wrote in a recent mailing to American voters, “Biden’s wealthy Leftist puppet masters plan on spending more than $3 BILLION to defeat my father and keep Biden in the White House for four more years so they can continue destroying America with their Marxist agenda.”

Since Trump has stolen and twisted Reagan quotes, it is only fair to ask one of Reagan’s originals: “Are you better off than you were four years ago?” Eight years ago? How about sixteen years ago, when there was a Republican president in office, a crashed economy and two Republican-led, treasury-draining, America-involved wars? If Biden is draining the Treasury, it’s so more bridges won’t collapse, and more law enforcement officers won’t be injured by more Trump-influenced violence.

Here’s a little ditty explaining the current situation.

A DANGEROUS, EVIL MAN

sung to the tune of “A Well Respected Man” (Official Audio) with apologies to the Kinks.

Well, Trump GOT up on Jan. 6.
And he encouraged a violent time.
And his cult of personality,
AIDed his election crimes.

His world is BUILT on amassing power.
It never fails.
‘Cause he’s oh so thuggish.
And he’s oh so coarse.
And he’s oh so wealthy
with GOP candidates to endorse.

He’s a dangerous, evil man
still around,
appealing to the LOWest GOP constituency.

And he holds his scheming meetings,
while his lawyers play his games.
And he stirs up crowds with hatred,
while trashing his enemies’ names.

And he influences courts
as well as bills
WHEN-ever he can.

‘Cause he’s oh so thuggish.
And he’s oh so coarse.
And he’s oh so wealthy
with GOP candidates to endorse.

He’s a dangerous, evil man
still around,
appealing to the LOWest GOP constituency.

And he boosts his own resorts.
And he embraces dictators the best.
‘Cause he’s more powerful than the rest.
But others’ money smells the best.

And he hopes to grab more of this nation’s-loot
when democracy passes on.

‘Cause he’s oh so thuggish.
And he’s oh so coarse.
And he’s oh so wealthy
with GOP candidates to endorse.

He’s a dangerous, evil man
still around,
appealing to the LOWest GOP constituency.

And he plays the RNC.
And he goes to Davos and CPACs.
He TRAINS the girls next door
to recruit more political hacks.

But billionaires know
best about, PRESidential stakes.

‘Cause he’s oh so thuggish.
And he’s oh so coarse.
And he’s oh so wealthy
with GOP candidates to endorse.

He’s a dangerous, evil man
still around,
appealing to the LOWest GOP constituency.

Outrageous Acts / The Fifth Risk

Since nonfiction books on discrimination and software are all political these days, here’s a double post, although admittedly, the connection between them is tenuous.

[One sidenote: Trump has recently stolen yet another Reaganism but put a new twist on it. Trump used the word “bloodbath.” Reagan said during the Vietnam-Era anti-war protests, “If it takes a bloodbath, let’s get it over with.”]

The first Book of the Week is “Outrageous Acts and Everyday Rebellions” by Gloria Steinem, published in 1983. This volume consisted of a compilation of the author’s columns on discrimination, politics and her personal life.

In a summer 1969 column, Steinem wrote of “Feminist Realization”– when American women became aware of how deeply political their position was. She volunteered to help with the presidential campaigns of Adlai Stevenson in 1952 and George McGovern in 1968, but because she was a female, their personnel cut her down. She refrained from working on important matters, lest people spread the rumor that she was sleeping with the candidate.

In October 1968, Nixon remarked, “Well, I had my staff count up all the issues I’ve made statements on, and it came to one hundred and sixty-seven issues. Of course, Hubert [Humphrey]’s been on both sides of every question, so he has twice as many.”

In 1972, in Steinem’s eyes, unlike Richard Nixon– McGovern inspired hope. Nixon therefore not only lacked charisma, but spurred emotional trouble and anger against McGovern.

Read the book to learn much more about the tenor of the times for Steinem and other American females, when the Women’s Movement began to really gather steam.

The second Book of the Week is “The Fifth Risk” by Michael Lewis, published 2018.

In this short volume, the author wrote about how software has been revolutionizing various areas of Americans’ lives by assessing risk. It used to be called “Big Data” but it’s now called AI. The author stuck to a few subjects in which analysts processed scads and scads of data that were public, for instance, to contain dangerous nuclear waste, make farming more efficient, and warn people about life-threatening weather conditions.

However, the government argues that all that number-crunching of personal data (by which Big Brother is violating the Fourth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution) is the cost of keeping Americans safe.

Anyway, at the time of the book’s writing, the author wrote that people in hazmat suits at the nine nuclear facilities (which closed in 1987) called Hanford in the state of Washington, were still continuing to clean up the substances that cause cancer, birth-defects and genetic-disorders: strontium 90, uranium, plutonium, chromium, tritium, cesium, carbon tetrachloride, and iodine 129, among others. These substances account for two-thirds of all the toxic waste contained in toxic-waste sties in the United States.

In 2017, a profit-seeking organization called AccuWeather was trying to get taxpayers to pay again to get their weather updates. They were already paying for public information provided by the government-owned National Weather Service. AccuWeather dispensed that public information to its own paying customers.

Read the book to learn more about how AI is doing great things in a few select areas.

Why We Did It

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Interesting Sidenote: FDR, Truman and Nixon switched vice-presidents when they began new presidential terms, for different reasons. George H.W. Bush was thought to have lost in his reelection bid partly because he failed to replace his first-term vice-president, Dan Quayle. This shows that American voters care about a presidential candidate’s running mate.

Many Americans thought vice-president Dick Cheney exerted more influence in leading the country than president George W. Bush did. Given the current concerns about the mental competence of the two main presidential candidates, the nation might be ready for another unduly influential vice-president.

The Book of the Week is “Why We Did It, A Travelogue From the Republican Road to Hell” by Tim Miller, published in 2022.

In this wordy and redundant volume, the author explained that in recent decades, style has become more important than substance in “The Game” of American politics. He named tens, and interviewed a few, of the Republican workers who fell under Donald Trump’s spell upon Trump’s election to the presidency. Those whose views and behavior have been consistently anti-Trump, can’t understand how such suck-ups can endure their own cognitive dissonance.

Bertrand Russell has aptly described the extreme insecurity of the above individuals– who lie to themselves: “There is something feeble and a little contemptible about a man who cannot face the perils of life without the help of comfortable myths. Almost inevitably some part of him is aware that they are myths and that he believes them only because they are comforting. But he dare not face this thought! Moreover, since he is aware, however dimly, that his opinions are not rational, he becomes furious when they are disputed.” Yet another way of putting it is “hubris syndrome.”

There have been a few extreme times in U.S. history in which an intimidating presence has made politically-invested Americans, sell out like this; the most prominent of which include:

The McCarthy Era forced government, media and other kinds of workers to take the Loyalty Oath. If Americans were accused of membership in the Communist party, expressing Communist views, or even associating with Communists, they were forced to name names of “fellow travelers” — or they wouldn’t have a career. If they weren’t accused, and in order not to get accused, they kept their heads down and their mouths shut. Opportunists went the opposite direction and acquired outrageous power through doing the accusing. [Please note: it appears the author has not acquired outrageous power by doing the accusing in this book, as there is ample evidence for his claims.]
Into the 1960’s, political candidates in states in the South were forced to join the KKK or they wouldn’t get elected to office. There, most blacks and whites kept their heads down and their mouths shut regarding racial issues.
Aiders and abetters– mostly government officials– of Nixon (just like with Trump, concocting numerous rationalizations for why they supported him) got caught up in his spiteful activities in order to harass his enemies; this included matters related to Vietnam.
Aiders and abetters– mostly government officials– of George W. Bush and Dick Cheney, behaved largely similarly to those of Nixon and Trump in concocting numerous rationalizations for why they supported them, but for some, their motive was greed as much as spite.

The author discussed the reasons the aforementioned Trump flip-floppers behave the way they do. “Republican politics was their identity, career and social circle all wrapped up in one.” They get attention, money, power and ego satisfaction in releasing their misdirected rage at their political enemies.

Influential political rhetoric hijacked their vulnerable brains when they were searching for their social identities; perhaps in their teenage or college years. Around that time, they learned to drink alcohol and might also have willfully engaged in severe sleep deprivation. Their judgment was compromised.

Besides, as Ben Hecht wrote, worshipers of an icon are hindered from becoming themselves. The ones who successfully attain celebrity status don’t know how to be themselves, because they have been acting the way the world wants them to, letting the world tell them who they are. Lastly, human nature is such that when one constantly receives calls, texts and emails, one feels important.

Read the book to learn the names of these claques, flacks and sycophants whose lack of self-awareness will eventually cause them to let slip an utterance they will regret, or have an emotional breakdown; and learn of their rationalizations and behaviors.

Bare Knuckles and Back Rooms

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The Book of the Week is “Bare Knuckles and Back Rooms, My Life in American Politics” by Ed Rollins with Tom DeFrank, published in 1996.

Rollins’ parting comment as the book went to press was this:

“Genuine campaign finance reform will only occur through a constitutional amendment eliminating PACs and prohibiting wealthy individuals to spend their own fortunes.”

Born in Boston in 1943, Rollins spent most of his childhood in Vallejo, California. As a young adult, he channeled his anger into amateur boxing. One of his coaches steered him away from going pro.

Rollins thus turned to working in politics. As a child, he had been unduly influenced by the military presence in Vallejo. His pro-war stance caused him to switch from the Democrat to the Republican party. At the last college he attended, Chico State (in California), when the Vietnam War was raging, he actively lobbied to establish a Reserve Officers’ Training Corps branch on campus. Later on in his life, he enjoyed lots of food, drinks and entertainment, compliments of other lobbyists.

In 1981, with Lyn Nofziger as his mentor, Rollins’ job was to get Ronald Reagan’s proposed laws passed and begin the work required to get him reelected president. In February 1981, the author was told to help hush up a sex scandal in connection with one female lobbyist and approximately twenty(!) anxious Republican House representatives. There was videotape evidence.

Rollins and his colleagues helped plant a featured article about Reagan in, and his photo on, the cover of Parade magazine in December 1983. Such propaganda was meant to dispel concerns about Reagan’s age. He was seen exercising and appeared healthy.

Rollins described the dirty-tricks he encountered during his attempt to get Christie Whitman elected against incumbent James Florio, as governor of New Jersey in 1993. In October, Florio’s people had an 18-wheel truck follow Whitman’s bus tour of the state. Pursuant to the Whitman team’s plan, at a toll plaza, a car got in front of the truck and broke down– allowing the bus to lose the spying truck. Rollins claimed that Florio’s side retaliated by pulling the fire alarm at the hotel where Rollins’ team was staying, for two weeks, every night at 4:30am.

On election night about 10pm, when the candidates were neck and neck at the polls– the win/loss margin was fewer than ten thousand votes– Rollins consulted with Whitman’s election law specialist who knew ballot security. They sent in their lawyers and marshals to the precincts in major cities to prevent any foul play.

Read the book to learn much, much more about Rollins’ activities in American politics of the past (pre-Internet), and a fund-raising practice which was arguably a form of voter-suppression, that resulted in a scandal (Hint: It was sparked by Rollins when he accidentally allowed his mouth to speak his subconscious thoughts; perhaps his conscience was bothering him).

On Both Sides of the Wall

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The Book of the Week is “On Both Sides of the Wall” by Vladka Meed, originally published in 1948. This book detailed the (Jewish) author’s and others’ wartime traumas of people inside and outside the Warsaw Ghetto (around which a wall was built by the German government) and the various groups who tried to minimize their death toll. The Jews were confined inside, and were required to wear white armbands (equivalent to yellow stars in other European locales). The Aryans outside were Polish people free to live their lives.

In July 1942, the Nazis began to deport the aforementioned Jews in vans that went to cattle cars that ended up at concentration camps. The local German authority, called the Judenrat, enlisted Jews– who became members of local law enforcement– to help them do so.

Bureaucratic rules dictated who got deported. Unemployed or sick Jews were the first to go to their deaths. The able-bodied were the last to be deported because they were needed for slave labor in munitions factories and workshops that made necessities (such as uniforms) for the war effort. Working Jews were issued employment cards. Of course, a black market sprung up in the cards, so the Nazis deemed the cards invalid in about a week.

Personal social ties with sympathetic non-Jews became priceless for Jews who went into hiding to escape deportation. Firstly, it was a death-defying feat to leave the ghetto; possibly by bribing guards at one of the wall’s transit-gates, or blending into a labor group leaving for work.

However, German officials inspected the identity papers of, and interrogated, every individual passing through. The officials arbitrarily engaged in beatings, atrocities and on-the-spot murders, or simply muggings or robberies (including of clothing!) of any Jew whose papers weren’t in order.

Further, there were Poles who walked the streets in groups looking for “Jews” (simply people whom they perceived to have Jewish facial features) to victimize and bully. And then there were Jews who joined the aforesaid local police force, who outed their fellow religionists so save their own skins.

The author was very fortunate that she had Aryan facial features. She took off her white armband and was able to get past the ghetto wall unharmed various times during the war years. But she constantly had to look for black-market housing and almost starved to death. Obviously, the fact that she lived to tell her story in this book spoke to her superior survival skills and great good luck. One way she significantly increased her chances of survival was that she joined the Resistance movement. Brilliant acting talent was the most crucial survival skill in that time and place.

In January 1943, a group of Jews finally (!) fought back against their deportations, via mostly hand-to-hand combat. The Jews by that time knew where the cattle cars were going. In April 1943, a Jewish group called the Fighting Organization and others began an offensive called the Warsaw Uprising. They fought against Germans, Ukrainians, Lithuanians and Poles who were gathered around the ghetto wall to carry out the last deportation roundup. At the time, the author happened to be among Aryans, outside the ghetto. But she possessed the experience to stay alive.

In August 1944, everyone in Warsaw— Poles, Jews, militias, etc.– cooperated in fighting against the Germans, in the Warsaw Rebellion. They were all sick of the years of oppression. Even so, the Poles committed evil acts against their fellow fighters who were Jews, and against the Jews forced out of hiding. The Germans ruthlessly destroyed Warsaw with weapons and arson, just to get back at their enemies.

Anyway, read the book to learn a lot more about the author’s trials and tribulations.

Moondrop to Gascony

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The Book of the Week is “Moondrop to Gascony” by Anne-Marie Walters, originally published in 1946.

The author was born around 1920 in England. Already fluent in French, in summer 1943, she received training in the Women’s Auxiliary Air Force in order to work for the French Resistance in southwestern France. She learned how to: decipher Morse code and ciphers, use firearms, pick locks, do parachute jumps, etc. Six months later, she, along with 22 men, jumped from a plane to go on their first mission. The ultimate goal of course, was to hinder the German war machine.

When the author’s unit left London, it was told it would get any resources it requested. That was a lie. Best laid plans usually went awry, as the group depended on supplies delivered via parachute to the French countryside. Problems arose with: the weather, plane shortages, or other Resistance cells in more dire need of food.

Everything had to be kept top secret, as German soldiers roamed around the railways and rural areas, demanding identity papers, harassing and shooting anyone perceived to be the enemy, on the spot. There were various times the author heard about the fates of her fellow cell members who had been tortured and then executed.

Certain peasant farmers collaborated with the Germans, and tattled on Resistance fighters. Some families allowed the fighters to sleep in the barn or shed or on their property, risking the wrath of the Nazis. One time, one such family agreed to help the Resistance but they chickened out. A family member failed to show up with lights to signal a parachuted-supplies drop, so the plane wasted a trip flying over the area and didn’t drop the sorely needed supplies.

In summer 1944, twelve hundred Germans killed every last one of eighty Resistance fighters. The former had some 13mm machine guns and mortars while the latter had a few Bren guns, and a cache full of ammunition which was hit by a mortar shell. About 4am, the few escapees, hiding in cornfields and vegetation, fought valiantly to the last man.

The Germans set fire to the fighters’ safe-houses in the region and used hand grenades to turn the burned-out structures to ashes. Six members of a peasant family who helped the enemy were also subjected to sadistic massacre and destruction of their home. All those war crimes took about four hours, after which, the Germans laughed about it.

In late summer 1944, the author was assigned to personally deliver a report to London. To get there, she crossed the Pyrenees on foot into Spain along with six other fighters. They were the lucky survivors who risked their lives amid deprivation and hardships. She wrote that they were gluttons for punishment because they formed intensely close bonds and took pride in sacrificing for their respective homelands.

Read the book to learn numerous other details of the anti-German underground’s adventures.

Counsel to the President

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“On the other hand, liberals felt it was intolerable to watch the First Amendment freedoms, the most precious ones bestowed upon us by the Founding Fathers, trampled by know-nothings masquerading as patriots.”

-Clark Clifford, writing of the (Joe) McCarthy Era

The Book of the Week is “Counsel to the President, A Memoir” by Clark Clifford with Richard Holbrooke, published in 1991. This volume was ginormous because the author wrote of the minutiae of interactions of the alpha males who ran the federal government from the 1940’s through the 1980’s.

Born in December 1906 in the St. Louis area, Clifford enjoyed a career in law and politics. In his generation, boys read the “Horatio Alger” book series, the rags-to-riches fairy tales of males who came by their success through hard work and ethical behavior. A bygone era.

In September 1948, Ronald Reagan endorsed Harry Truman for president. In those days, on the Sunday before election day on Tuesday, there was no campaigning. The candidates did not work, else American voters would complain it was the Christian Sabbath. Monday night, the candidates delivered their last radio addresses. On Tuesday, the author went to the home of a friend who had a television, to watch the election returns. Commentators displayed the returns on chalkboards. Battleground states in the 1948 race included Ohio, Michigan, Illinois and California.

In 1949, Truman introduced the Fair Deal initiative, which strove to honor Americans’ human rights, expand the economy and maintain world peace. Also, a Public Affairs department junior-staffer (who risked his career by not “staying in his lane”) pushed for Point Four, despite backlash from the State Department.

Influential speechwriters of the president inserted Point Four (which sought to aid poor nations through modernization) in his inaugural speech. Even so, because it was placed under the auspices of the State Department (which thought of itself as responsible for diplomacy, not charity), the foreign policy initiative went nowhere for more than a year. The speech included three other major themes: the United States’ involvement in the beginnings of the United Nations, Marshall Plan, and NATO.

Through an engaging anecdote, Clifford described the major role that social-drinking played in American society in the 1950’s. Baptist U.S. senator Bob Kerr (D.-OK.), a teetotaler, invited a group of political workers to a dinner party at his home. He duly warned them that he would not be serving alcohol.

A fellow Democrat, Stuart Symington, called all the guests privately, and invited them for pre-dinner drinks at his home. On the appointed evening, all of the guests arrived at the Kerrs’ home, drunk. A good time was still had by all. Clifford’s account strained credibility, however, as he claimed Kerr didn’t detect that his guests had been drinking.

Anyway, the McCarthy Era ended this way:

In 1953, U.S. senator Joe McCarthy (R.-WI) and his evil sidekick Roy Cohn were called out publicly for attempting to pull strings for Cohn’s draft-dodger friend, who had been drafted.
In retaliation, McCarthy used HUAC to brand a certain obscure Army member, a Commie. In March 1954, he pressed an Army general to provide more information on the accused. The general refused.
McCarthy was so incensed, he called for public hearings, to hash out his issues with the Army. Big error.
LBJ, Senate Minority Leader said the hearings should be televised, and so they were, beginning in April 1954. As is well known, McCarthy was called out for having no decency left.

Yet, upon getting elected to public office, LBJ never did divest himself of his significant interests in radio and TV stations in Austin, TX. Unlike profiteering with its attendant political conflicts of interest, one aspect of American culture that is changing significantly, is the increasing tolerance for people of different sexual orientations.

Johnson aide Walter Jenkins, a devout Catholic, was married and had six children. In October 1964, two undercover officers arrested Jenkins, whom they caught committing a homosexual act (which was illegal!) in the old YMCA building near the White House. The incident was leaked to the press. The Republican National Committee deemed Jenkins a threat to National Security. Jenkins was “cancelled.”

Moving on. When he ran for president in 1976, Jimmy Carter made a promise he could not possibly keep: to always be honest with Americans. He also implied that his administration would be benevolent and forthright. Of course, the voting public paid attention, because they wanted so badly to believe Carter was telling the truth– after the McCarthy Era, Vietnam and Watergate. The joke,

Q: What’s the difference between an honest politician and a UFO?

A: People have seen a UFO

is funny because it rings true.

The author then described a key way presidents can be perceived as effective (whether they’re honest is another story):

“They [a president] must summon the nation to share their vision and values, and by their priorities, symbolize their definition of what they want the nation to be.”

Read the book to learn about Clifford’s career, including how and why he flip-flopped on Vietnam in the second half of the 1960’s, and much more on the major historical events with which he and his political contemporaries had to contend.

Weed, Inc.

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The Book of the Week is “Weed, Inc., The Truth About THC, the Pot Lobby, and the Commercial Marijuana Industry” by Ben Cort, published in 2017.

In this short volume, the author cleared up many misconceptions about marijuana. He defined “marijuana” (aka “weed”) as the whole plant. The mind-altering substance in marijuana is abbreviated THC. The medicinal substance in marijuana is abbreviated CBD.

In November 2012, the state government of Colorado passed Amendment 64, allowing an “anything goes” mentality in connection with marijuana. In America, it was time for another round of: too many greedy, power-hungry stakeholders (Goliaths who win the battle– profiteers in the form of lobbyists, THC sellers and politicians), and too few informed, politically active people (Davids– who see through the propaganda). The author provided suggestions on how to regulate Colorado’s THC industry. But at the book’s writing in 2017, it was too late, and he was way too idealistic.

The Goliaths reassure the masses that the new laws are gonna be great (via oversimplified, evidence-free, misleading, political talking-points)– bring in lots of revenue to the state, and expand everyone’s freedoms! The author listed examples of the Goliaths’ utterances and counter-arguments, respectively (this is not a comprehensive list):

“It’s just a plant.” but poppies are just a plant– which serve as the raw material for opium and heroin.
“It’s safer than alcohol.” but “safer” is a misused, overused word in rationalizations justifying all kinds of dangerous situations: drugs, the financial markets, transportation, etc. The correct description should be “less risky.”
“Traffic fatalities in Colorado are down.” There is no bright-line blood-THC measurement-amount that is illegal for the few drivers who are tested for THC. It’s a cumbersome process to do testing in the first place. It’s a whole bureaucratic production in which a drug recognition expert must be called to the scene to rule whether to do the blood test.
“Look at all the tax dollars!” For 2015, the total taxes collected on THC activities was one half of one percent of Colorado’s total budget.

Frequently, the sound bites on medical topics in the media are gross distortions (aka propaganda) of a situation, because they omit inconvenient facts. In one situation (one data point in the statistics) in the 2010’s, a young child had significantly fewer seizures when she ingested a CBD solution in oil. A medical doctor went on a major cable network and disseminated the misleading message that “Weed cures seizures. Hurray!” No mention of side effects or possible long-term harm or costs or whether the doctor was paid to say what he was saying, or of any details.

Predictably, in Colorado, weed shops, or dispensaries (that sell extremely-concentrated THC-containing baked goods, candy and sweet beverages) sprung up in poor neighborhoods.

As is well known, matters came to a head on crack-cocaine in the 1990’s, meth in the single-digit 2000’s, and opioids in the 2010’s. Unsurprisingly– to people in-the-know: THC is the newest drug craze which– when the harm in connection therewith reaches critical mass– will result in lawsuits and bad publicity for the industry; it will end up just like the “opioid crisis.” The harm includes not only addicts galore, but also– due to the all-cash nature of the industry in Colorado specifically– robberies and other street crimes, money laundering and other financial crimes.

Read the book to learn much more hard data on THC, the author’s suggestions for sane regulation of marijuana and THC, the nature of marijuana laws that certain states have already passed, his personal experience with addiction and why it is so hard to kick an addiction (hint: “… and he was surrounded by stores, advertisements, the culture of gratification and abuse, and the sheer smell of it [weed].”).

Stella

[Please note: The word “Featured” on the left side above was NOT inserted by this blogger, but apparently was inserted by WordPress, and it cannot be removed. NO post in this blog is sponsored.]

The Book of the Week is “Stella, One Woman’s True Tale of Evil, Betrayal, and Survival in Hitler’s Germany” by Peter Wyde, published in 1992.

Stella Goldschlag was born in the early 1930’s. She grew up in the wealthy, arrogant, snobbish, German Jewish social set. That set owned the major department stores and garment makers in Berlin, published the major newspapers, and dominated the theater-critic scene. Stella’s father supervised the making of globally distributed newsreels in the Berlin office of the Paris-based Gaumont; until it didn’t, when the Nazis took it over in the second half of the 1930’s.

In autumn 1935, new restrictions on the Jews meant Stella was forced to attend a high school for Jews only. The book’s author was in her class. The school was run by a Jewish teacher whose aspiration was to prepare the students to study abroad. She taught them the English language.

A set of untoward circumstances converged in bringing about the Holocaust. The nation of Germany was experiencing economic devastation from the Great Depression and from the crushing debt load of the reparations it was supposed to pay for its activities stemming from WWI. Its traditionally jingoistic people were stung and angry from losing that war. Germany’s lack of strong leadership at the top allowed a genocidal maniac bent on world domination, to come to power.

Amid the economic, political and social chaos, the number of bitter and ostracized German males coming of age from dysfunctional households, reached critical mass. Those males were easily brainwashed into believing they could enjoy a “glorious career in the service of the master race.” Or, as the 1960’s “Chicago Seven” member Jerry Rubin commented, a Nazi was a “love-starved, father-seeking fairy who had to compensate for hurried toilet training.”

The Nazis employed social contagion techniques to scapegoat the Jews– a minority ethnic group that had a history of allowing themselves to be oppressed and victimized. Other groups who were perceived as having weak genes, were also targeted for torture and elimination. In that time and place, most Germans caved in to the societal pressure, fear and force.

As is well known, as time went on, Hitler ranted and raved on the radio, placing more and more extreme punishments on the Jews. Initially, the Jewish veterans of WWI who had risked their lives for the Kaiser’s Army were left alone, but eventually, even they were spat upon and killed.

One technique the Nazis used in pursuing their goal of eliminating the Jews, was to divide and conquer– sow hostility among them. After the Anschluss began in March 1938, Adolf Eichmann recruited Jewish medical doctor Richard Lowenherz to exhaustively plan the logistics of how the Jews were to be persecuted and deported to concentration camps. In places other than Vienna, Nazis drafted Jewish rebellious youths (who expected to escape their oppressors’ abuses) to help control their fellow religionists. Those who sold out were deported anyway, but perhaps a little later on.

In Geneva, Switzerland in mid-July 1938, a conference similar to that of Davos (the annual economic forum in Switzerland, where the super-wealthy of the world go to see and be seen) took place. But instead of discussing getting richer, the representatives from industrialized nations paid lip service to tens of Jewish organizations imploring that their hosts take in Jewish refugees from Germany.

This Evian Conference was about economics, though. Everyone was still suffering the effects of the Great Depression, so they couldn’t afford to take in refugees. In their defense, at that time, they weren’t privy to Hitler’s true plans to loot the Jews of their wealth, commit atrocities and genocide, and take over the world. Most people still naively saw him as a clown.

In the early 1940’s, Stella’s family was told by the American consulate in Germany that they might get a visa to the United States two years hence (even though they had an American relative who was selflessly spending a vast amount of time and effort to help them), as more than fifty thousand refugees were ahead of them in line. “The racket in fake promises kept growing. More and more frustrated travelers forked over more and more cash for nonexistent documents whose sellers then disappeared.”

The author (who obviously lived to tell his and Stella’s stories) wrote that he learned English by reading the New York Times, which cost three cents per day. In the U.S. Army stationed at Fort Dix in New Jersey, he was assigned to a propaganda-distribution unit consisting of mostly Jewish refugees. In 1942, he and his cohorts weren’t aware of the scale of the Nazis’ war crimes. In late 1942, even when the BBC told the world about the gas chambers, they didn’t want to believe it.

Read the book to learn all the details of how Stella became a tattletale against her fellow Jews (Hint: she was a brilliant actress– a drama queen, who could turn her charm or hostility on and off at will), what became of her, and biographical info on the huge cast of characters with whom the author and she came into contact.