‘Enemy of the People’ wants to meet with Trump’s ‘finely tuned machine’

At his press conference on Thursday, President Trump made two assertions. I want to test both.

Assertion 1 was that my fellow journalists and I are “enemies of the people.”

Assertion 2 was that his administration is running like a “finely tuned machine.”

If the president believes that I am an enemy to the American people, I demand that his “finely tuned machine” immediately arrest me before I cause any irreparable damage to the my fellow Americans.

If I am not arrested, or at least questioned, in the next week, perhaps some representative in the president’s finely tuned machine can tell me were I can turn myself in so that “the people” will be safe again.
 
Mr. President, I look forward to talking with one of your representatives about my allegedly criminal behavior.

I will pack my toothbrush.

If nothing happens in the next week, I will assume that both assertions are lies, and that, accordingly, the real enemy of the people is you, Mr. President. In which case, I demand that you turn yourself in. Frankly, I'd settle for a simple resignation.

Photographing Truth

“Afghan photos worry military” reads the front page headline in today’s Oregonian.

The headline reflects the story that follows — up to a point.

The story says that the “revelations...caught on camera” have “intensified questions within the military community about where fundamental discipline is breaking down given the nature and length of the war.”

Questions: Are the photos intensifying the questioning? Does the military require photographs before it knows what is happening within its units? Before it gets serious? Do those photographs have to be made public in order for action to be taken? What if they had never been published?

As is all too common with stories that put the heat on government institutions, the very publication of the news (in this case photographs) becomes the story. Should the Los Angeles Times have printed them? What will the publication do to the morale of our troops? Will their lives be in danger?

(THIS STORY in today's New York Times reveals that the Pentagon made an issue of the publication and tried to stop it.)

In short, the publication itself, not what it reveals, becomes the headline grabber.

Lest we forget, the outrages depicted, like those of Abu Ghraib and others (the list long), are bought and paid for by us, the taxpayer. To extend the consumer analogy, we need to know what we are buying. If it isn’t what we had in mind, we need to stop buying it.

The problem is that we are forced to buy it. We have no options. The two major political parties are identical with regard to the brazen barbarity they have allowed in the military, the intelligence agencies and contract mercenaries.

As we get farther and farther into the 2012 campaign, the candidates will lay out sharp, allegedly “defining” differences between their parties. But who will point to their troubling similarities: reliance on massive contributions from the super-rich, the need to pander to and serve the military-industrial-media complex, the defense of “justice” that is anything but, the support of covert operations at home and abroad that shred human rights and human dignity, the denial of the need for immediate, urgent action to stop global warming, the acceptance of grotesque inequality?

“Afghan photos worry military.”

What kind of photos will it take to “worry” us, the People, into changing our current unresponsive political/governmental/military/industrial system?

HERE is an example of what's possible. The short clip is called "Things Happen."

Tax inequity, thy name is Mitt Romney

The Occupy Movement can take political credit for Mitt Romney’s unpopularity with large numbers of voting Republicans.

Romney, whose worth is put at some $250 million, not only is, but acts like, a One Per-center.

No need to list his “Let them land in the safety net” gaffes, starting with his proffering a $10,000 bet (ironically to Rick Santorum, now his resurgent challenger.)

Most recently Romney shared that he’s not worried about the poor because the “safety net” is working. The evidence that the net is full of holes stands at every freeway on-ramp where the homeless beg for handouts.

The lumpen on the Republican Right are understandably not amused. They are no longer besotted by the glories of capitalism. Imagine a conservative Republican attacking “vulture capitalism." The term comes from Santorum, Now he too is reliant on big money donors whose wealth resides in stock market dealing. One in particular is Foster Friess, who also mixes Christian "prosperity" evangelism in with his political support.

Curiously, the term "vulture capitalism" might have come right out of the Occupy lexicon.

Populist Republicans may also be catching on that there’s a connection between over-the-top wealth and controlling the government. What we have, it has been noted, is socialism by and for the rich.

(Many of us maintain that’s true no matter which party is in power.)

The political press has woefully failed to scratch the surface with Romney regarding his views on taxation. The press seems happy to transcribe Romney's self-righteously saying, “I paid what I owed and not a cent more.” He paid at a federal tax rate of 13.9 percent last year.

Has he ever been asked whether what he paid was fair? Never mind its legality. As president would he push to change the tax code to get rid of the inequities that have served him so well and the rest of us unfairly?

And if not, why not?

Those are questions Left and Right can agree need to be asked — and answered.

Romney needs to be reminded that for every cent of taxes he doesn’t pay under the current “legal” system, someone else (you? me? The average voter?) legally must.

No wonder this guy is in trouble politically. If anything he owes us. The gall of asking for our votes!

And who is supporting him? The “establishment” Republican One Percent through their secret mega-campaign PACs. Wonder why....

Before the next primary, and certainly before the Republican convention, reporters must put the tax reform question to Romney. The largest possible audience should hear his answer.

Voters of all persuasions are getting to know this issue well, thanks to the Occupy movement.

Now it has become personified. Its name is Mitt Romney.

Press ignores Palin's First Amendment Ignorance

Let the record show that I can find no reference on-line to a major newspaper's reporting directly on Sarah Palin’s frightening ignorance regarding the First Amendment.

(On Friday in a radio interview, Palin suggested that press criticism of her was a violation of the First Amendment. Anyone who has taken middle-school civics knows that the right to voice and print such criticism is precisely what the First Amendment protects.)

I am reminded of the truism that our freedoms of speech and the press only have meaning if we use them. Why is the press refusing to use its freedom to inform the public about Palin’s appalling ignorance of the Bill of Rights?

How could it be that it is no longer newsworthy when a major party candidate for the second highest office in the land twists beyond recognition a basic principle on which the nation was founded?

Could it be that editors believe that most of the public doesn’t care about the First Amendment and whether Palin understands it?

Could it be that the majority of the American people themselves don’t understand or value our very first freedoms?

If that is the case, we are a nation in deep, deep peril. When the press doesn't call our leaders on matters as grave, we all will ultimately pay the price.

It is noteworthy that Palin’s comment is all over the blogosphere. New Media trumps Old. Incidents like this suggest that the death of newspapers may not be that great a loss.