Juan Cole, professor at the University of Michigan, explains the underlying theme of Trump’s inaugural speech. It echoes the use of language used by German leaders in the 1930s.
What a great example of close reading, combined with deep historical knowledge. Cole pins down what others sensed.
When Trump spoke of returning power back to “the people,” Cole writes, it means “Das Volk.”
He writes:
“You may be confused, as an English speaker. Trump, a billionaire real estate developer and serial grifter who founded a phony university that defrauded thousands, has appointed a cabinet of billionaires and multi-millionaires, the wealthiest and most elite cabinet in American history, which even includes the CEO of petroleum giant Exxon-Mobil.
“How, you might ask, can he represent this coup by the super-rich as ‘giving’ power ‘back to’ ‘the people’? The people wouldn’t even be allowed on the grounds of the gated communities where Trump’s officials live.
“The confusion arises from thinking in English instead of 1930s German. “Das Volk” or the people was a mystical conception for the German far right. It comprised the German people as an organic whole, uniting great landlord and lowly peasant. The great German corporations, too, were said to be expressions of “the people” (Hence the German automobile company Volkswagen, now led by perfectly nice people but not so much in the 1930s). The phrase comes into focus if you understand “the people” as “white Protestants and some lately admitted ethnic Catholics” who are united across social class (though of course led by their billionaire betters), and who stand in contrast to the cosmopolitans, the mixed-race people, infiltrating minorities, the socialists and others bent on diluting “the people” and subverting its prosperity and power by kowtowing to foreigners.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Concerning the professors remarks. As a graduate of the University of Michigan I feel EXTREMELY proud to be among the many graduates of that great institution. .
MANY have made the comparison of Trump to dictators, something well worth noting.
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Please join the over 100,000 people that have already signed this:
https://www.ImpeachDonaldTrumpNow.org/
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And to think that I wrote the same in march 2016
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Your constant self aggrandizement does remind me of the Drumph.
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Reaganesque BS … pseudo-populist pandering to the little guy all the while ripping him off under the table.
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another paragraph from the Juan Cole article: “Likewise, US education is not the vast wasteland Trump depicts. The US ranks in the middle of industrialized countries on math and reading. But much of the shortfall is because of the lack of funding for schools in poor districts (since local schools are funded by local taxes, the school system reflects America’s vast class and racial inequalities). Trump’s idea of fixing these schools is not to pump Federal money into the poorer districts to even the playing field but to privatize the school system so that the poor can’t even afford schooling at all. That is the kind of thing Betsy DeVoss, who wants to use the government to indoctrinate children into extremist forms of Christianity, promotes.
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Trump NEEDS to BASH anything he can, except himself. He’s pathetic. He is anti-knowlege and anti-human. He’s a BAD person.
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Cole’s critique (I attributed it to Cornell West in an earlier post) is exceptionally good (probably because his analysis aligns with what I have posted before about fascism, you know, the great minds thing). I’ve been struggling with how to translate the terms “das Volk” (V in German is pronounced like an F in English, W like a V) and “völkisch” to embody what they meant in the first half of the 20th century. It’s one of those great German word that seems simple but is loaded with many, many meanings and tangents. Cole comes very close to explaining it here.
On another trivial, perhaps not so trivial, note: the official Nazi newspaper was called the Völkischer Beobachter; beobachter means “observer” but it also implied “being observed” for the population. It not only reported official Nazi ideas, it explained to people what was expected of them to be part of “das Volk.” The people, as used in the inaugural speech, and “das Volk” incorporates, as Cole pointed out, mystical and quasi-religious connotations. Individualism in all political, social, and cultural aspects is subordinated to the Will of the People (capitalization intentional). I recently reread an anthology of documents from Nazi Germany, which included a number of excerpts from the Völkischer Beobachter. Some examples:
(December 21, 1933): “Whereas heretofore Catholic religious instruction began and ended with the alternate admonitions ‘Blessed be Jesus Christ’—‘In Eternity Amen’, it is ordered that the German greeting [Heil Hitler] should now be used before the beginning of instruction and after each alternate admonition.”
(October 13, 1935): “As of today, niggerjazz will be prohibited from being broadcast.”
(January 6, 1937) “The Racial Political Agency [Rassenpolitische Amt]…supports the demand for families to produce at least four children to at least maintain the current population.”
These were all essential to Gleichschaltung, the alignment of political and social institutions to official party policy and propaganda. Yesterday’s weird press conference with Baghdad Sean is related to this. Anything that veers from the reality they want to create is to be immediately refuted and quashed. It is Orwellian language made in to an official objective truth and policy.
It should be noted that the linkage to Donald’s use of “the people” to “das Volk” incorporates the slogans “We want our country back” and “Make America great again.” These are backward looking notions that idealize a past that never existed and incorporate a central tenet of fascism, prejudice as a core, guiding social and political principle. The (not so) subtle undertone is racist, implying that things were better when the social order prioritized white privilege.
We need to educate our neighbors about these linkages. They are not trivial nor are they obvious.
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GregB,
Your comment is a foreign language teacher’s dream (at least THIS foreign language teacher!). It shows the importance of not just knowing a foreign language (and all it can bring you in terms of communicating and knowing one’s own language and grammar) but how language is inseparable from culture, politics, philosophy, history, and literature. Unfortunately, our society doesn’t take language learning seriously. Most schools start teaching FL in middle school and by then it’s already too late. If we could start learning languages from pre-K, we could teach students about the importance of language in these fields. If only…..
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Thank you, Mamie. German was my first language, although I now speak it with a slight American accent. I’m a horrible translator because when I read or speak German, I think in German, and, at all other times, I think in English. My greatest regret in life is that I haven’t learned how to speak other languages. I was a lazy student. Couldn’t agree with you more that we should be teaching our children more languages. When I worked in Europe, I was alway amazed at the English proficiency in the Netherlands and Scandinavia. For every language I encountered, I would usually begin with “Do you speak English or, in some places, do you speak German?” Usually the answer was yes or no. In the Netherlands (and northern Belgium), the answer was always, “Of course!” Loved that. Kept asking because it was so much fun.
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Thanks Greg for this lesson in German language epistemology..
When interviewed by Chuck Todd this AM on Meet the Press, KellyAnne Conway was the prime example of how language can twist the facts. As always, she manipulated away from the direct question only to repeat her assigned points, never answering the simple and exact question.
Todd tried to pin her to the wall on why Trump’s new ‘Secret Sharer’ Sean ‘the public mouthpiece’ would use his first press encounter to lay down the Trumpian law about the media to reinforce their premise that the media always LIES and can never be TRUSTED. Once the populace distrusts a free media, there is free reign for those who intend to obfuscate and distort reality, to proceed…as with Trump’s tweets and proclamations. Heil Donald!!!
Conway seems to fill the Himmler role, while Bannon replicates Goerring, but the message is interchangeable. And yes, the intricate Germanic influence becomes ever more obvious..as with America First and with “das Volk”….it is approaching text book to observe how closely Trump is following Mein Kamp.
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Ellen, haven’t watched MTP in years, just couldn’t take Russert, Gregory and now, Todd. But I read about “alternative facts.” As Zorba would say, Oy! If I were a mad scientist, I’d resurrect Mencken, Murrow, and Hitchens and sit back to enjoy the show. It wouldn’t be worth it to bring back Orwell because he’d have an immediate stroke and die again.
I have a reprint copy of the official version of Mein Kampf that was presented to all couples upon their marriages from 1933-1945 that I’ll tackle sometime this year. I read the Houghton, Mifflin English translation in college in 1981 and it still brings back vivid memories of horrified boredom. But it helped less than a decade later when David Duke came along. Looks like it may help me again to decipher the next few years.
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I want Jon Stewart back!
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Greg…Himmler/Conway was on all the AM news shows today…and pretty much said the same things on each…always deflecting the questions to pronounce her own Trumpian messages. It was just Todd who did not give in to her deflection.
I mentioned Mein Kampf…but ‘Drumph’ philosophy is also explicated in Shirer’s 1960s historical book, Rise of the Third Reich. Even Dean Baker’s book on the Bush family, and particularly Prescott Bush/Averill Harriman banking the rise of the Third Reich, has passages on the theory of “America First” and the analogy to our new, questionably elected, leader.
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Ellen, because of your comments, I broke my pledge and am watching the replay of MTP. The “we may have to rethink our relationship” with the press comments mirrors one of the first dominos that Masha Gesson listed in her interview with Samantha Bee, the notes of which I posted on https://dianeravitch.net/2017/01/18/senator-ron-wyden-will-vote-no-on-devos/: — he’s going to start banning one newspaper after the other from the White House.
I’m going to archive a copy of this interview for retrieval in the future. I think civics and journalism teachers should use this for their lessons this week.
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Soon enough she will run into a host that drops all pretense of political correctness in dealing with her . A host that delivers a message to the Nation as clarion as Edward R Murrow . When they do it will encourage others to do the same and she will be reduced to what she is the propaganda mistress ( meant to say minister ) to
a deranged fascist.
Will the Press walk out on Baghdad Sean . It would be fitting if they stopped attending the briefings and instead, walked out in the middle of one putting the White House in a virtual press black out. Informing the American people that they will no longer participate in this charade..
The propaganda ministry already has enough tools in the the right wing Fake News networks. and right wing media.
These are people living in alternative realities . Yes the truth is not always simple, it is sometimes a complex story . But it is never what Conway and company represent outright lies and manipulation of fact.
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Trump and his gang have no respect for truth and facts. Trump even contradicts his previous statements with total ease and lack of any sense of conscience. If people treated their pets as Trump treats truth, fact and reality, those people would be arrested for animal abuse. How can this level of lying and prevarication continue? On most of the Sunday morning news shows, you could see the incredulity of the hosts at Trump’s latest lie du jour. Kellyanne Conway looked like the walking dead as she engaged in her verbal gymnastics, sleights of logic and sleights of hands. Barf bag needed.
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When I read the DJT inaugural address transcript, I thought it was something he might have written when he was a student at New York Military Academy (which filed for Chapter 11 and was bought by Chinese investors in 2015).
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May be another source . . .
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Boy, this scene worries me. Will those military men who surround the Germanic ancestry, Drumph, follow his orders if he sets them on us and on our fellow citizens who resist his dictatorial edicts? When he commands them to put down protests all over America as we saw happen yesterday, as he legally can do under the Military Commissions Act? Or will they turn on him and support their fellow Americans?
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I just read the transcript of the speech that Trump gave yesterday at the CIA. I watched it as he gave it as well. The ONLY mention he makes about the people who gave their lives to their country symbolized by the stars on that wall was, “And the wall behind me is very special.” He then goes on a rambling and incoherent rant about a host of things that are just ridiculous and mostly about himself. It’s just astounding and unconscionable how people are manipulated by this guy. It’s so frustrating. AKKKKKK!!!
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My neighbor’s husband is on the list. She is a “southern” Baptist ordained minister. This year she did vote democratic and she told me she was going to do it (for the fist time)… I am proud of her… I don’t now how her children voted.
“And the wall behind me is very special.” He then goes on a rambling and incoherent rant about a host of things that are just ridiculous and mostly about himself.
jeanhaverhill@aol.com
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The GOP is set to introduce H.R. 193, which would withdraw the US from the UN and evict the UN from its location in Manhattan. It’s called “The American Sovereignty Restoration Act of 2017”.
Click to access BILLS-115hr193ih.pdf
Keep those calls and letters coming, folks.
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Back to the past. The radical right-wing John Birch Society has been calling for this for over fifty years.
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And we’re off and running…Wilders in the Netherlands congratulates the German Right Wing candidate and also Drumpth….and fascistic Le Pen in France is now up to 43% vote of confidence…which country next will elect an unabashed FASCIST? He too twists the language and calls for a “stand against the new totalitarianism” as Drumph did in his inauguration and his speech to the CIA. The little people will “do their duty”….as they did under Hitler. We deserve to be very alarmed…it is the only rational response.
Speech by Geert Wilders at the “Europe of Nations and Freedom” Conference
by Geert Wilders • January 22, 2017 at 11:00 am
“Hello Germany. Is everything alright? I’m doing well.
Yesterday a new America, today Koblenz and tomorrow a new Europe!
It’s really a great honor for me to be here today in the beautiful city of Koblenz, at a meeting of the ENF Group, in the presence of so many German patriots.
And what you stand for is extremely important. Not only for Germany, but for all of Europe.
Europe needs a strong Germany, a self-conscious Germany, a proud Germany, a Germany that stands for its culture, identity and civilization.
Europe needs Frauke [Petry], instead of Angela [Merkel]!
My friends, that is why Germany is so great. Why you are great. Because you do your duty. And the Alternative for Germany (AfD), and my friend Frauke Petry, and all of you here, stand against the new totalitarianism that threatens us today.”
Continue Reading Article at Gatestone
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It is easy for Americans to express contempt for European politicians. The US is not swamped with millions of refugees over the past few years.
The US is concerned about twelve million illegal immigrants, and rightly so.
The majority of these contribute to the US economy in many ways, where the refugees cost European governments billions.
They are offered free housing, get food, clothing and medical care – all at the expense of local governments.
Because of their circumstances they do not contribute until and if they receive immigrant status.
This breeds discontent in a time where economies are still trying to catch up from losses.
Be interesting to see how Americans would react when, in space of a few years, millions of refugees cross the borders.
When “nationalists” started to spring up in the Netherlands, i asked what their issue was with foreigners. After explaining that my wife, too, was a foreigner it became clear that “white” foreigners were ok…
Holland allowed legal immigrants voting rights for local elections. Two of the biggest cities have had Muslim mayors. Many town councils have Muslim members.
Muslims are members of parliament.
But so are “nationalists,” socialists, communists, religious parties.
And now there is a possibility that Wilder’s party will become one of the largest parties.
My siblings are wondering what will happen next.
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Wilder’s rhetoric is lulling if you don’t pay attention. Years ago, a good friend of mine, who is a committed liberal (he was the first person to make me aware of Barack Obama) and supporter of Israel, sent me a clip of a Wilders speech and how it sounded good to him. When I let him know who Wilders was, he was horrified and embarrassed. Bannon and Flynn are definitely part of building this global network.
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Decided this Wilders speech is too important, and too similar to the Drumph in philosophy, not to post it in the entirety. ellen
Speech by Geert Wilders at the “Europe of Nations and Freedom” Conference
by Geert Wilders
January 22, 2017 at 11:00 am
https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/9812/geert-wilders-koblenz-enf
Hello Germany. Is everything alright? I’m doing well.
Yesterday a new America, today Koblenz and tomorrow a new Europe!
It’s really a great honor for me to be here today in the beautiful city of Koblenz, at a meeting of the ENF Group, in the presence of so many German patriots.
And what you stand for is extremely important. Not only for Germany, but for all of Europe.
Europe needs a strong Germany, a self-conscious Germany, a proud Germany, a Germany that stands for its culture, identity and civilization.
Europe needs Frauke [Petry], instead of Angela [Merkel]!
My friends, that is why Germany is so great. Why you are great. Because you do your duty. And the Alternative for Germany (AfD), and my friend Frauke Petry, and all of you here, stand against the new totalitarianism that threatens us today.
We are at the beginning of a Patriotic Spring across Europe, and also here in Germany. And I thank you for that. You are the new Germany.
And all our European countries are faced with the question of their existence. My friends, the United Nations expects that the population of Africa will quadruple by the end of the century — from 1.1 billion today, to 4.4 billion. Studies show that in Southern Africa, one in three adults wants to emigrate. And in North Africa and the Middle East, one in five wants to emigrate. Many of them want to come to Europe in the future.
The question that none of our ruling politicians now ask is: How do we protect our country and our identity against mass immigration? How do we protect our values?
How do we protect our civilization? Our culture? The future of our children? These are the fundamental questions we have to answer.
In recent years, our governments have allowed millions of people to flow uncontrollably into our countries. Our governments have conducted a dangerous open-borders policy.
And I know, as do you, that when the citizens of Eastern Europe defeated communism in 1989, they were inspired by Alexander Solzhenitsyn, Vaclav Havel, Vladimir Bukovski and others, who told them that people have the right, but also a commitment, to “live in the truth.”
Friends, liberty requires eternal vigilance. And this applies also to the truth. And Solzhenitsyn added that — I quote — “truth seldom is sweet; it is almost invariably bitter.”
And let us hear the bitter truth: Our leaders have lost their ability to recognize danger and understand the truth, because they no longer value freedom.
Politicians from almost all of the established parties are promoting our Islamization. Almost the entire Establishment, the elite universities, the churches, the media, politicians, put our hard-earned liberties at risk.
They talk about equality, but, incredibly, are incapable of seeing that in Islam, women have fewer rights than men, and infidels have fewer rights than the followers of Islam.
They are blind to the truth — but we are not! And we do not accept that they are blind to the truth. We no longer accept that the elites have abandoned the people.
It breaks my heart when I see that people have become strangers in their own land — almost everywhere in Europe.
But it is our country; it’s not their country — it’s our country. And it is unacceptable that you fear for the future of your children, that women are afraid, that Jews, ex-Muslims, Christians fear for their safety.
Day after day, for years, we are experiencing the decay of our cherished values. The equality of men and women, freedom of opinion and speech, tolerance of homosexuality — all this is in retreat.
And I say to you, my friends: We do not want this. We do not want Germany or any other country in Europe to abolish itself! We don’t want that!
We want our homeland to remain our homeland.
We want to stay who we are!
We are secure, free, democratic, proud of our culture!
My friends, what we see today is that fear reigns. Many people are desperate. Our rulers are cowardly. Our security is disappearing; our freedom is in danger.
And many normal people are afraid to say what they think. Women are afraid to show their blonde hair.
And this charade must be stopped! More and more people demand this! We demand this!
And I tell you: Enough is enough!
And then there is also the great danger of Islamic terrorism.
A German undercover journalist recently revealed that some refugee housing centers have become breeding-grounds for terrorists. The consequences are visible to everyone.
Recall the massacre at the Berlin Christmas market. Remember also the black summer of terror last year, here in Germany. We also remember Cologne and the mass assaults of hundreds of innocent women.
And yet our governments fail to do anything. But if we do nothing, we cease to exist.
Some immigrants have come here with entirely different values.
This is a fact — not a political fact, but a fact confirmed by scientists such as the Dutch Professor Ruud Koopmans, from Humboldt University in Berlin. His investigations showed that about half of all Muslims in Germany aspire to the roots of Islam.
Professor Koopmans also says that — I quote — “of a billion Muslims worldwide, between ten and twenty percent are willing to accept violence, even against civilians, to defend Islam.” End of quotation.
But despite all these terrible warnings, our rulers refuse to see the elephant in the room.
The people are fed up with the political correctness of the elites! Are you fed up, or are you not fed up?
We are fed up with the elites, who offer you a beautiful ideal world, in which all cultures are morally equivalent.
The people demand — we demand — the truth!
And we must tell them the truth, because people have a right to the truth!
Because the people should not be abandoned.
We, here, are the hope of the people! And we will never disappoint them! Never!
You may have heard that the Dutch government is trying to silence me.
But I say to you, I will never shut up!
I am on many death-lists just because they hate me, because I criticize Islam, and because I am a friend of Israel.
But I will never be silent, despite all the threats from politicians and terrorists.
For the free expression of opinions is, my friends, the basis of democracy.
There is, however, much positive news. There is reason for hope. There is light at the end of the tunnel. Better times will come. The wind started to shift last year. It brought us the victory of — and from here, congratulations to — Donald Trump, the President of the United States.
But not only in America. We also see it here in Germany, the Netherlands, France, Italy, Austria, throughout Europe: The patriots are winning. The time for a change has come. And that is why, my friends, it gives me tremendous courage to see you all here today.
This room full of German patriots shows me something very important. It shows me that Germany is not lost!
It shows me that Germany will survive!
You are a good force. The force that brings this beautiful country back on the right path. On the path to a patriotic future. A secure future. A free future. Our future!
History calls on you to save Germany. History calls on us all to save Europe. To save our own humanistic Judeo-Christian culture and civilization, our liberties, our nations, the future of our children.
And we have no choice. We will do it.
My party, the PVV in the Netherlands; Frauke Petry and Marcus Pretzell and the AfD here in Germany; Marine Le Pen and Front National in France — and yes, Marine Le Pen will be the next president of France!
But, naturally, also Hans-Christian Strache and Harald Vilimsky and the FPÖ, our friends in Austria.
Tom van Grieken and Gerolf Annemans and our friends from the Vlaams Belang in Flanders.
And all the other politicians.
But I tell you, we politicians are not important here. It’s not about us. It’s about you; it’s about the voters.
It’s about the people here in this room, and also the millions throughout the country — not we, but you are important.
You are the true heroes and the saviors of Europe. And I thank you for that.
Our parties give the people an opportunity to vote for good patriots. Patriots who want to make our borders safe again! Patriots who want to stop mass immigration! Patriots who want to restore the sovereignty of our countries, our money, our laws and our future.
We are fed up with the Europhiles in Brussels, who want to abolish our countries and impose an undemocratic super-state, in which we become a single multicultural society.
To this Europe we say no!
We stand for a Europe of national states and freedom!
We will take our countries back. We will make sure that our countries will stay ours.
My friends, this year will be the year of the people!
The year when the voice of the people finally will be heard!
The year of a democratic and nonviolent political revolution in Europe.
The year of liberation!
The year of the Patriotic Spring!
In two months, next March, we will give the Dutch people the chance to free the Netherlands! And next April, Marine, as I already said, will be the next president of France!
And next autumn it’s your turn, my dear German friends. I am absolutely convinced that with Frauke Petry, the future of Germany is guaranteed.
Long live the German Spring!
And I tell you: We will liberate ourselves. We will make our countries great again! We can do it!
Everywhere in Europe, we are electing new and courageous politicians who serve the interests of the people. And together we will win!
My friends, we live in historic times.
The people of the West are awakening. They are casting off the yoke of political correctness.
They want their freedom back.
They want their sovereign nations back.
And we, the patriots of Europe, will be their instrument of liberation!
Long live freedom!
Long live The Netherlands!
Long live Germany!
Long live the Alternative for Germany!
Thank you.
Geert Wilders is a member of the Dutch Parliament and leader of the Party for Freedom (PVV).
Follow Geert Wilders on Twitter
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And this just in….the dictatorship of The Drumph…
NYPOST
JAN 22, 2017
BREAKING NEWS
Donald Trump will not be releasing his tax returns
WASHINGTON — President Trump won’t be releasing any of his tax records now that he’s in the Oval Office. “The White House response is that he’s not going to release…
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Your line, Mr. Rains …
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We are now living in LaLa Land…here is the text….Hope Schumer brings the Drumph up on Emoluments charges…NOW. March to impeach!!!…………………………….
WASHINGTON — President Trump won’t be releasing any of his tax records now that he’s in the Oval Office.
“The White House response is that he’s not going to release his tax returns,” Kellyanne Conway, a top White House adviser, said on ABC’s “This Week.”
“We litigated this all through the election. People didn’t care. They voted for him, and let me make this very clear: most Americans are very focused on what their tax returns will look like while President Trump is in office, not what his look like.”
Trump broke with tradition and refused to release his tax returns citing an ongoing IRS audit but pledged the tax documents would be released upon completion. But Conway made clear Sunday in an interview outside the White House the taxes won’t be forthcoming at any point in the new Administration.
A White House petition created Friday has already garnered more than 200,000 signatures — double the amount needed to warrant a response from the White House.
Conway said Sunday she’s delivering the official response to the petitioners: No taxes are needed.
“You know full well that President Trump and his family are complying with all the ethical rules, everything they need to do to step away from his businesses and be a full-time president,” Conway said.
Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer said Trump needs to do more to separate from his business interests to avoid violating a clause in the Constitution to protect against corrupting foreign interests.
“The Emoluments Clause has never been tested, because we’ve never had a president who’s refused to give up his personal investments and other things,” Schumer told “ABC’s “This Week.” “My advice to President Trump, get rid of it. It could cause you real trouble.”
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Yes. Here it is:
http://www.cnn.com/2017/01/22/politics/kellyanne-conway-trump-tax-returns/index.html
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I’ve been saying all along that “alt-right” is just Hundepfeife for Das Alte Reich …
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comment by Robert Reich today: “But today, when Conway was asked to explain, she said, “We litigated this all through the election. People didn’t care.”
It’s similar to the response I’ve got from Trump surrogate Jeff Lord on CNN when I’ve criticized Trump for not putting his assets into a blind trust: “The election is over. People don’t care.”
“Wrong. People do care. Polls show a majority of Americans want Trump to release the returns. And they want him to put his assets into a blind trust.
These failures will come back to haunt Trump. They will contribute to the level of public distrust that’s already higher than any new president has ever faced.” (Robert Reich 1/22/2017)
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Please forgive me for the upcoming ripe one:
Is anyone feeling just a slight twinge of sphincter contraction today? Isthere “something seriously here?”
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Omitted “wrong” there. Prefer the laptop over the pad….
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BREAKING
NYT: Foreign Payments to Trump Firms Violate Constitution, Suit Will Claim
WASHINGTON — A team of prominent constitutional scholars, Supreme Court litigators and former White House ethics lawyers intends to file a lawsuit Monday morning alleging that President Trump is violating the Constitution by allowing his hotels and other business operations to accept payments from foreign governments.
The lawsuit is among a barrage of legal actions against the Trump administration that have been initiated or are being planned by major liberal advocacy organizations. Such suits are among the few outlets they have to challenge the administration now that Republicans are in control of the government.
In the new case, the lawyers argue that a provision in the Constitution known as the Emoluments Clause amounts to a ban on payments from foreign powers like the ones to Mr. Trump’s companies. They cite fears by the framers of the Constitution that United States officials could be corrupted by gifts or payments.
The suit, which will not seek any monetary damages, will ask a federal court in New York to order Mr. Trump to stop taking payments from foreign government entities. Such payments, it says, include those from patrons at Trump hotels and golf courses, as well as loans for his office buildings from certain banks controlled by foreign governments, and leases with tenants like Qatar Airways, a government enterprise.
“The framers of the Constitution were students of history,” said Deepak Gupta, one of the lawyers behind the suit. “And they understood that one way a republic could fail is if foreign powers could corrupt our elected leaders.”
Eric Trump, who is an executive vice president of the Trump Organization, said the company had taken more steps than required by law to avoid any possible legal exposure, such as agreeing to donate any profits collected at Trump-owned hotels that come from foreign government guests to the United States Treasury.
“This is purely harassment for political gain, and, frankly, I find it very, very sad,” he said in an interview on Sunday.
The president’s lawyers have argued that the constitutional provision does not apply to fair-market payments, such as a standard hotel room bill, and is intended only to prevent federal officials from accepting a special consideration or gift from a foreign power.
“No one would have thought when the Constitution was written that paying your hotel bill was an emolument,” Sheri A. Dillon, a partner at Morgan Lewis, said at a news conference this month.
The legal team filing the lawsuit includes Laurence H. Tribe, a Harvard constitutional scholar; Norman L. Eisen, an Obama administration ethics lawyer; and Erwin Chemerinsky, the dean of the law school at the University of California, Irvine. Among the others are Richard W. Painter, an ethics counsel in the administration of George W. Bush; Mr. Gupta, a Supreme Court litigator who has three cases pending before the court; and Zephyr Teachout, a Fordham University law professor and former congressional candidate who has been studying and writing about the Emoluments Clause for nearly a decade.
Ms. Teachout said the one place of potential concern is a nation like China, which rents space at Trump Tower in New York and is a major lender to an office building in New York that he controls in part.
Foreign governments, Ms. Teachout and other ethics expert warn, could rent out rooms in Trump hotels as a way to send a message to the Trump family. “If you think other countries are not going to try to leverage relationships with Trump’s companies to influence trade or military policy, that is naïve,” she said.
But Andy Grewal, a University of Iowa law school professor, argued in an academic paper published last week that a payment to a hotel owned by the Trump family — like the Trump International Hotel in Washington — would not violate the Emoluments Clause because the money is paid to a corporate entity and not to Mr. Trump directly.
“There is no connection between the payment and performance of services by the president personally,” Mr. Grewal said.
“It would be a lot of fun to watch,” he said of the lawsuit, “but I imagine it will be kicked out.”
Mr. Eisen said the legal team intended to use the lawsuit to try to get a copy of Mr. Trump’s federal tax returns, which are needed to properly assess what income or other payments or loans Mr. Trump has received from foreign governments.
The plaintiff in the lawsuit is a liberal group known as Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, which until recently was controlled by David Brock, a Democratic Party operative and fervent supporter of Hillary Clinton’s campaign.
Mr. Eisen now serves as chairman of the organization’s board, and Mr. Painter is vice chairman.
The lawsuit may run into trouble, other legal experts said, given that CREW, as the organization is known, must demonstrate that it would suffer direct and concrete injury to give it standing to sue.
The group says it has suffered harm by having to divert its resources from other work to monitor and respond to Mr. Trump’s activities. For example, the group said, it has answered hundreds of questions from news organizations.
In a 1982 decision, the Supreme Court ruled that a civil rights organization had standing to sue because its use of black “testers” to see whether landlords and home sellers were abiding by federal law had hurt its ability to conduct other activities. But in recent decades, and outside the context of civil rights violations, the court has often been skeptical of broad assertions of standing.
Regardless of the lawsuit’s fate, it is just the first hint of the legal assault that the Trump administration will face.
Anthony D. Romero, the executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union, said it was separately looking for plaintiffs to file a lawsuit alleging that Mr. Trump is violating the Emoluments Clause. It hopes to find a hotel or bed-and-breakfast that might compete against a Trump hotel as a party that might have standing to sue.
The A.C.L.U. filed an extensive Freedom of Information Act request on Thursday asking the Justice Department, the General Services Administration and the Office of Government Ethics for all legal opinions and memos they have prepared addressing potential financial or ethical conflicts that Mr. Trump might face. It could perhaps use those documents in litigation against the Trump administration.
CREW separately filed a complaint with the General Services Administration on Friday over a provision that appears to prohibit the leasing of the Old Post Office building on Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington to an elected federal official. The building is the site of Mr. Trump’s hotel.
Perhaps more important, the legal groups said they may challenge executive actions Mr. Trump is expected to take on topics like international trade deals, illegal immigration and climate change.
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Please join the over 100,000 people that have already signed this:
https://www.ImpeachDonaldTrumpNow.org/
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The end result of impeachment is President Pence.
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Pence is an extremist whose policies as president would inflict harm on many.
Trump is a madman.
No good choices.
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I signed; Abigail you might think of it this way; Trump will act out his malignant narcism and punish the whole world. I think if Pence were the default that we would have to continue the ‘Fight” but within our own borders. We are responsible for this horrible psychopath being in that oval office and it is our job to get him out … and if the only way is Pence — then that is worth it. A lot of people in his state already have experience fighting with Pence and , even though he is extreme on far right issues , we would contain SOME of the damage that he would do to other countries (that is if we can keep the congress persons from totally damaging agreement with NATO an agreements on climate change etc.)
Not good options as you say but a psychopath is much harder to contain (I am convinced that tRump is a dangerous psychopath and he is lethal. I find it very difficult to accept “jokes” about him for that reason).
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cx narcissism (MALIGNANT variety)
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From the little I have read, things were not going well in Indiana with Planned Parenthood and school choice.
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Pence doesn’t believe in evolution. He recommended DeVos, who is clearly suffering from her lack of public education.
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Just another case of the lesser of two evils Christine. It’s probably less likely that Pence would nuke Denmark, that would it be for the ipotus.
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A spreading phenomenon:
General election: ‘Go away if you don’t like it here,’ says Dutch PM Politics January 23, 2017 People who are not happy living in the Netherlands should leave, prime minister Mark Rutte says in an interview with Monday’s AD.
‘If you live in a country in which the ways of dealing with others annoys you, you have a choice,’ Rutte, who is leading the VVD‘s election campaign, told the paper. ‘Then leave, you don’t have to be here.’ The interview coincides with a page-size advert for the VVD in many daily papers in which Rutte calls for common decency and a return to ‘normal’ patterns of behaviour. The advert takes the form of an open letter to ‘all Netherlanders’.
‘There is something up in our country,’ Rutte says. ‘Why is our country so prosperous and yet some people behave so poorly?’ The letter refers to anti-social behaviour in traffic, on public transport and in the streets.
‘We feel a growing unease when people misuse our freedoms to spoil everything, when they have come to our country for freedom,’ Rutte says. ‘People who don’t want to adapt… who attack gay people, who shout at women in short skirts or call ordinary Dutch people racist.’
The coming period, Rutte says, will decide what direction the Netherlands will take. ‘There is one question to be answered,’ he says. ‘What sort of country do we want?’ The VVD is challenging Geert Wilders’ anti-Islam PVV to become the biggest party after the March 15 general election. Rutte has already ruled out working together in a coalition with the PVV,
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someone may have posted this in the past but I missed seeing it…
http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/315464-bannon-miller-wrote-trumps-inauguration-address-report
Someone mentioned reading Mein Kampf; I haven’t read the newest version/translation but when I worked at the library yesterday I brought home HITLER: Ascent 1889-1939 by Voker Ullrich. I started on Chapter 19 how hitler used the various churches to push his agenda…. that is relevant to me today because of Betsy Devos and her “evangelical christian” attitudes like the Hobby Lobby who tried their own curriculum in OK (I think it met with varying results but where there is a lot of xenophobia it might take root).
Bannon is not the type of person that should be writing speeches for anyone; least of all a crazy man in the oval office.
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Here is a part of the review of Volker Ullrich book:
“Yesterday morning, I woke up to find a text message from a friend of mine informing me that a book I had translated, “Hitler: Ascent 1889-1939” by the German historian and journalist Volker Ullrich, was riding high at number 12 on a US bestseller list. The first volume of a massive biography about arguably the most evil figure in history, it seemed to me to be an unlikely candidate for a mass hit in America.
But it had some prominent help. The book was the subject of a rather unusual review in the New York Times earlier this week, in which the paper’s lead book critic Michiko Kakutani called it a “fascinating Shakespearean parable” and then proceeded to list a number of Hitler’s personality traits and aspects of his rise to power.
By definition, a parable is a story that conveys meaning by analogy. Kakutani didn’t say whose life story Hitler’s early biography was a parable of, but readers lost no time in identifying a leading target: Donald Trump.”
I have recommended in the past “Black Earth” and “Bloodlands”… or for me at least just Ursula Hegi’s novels tell the story.
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the review by Kakutani: “https://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/28/books/hitler-ascent-volker-ullrich.html?_r=0 Shakespearean — but did he ever write about Caligula? seems like there are additional themes from Caligula and Dracula… of these lethal behaviors of someone who wants to be “a god” in the pantheon.
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Thank you, Jean. I just ordered it for my Kindle.
Although, I may have to crack open a bottle of wine when I start reading it.
Or a bottle of Scotch. 😦
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I’m still on Chapter 19… (where I started) … have had a lot of petitions and calls to make (betsy devos etc)… I have a white wine with creme de cassis and it sweetens it up a little…. my friend who is co-chair of our anti-charter study group (league o women voters) prefers the scotch….
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