Tag: government

Dictators Do as They Wish!

–President Donald Trump on Friday removed the head of the agency that produces the monthly jobs figures after a report showed hiring slowed in July and was much weaker in May and June than previously reported.

When Trump does not like government reporting he fires the people involved even if the reports are accurate.

–The Corporation for Public Broadcasting announced on Friday that it will wind down its operations due to the successful Republican effort to defund local PBS and NPR stations across the country.

-In March, the president issued an executive order, “Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History,” that it said was meant to address “a concerted and widespread effort to rewrite our Nation’s history, replacing objective facts with a distorted narrative driven by ideology rather than truth.”

He singled out the Smithsonian Institution and said the administration would seek “to remove improper ideology from such properties.”

In an email to NPR, White House Spokesperson Davis Ingle wrote: “Unfortunately for far too long the Smithsonian museums have highlighted divisive, DEI exhibits which are out of touch with mainstream America.”

“We are fully supportive of updating displays to highlight American greatness. The Trump administration will continue working to ensure that the Smithsonian removes all improper ideology and once again unites and instills pride in all Americans regarding our great history,” he said.

Is History Repeating itself?

In March 1933, the Enabling Act became law in Germany, granting the chief executive the power to enact laws without legislative oversight, effectively dismantling the system of checks and balances.

This pivotal legislation marked the transition from a democratic republic to a totalitarian dictatorship.

By September of that year, Germany had become a one-party state, consolidating the power of the Nazi regime and eliminating political opposition.

During the liquidation of the ghettos starting in 1942, trains were used to transport the condemned populations to death camps. To implement the “Final Solution”, the Nazis made the Deutsche Reichsbahn an indispensable element of the mass extermination machine, wrote historian Raul Hilberg.

Today masked immigration agents are taking unwanted immigrants to detention facilities.

Does any of that history remind anyone of what is happening in the United States today?

During the liquidation of the ghettos starting in 1942, trains were used to transport the condemned populations to death camps. To implement the “Final Solution”, the Nazis made the Deutsche Reichsbahn an indispensable element of the mass extermination machine, wrote historian Raul Hilberg.

Today masked immigration agents are taking unwanted immigrants to detention facilities.

Mr. Trump: History is not on your side and neither is Los Angeles.

Copied from today’s Los Angeles Times. This is a beautifully written article.

I’ve lived in Los Angeles long enough to know that this city weathers fire, quake and fury and still manages to bloom. We grow food in our backyards, paint our pain on walls and find beauty in the struggle. But right now, there’s a pressure in the air thicker than smog, a national fear winding through our streets, and its name is Donald Trump (“National Guard arrives in Los Angeles as fallout from immigration raids continues,” June 8).

The helicopters overhead aren’t just news choppers anymore. They’re echoes of something ancient and dangerous: Fascism rising on American soil. I never thought I’d say this in my lifetime, but we’re watching a man try to bring down a republic with the smug grin of a game show host who already knows the final answer.

President Trump, you can stop now. Turn on your TV. Watch what you’ve done. You will not be remembered as a patriot. You will not be remembered as a liberator. You will be remembered as the worst leader this country has ever produced. A divider. A destroyer.

We write, we paint, we protest and we plant seeds of hope in cracked concrete. But we are exhausted. We need moral leadership, not messianic delusion. What do we tell our children when their leaders praise dictators, vilify the press and mock the weak? That chaos is power? That empathy is weakness?

Mr. Trump: History is not on your side and neither is Los Angeles.

Patsy Pitts, South Los Angeles

Donald Trump dreams of controlling everything – he sees an opportunity to renaming everything

In President Donald Trump effort to rename everything he sees his opportunity to rename another prominent body of water.

Donald Trump Plans to Rename Another Gulf.

The Associated Press reported on Wednesday, May 7, that two senior White House officials have confirmed that — during his upcoming trip to Saudi Arabia— Trump plans to announce that the U.S. will officially be updating its lexicon to call the Persian Gulf the “Arabian Gulf” or the “Gulf of Arabia.”

While the U.S. military has referred to the body of water as the Arabian Gulf for years, the Persian Gulf name is more common among American civilians. For users in the United States, Google Maps currently lists the name as “Persian Gulf (Arabian Gulf),” while Apple Maps solely displays it as the “Persian Gulf.”

Here is the list of renamings Trump intends to do.

Gulf of Mexico becomes Gulf of America Persian Gulf becomes Gulf of Arabia   November 11, Veterans Day becomes Victory Day for World War I May 8 as “Victory Day for World War II Denali, federally designated as Mount McKinley