Country will someday recover from Trump

By Thomas P. Hagen

(NOTE: This article was published in the Mankato Free Press, Jan. 18. However, due to a paywall, it's not accessible to everyone. The editors of Vox Verax have taken the initiative to publish it due to its importance and timeliness.)

I am living in a country at war. People are anxious, fearful. Prices continue to rise as families tighten their belts. Hired goon squads in masks spirit people away to detention or worse.

This Trump-inspired war on America has seen immigrants vilified, criminals pardoned including those who attacked our Capitol, foreign nations bombed, our traditional allies alienated, whole governmental agencies dismantled, aid to the poor of the world eliminated.

Political opponents have been labeled as public enemies, the legacy press labeled as fake news, scientific and medical conclusions called a hoax, and fair elections erroneously claimed stolen.

We should not blame Trump alone. The Republican party is complicit. It nominated him, campaigned for him, and once he was elected, empowered him through their silence, putting political position before country and constitution.

The portion of the citizenry in thrall to this demented narcissistic felon are true believers. Like Jim Jones’ followers, who drank their poison-laced Kool-Aid, they too see his insanity as the highest truth. Some fear that this Trumpified America will continue to get worse and maybe last forever.

But one day Trump will be gone, no one lives forever. One day this war in America will be over. And just like the end of World War II, a cheer will go up across the nation. There will be dancing in the streets, bells will ring, horns will honk, glasses will be raised in celebration, and we will wake from this sad national nightmare.

It will take a long time to recover, to rebuild our institutions, and to regain our trust in the news, in our neighbors and in ourselves. And that day can’t come soon enough.

Thomas P. Hagen lives and restores old farm buildings in North Mankato, Minnesota.

Mankato Mayor: 'Remember who we are'

(NOTE: This article was published in the Mankato Free Press, Jan. 17. However, due to a paywall, it's not accessible to everyone. The editors of Vox Verax have taken the initiative to publish it due to its importance and timeliness.)

By Mayor Majwa Massad of Mankato, Minnesota

I hear you, Mankato.

Monday night’s City Council meeting was heavy with emotion. The room was filled with fear, anger and deep concern for our neighbors. I want you to know that I did not just hear your words — I felt them — and I am carrying them with me.

As your mayor, and as an immigrant who is now a proud United States citizen, I understand how deeply personal this moment is for so many in our community. My parents came to this country seeking safety, opportunity and, more importantly, dignity. I know the anxiety that can live just beneath the surface when families feel uncertain about their future. I also know the incredible strength, resilience and contribution immigrants bring to Mankato every single day.

Let me say this clearly: You matter. Your safety matters. Your humanity matters.

Many of you asked why more cannot be done, and I understand that frustration. I share it deep in my soul.

As local leaders we often find ourselves in a difficult space — one I would not have understood as a citizen — which is wanting to act boldly while also operating within laws and systems that limit what cities and local public safety departments are legally able to do. Our police officers and first responders are bound by laws. Not because they lack compassion, but because violating them would place themselves, our city and our residents at risk.

That reality does not mean indifference. It does not mean inaction, and it certainly does not mean that we’re turning away from your pain.

What it does mean is that leadership, especially in moments like these, requires a delicate balance of clarity and passion.

I want you to know I will leave no stone unturned in exploring every lawful option available to protect our residents. I will continue to ask the hard questions, to push for more clarity, and to advocate for policies that reflect the values of this community, which is dignity and safety for all. I will speak up, even when it is uncomfortable, and I will listen, even when the emotions are raw.

I also ask all of us, as neighbors, to remember who we are.

Mankato has always been a place where people show up for one another and where we believe public safety and compassion are not in conflict, but partners. Where disagreements do not erase our shared humanity. Where we channel our anger into purpose, and our fear into resolve.

I know I will not satisfy everyone. That is the reality of leadership. But I promise you this: I will not stop working to find the balance between protecting our residents, honoring the law and standing up for the people who call Mankato home.

If you are scared, know that you are not alone.If you are angry, know that your voice is heard.If you are searching for hope, know that this community still holds it.

Together, we will keep talking. Together, we will keep pushing for better, and together, we will continue striving toward a Mankato where every person, regardless of where they come from, feels safe and seen.

Robert Reich on the Presidency

"An American president is not just the chief executive of the United States, and the office he (or, one day, hopefully, she) holds is not just a bully pulpit to advance certain policy ideas. Nor is it a position from which to reward supporters and punish political opponents. A president is also a moral leader, pledged to pursue the common good.… The values a president enunciates and demonstrates ricochet through society, strengthening or undermining its citizens." — Robert B. Reich in his book "Coming Up Short"

https://bookshop.org/p/books/coming-up-short-a-memoir-of-my-america-robert-b-reich/74502451024fd083

Ignore the cranks and crackpots: check with your health-care provider

by Tom Maertens

If Donald Trump has his way, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. will be the next secretary of Health and Human Services, the umbrella organization for health care agencies such as the CDC, FDA, NIH, Centers for Medicare and Medicaid and others.

Rupert Murdoch’s New York Post, a pro-Trump paper, editorialized that “The overriding rule of medicine is: First, do no harm,” adding that “We’re certain installing Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to head Health and Human Services breaks this rule.”

Kennedy has a long history of vaccine denial and outspoken ignorance. Among other things, he has asserted that COVID-19 was created to target Caucasian and Black people.

In 1998, Andrew Wakefield, a British physician, fabricated research that purported to show that the preservative in the mumps/measles/rubella (MMR) vaccine caused autism.

He succeeded in getting the fake study published, with 12 collaborators, in The Lancet, a prestigious medical journal.

Investigations by the Sunday Times and the British Medical Journal found that Wakefield committed deliberate fraud for financial gain; he had created a competing vaccine.

The British General Medical Council, which registers doctors in the UK, found that Wakefield had acted “dishonestly, irresponsibly, unethically, and callously.” The Lancet retracted the paper as “utterly false” and Wakefield was struck off the British Medical Registry.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and many subsequent studies have found no link between vaccines and autism; they show that the benefits of vaccinations outweigh any risk.

Small groups of “anti-vaxxers” have nonetheless made large groups of people sick. Recent outbreaks of measles and other preventable diseases in the U.S. have started among clusters of vaccine refusers.

The measles vaccine alone has saved an estimated 120 million lives worldwide. There were an estimated 10.3 million cases of measles in 2023, a 20% increase from 2022, according to new estimates from the World Health Organization (WHO) and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

The WHO said anti-vaccine sentiment is a major cause of the increase, and is responsible for 108,000 deaths.

No vaccine has been more consequential than the smallpox vaccine. Hundreds of millions of people died from smallpox throughout history, more than in all world wars combined. Smallpox destroyed many American Indian tribes and killed more Aztecs and Incas than Spanish conquistadores did.

Even the Black Death (bubonic plague) did not kill as many people. The plague still kills about 600 people per year, but there is a vaccine, and it is treatable with antibiotics.

Smallpox is estimated to have killed up to 300 million people in the 20th century and around 500 million people in the last 100 years of its existence (Wikipedia).

In 1967, the World Health Organization announced a global campaign to eliminate smallpox. At that time, there were still 10-15 million active cases worldwide, resulting in two million deaths per year and hundreds of thousands blinded or disfigured.

I worked for WHO’s Smallpox Eradication program in Africa, in one of the last countries in the world with endemic smallpox, vaccinating rural tribesmen.

Even there, we encountered vaccine resistance and received occasional threats because of lies spread by anti-vaxxers.

Some 465 million people in 27 countries were vaccinated by the program As a result, naturally occurring smallpox was eliminated by October 1977, at an estimated cost of $100 million.

The current Global Polio Eradication Initiative is one of the largest international public health efforts in history. Polio cases have decreased by over 99 percent since 1988, from an estimated 350,000 cases in 125 countries to 22 reported cases in 2017.

According to the CDC, the chickenpox vaccine prevents more than 3.5 million cases of varicella, 9,000 hospitalizations and 100 deaths every year.

CDC estimates that since 2010, flu-related deaths in the United States ranged from a low of 12,000 to 51,000. The flu virus can change its genetic make-up rapidly, even during the course of a single season. Experts believe this was the cause for the high death rate; the vaccine is formulated months ahead of the flu season. Past versions, such the “Spanish Flu” (H1N1) of 1918/19 may have killed 50 million people worldwide, more than died in World War I.

Vaccines are modern miracles and one of the reasons why life expectancy is increasing. Maurice Hilleman developed 40 vaccines during his lifetime. Eight of them are believed to have saved 129 million lives; he is credited with saving more lives than anyone in history.

The New York Post concluded about its interview with RFK Jr.: “We came out thinking he’s nuts on a lot of fronts.”

Ignore the cranks and crackpots: check with your health-care provider.

Tom Maertens held several science and technology positions in the U.S. government, including minister-counselor for environment, science, and technology at the U.S. Embassy in Moscow, where he had oversight responsibility for a $300 million per year science program with the Russian government. 

America: Have you lost your mind?

THE ANSWER IS YES!

Dear America:

Hi, it's Canada. Just thought I'd drop you a line to catch up. I know we haven't corresponded in a while and I just wanted to check in and make sure you hadn't, you know, completely lost your mind.

Because, golly, I have to tell you, it sure looks that way from here.

We're all pretty darned worried about you up here, pal. You don't seem at all yourself lately. For starters, I know you're only 240 years old but you might want to think about setting up an eye exam. You seem to be losing your vision. And I've never seen you so grumpy. Is this some kind of weird, middle-aged crisis or something?

And what's with all the hate? I mean, don't take this the wrong way, pal, but have you been tested for Dementia? You're like a different guy all of a sudden. Maybe it's Alzheimers?

You know, your memory does seem pretty sketchy lately. You're telling me you have no recollection of all of those immigrants who built you? All those people you welcomed with… how did you put it again? Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free ? Man, I gotta tell you, pal, that was some inspired stuff. And that Constitution of yours?

Wow. You were on your game back then, dude.

So, what the Hell, exactly, is going on these days? I don't know if you've noticed but you've got a guy in the race for president who we wouldn't trust running a chip truck. I mean, he's nothing more than a bully with bad hair. And you're about to hand him the keys again? Dude, you used to despise guys like him. Remember when we all got together and tuned up that German moron? You were awesome then. And the rest of us, well, we kinda looked up to you. Now, jeeze, I don't know.

Look, we grew up together. I'm probably your best friend. Heck, our yards are right beside each other. And I understand we've had our ups and downs... I mean, I know you're still steamed about us burning your capital and handing you your ass at hockey every time you turn around and our beer is way better than yours and your health care system blows, but still... We're buds, right? Who totally had your back during that Iraq WMD snafu?

So, I'm telling you, as your friend... love you bro, but you re being a tool.

You're better than this. Remember who you used to be and, come Election day...fix it.

Love and Poutine,

Canada

— Durham resident Neil Crone, actor, comic, and writer

Russian mafia state reaches into U.S.

by Tom Maertens

Several weeks have gone by and there have been no press notices that Yevgeny Prigozhin has “fallen” out of a high rise window. Instead, the Kremlin announced that Russian President Vladimir Putin and Prigozhin, along with 35 of his top commanders, held a three-hour meeting at the Kremlin on June 29.

That doesn’t mean nothing will happen to him: Prigozhin has demonstrated Putin’s weakness, causing him enormous embarrassment.

To refresh, Prigozhin led a private army on behalf of Russia in Africa, the Middle East and Ukraine. One day he set off from Ukraine for Moscow with 25,000 well-trained, well-armed troops. His announced intention initially was to settle scores with the Russian Minister of Defense and the chief of the general staff for failing to supply his troops in Ukraine as promised.

Then he decided to challenge Putin, too.

Having crossed the Rubicon, so to speak, he got within 130 miles of Moscow and then wimped out.

The likely explanation for this is that he expected Russian military units to join him. There were no public announcements that we know of by military leaders or units, which meant that 25,000 troops were not as impressive as first appeared to “Putin’s chef,” the guy who started out selling hot dogs in Red Square.

One likely supporter was Gen. Sergei Surovikin, the head of Russia’s air force; he hasn’t been seen in public since the mutiny. Western intelligence agencies have specifically mentioned him as a potential backer of Prigozhin’s rebellion, which may not be good for his long-term survival.

The Wall Street Journal reported that the country’s domestic security service detained several high-ranking military officers, including Gen. Surovikin. His deputy, Col. Gen. Andrey Yudin, and the deputy head of military intelligence, Lt. Gen. Vladimir Alexeyev, also were detained but later released. They have been suspended from duty, their movements have been restricted and they are under observation, the paper reported.

The crisis was settled by Putin’s fellow dictator, the president of Belarus and a purported friend of Prigozhin, Alexander Lukashenko, who negotiated with Prigozhin by cellphone.

As the Russian American journalist Julia Ioffe put it, Prigozhin is a torturer, a murderer, and a fascist. She could have added, just like Putin and Lukashenko.

Putin and Lukashenko are allies of sorts, which is to say, Lukashenko is Putin’s puppet. In fact, Putin recently transferred nuclear weapons to Belarus and has transferred offensive weapons to bases in Belarus to use against Ukraine.

One of the consequences of Putin’s war in Ukraine, is that two long-time neutrals, Sweden and Finland have applied to join NATO. Turkish president Erdogan initially opposed Sweden’s entry because it has allowed the Kurdish opposition to operate on Swedish soil. After extensive negotiations, and probably some quiet “grease,” he’s now prepared to accept Sweden’s entry into NATO.

That will bring the alliance to 32 members and double its border with Russia.

Another consequence is that young Russians are fleeing the country. Polling by the Levada Center in the summer of 2021, indicated that 48% of Russians 18 to 24 years old wanted to emigrate permanently, a desire shared by almost a third of those 25 to 39. CNN reported earlier this year that nearly 22,000 Russians have tried to enter the U.S. since Putin’s war draft.

When Putin succeeded Yeltsin as president, he endorsed Russian intelligence connections with the country’s mobsters and oligarchs, allowing them to operate freely as long as they served his personal interests. Multiple sources make clear that Putin and the FSB/KGB essentially control the Russian mob.

It was Yeltsin who said that “Russia is the biggest mafia state in the world, the superpower of crime that is devouring the state from top to bottom.” A mafia state with nukes.

There are implications for the U.S. as well. The Guardian uncovered elaborate ties between the Trump family and Russian money laundering in New York real estate a few years ago. (https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/jul/24/jared-kushner-new-york-russia-money-laundering).

In addition, according to investigative journalist Craig Unger in The New Republic, at least 13 people with known or alleged links to Russian mobsters or oligarchs have owned, lived in, and even run criminal activities out of Trump Tower and other Trump properties over the past three decades.

USA Today reported that “the president (Trump) and his companies have been linked to at least 10 wealthy former Soviet businessmen with alleged ties to criminal organizations or money laundering.”

If Trump is not in prison, he will be the Republican nominee and Russia will back him once again with disinformation, hacking, false front operations and other means.

Tom Maertens worked on Soviet and then Russia issues for many years from Leningrad (St. Petersburg), Moscow, the state department, the U.S. Senate and the White House. 

Ukrainian defeat of Russia would have modest cost for the West

by Tom Maertens

Ukraine has come a long way since I visited the country as part of a U.S. government delegation in 1992.

That was following the 1991 breakup of the Soviet Union. Ukraine and the other republics had just become independent. Each of them set up its own barebones ministry of defense and began forming a national army.

In Ukraine, the ministry was a rundown former barracks with a handful of bare lightbulbs dangling over empty corridors. The entire staff consisted of three people — the minister, his driver and a clerk. But that was 50% larger than the ministry staff in Belarus, as we later discovered. There the entire staff consisted of two people — the minister and his driver.

From that inauspicious beginning, Ukraine is now a serious candidate for admission to NATO. The secretary general of NATO, Jens Stoltenberg, said recently that all NATO members have agreed Ukraine will eventually join, and the former secretary general, Anders Rasmussen, advocated security assurances and a path to membership.

At present more than 50 countries are providing aid to Ukraine. NATO members are considering informal security guarantees such as those given to Israel. Stoltenberg also suggested that NATO members may send troops in the interim.

NATO foreign ministers recently issued a statement expressing confidence that Ukraine’s NATO membership would “greatly contribute to the Alliance’s security and would help the Russian society to finally get rid of the imperial dreams.”

To refresh, former Warsaw Pact members Hungary, Poland and the Czech Republic officially joined NATO in March 1999. Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia joined in 2004.

Despite warnings from Putin that arming Ukraine would lead to world war, Biden recently approved another $300 million military aid package for Ukraine. It includes munitions to bolster Ukraine’s air defense capabilities against Russian assaults, including munitions for Patriot missile batteries as well as Avenger and Stinger air defense systems, High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems (HIMARS), anti-armor rounds, unguided Zuni aircraft rockets, night vision goggles, about 30 million rounds of small arms ammunition and an undisclosed amount of other artillery rounds.

Counting the latest aid, the United States has committed more than $37.6 billion in weapons and other equipment to Ukraine since Russia attacked on Feb. 24, 2022.

Moscow has followed a much different path than Kiev since the breakup of the Soviet Union, from open cooperation to hostile confrontation.

Biden’s decision last month to help Ukraine obtain F-16 fighter jets crossed another Russian red line that Vladimir Putin has said would transform the war and draw Washington and Moscow into direct conflict.

Most Americans are unaware that the United States provided $28 billion in aid to Russia between 1992 and 2005 — according to the Congressional Research Service — for economic support and to fulfill various arms control obligations undertaken by Gorbachev and Yeltsin. That included dismantling or destroying military equipment and securing “loose nukes” to keep them away from terrorists and nuclear blackmailers.

As a result, Moscow gave us access to some of its most sensitive facilities. I visited several nuclear weapons storage sites to assess what type of assistance Russia would need. I recall two sites (near Murmansk and near Vladivostok) that had nothing more than wooden doors and simple padlocks — essentially no security at all.

With U.S. assistance, Russia destroyed 2,531 missiles, and decommissioned more than 1,300 WMD delivery systems (silos, mobile launchers, submarines, and strategic bombers); it also destroyed chemical and biological weapons.

Ukraine’s share of the Soviet arsenal included 1,900 strategic nuclear warheads and thousands of tactical nukes. Under pressure from the United States and others, Ukraine transferred all nuclear weapons to the Russian Federation by 1996, in return for reactor fuel for peaceful uses and security assurances from Russia, the United States and the United Kingdom.

Russia signed several agreements committing in writing to respecting Ukraine’s borders, which Moscow has violated repeatedly.

A study by the Center for European Policy Analysis found that congressionally approved funds to support Ukraine last year amounted to 5.6 percent of U.S. defense spending, while resulting in a significant degrading of Russia’s military with no “boots on the ground.”

That assistance has enabled Ukraine to destroy almost half of Russia’s conventional military power, including some 2,000 tanks and armored vehicles and killing or wounding around 200,000 Russian troops, according to The New York Times. Other estimates are much higher, which would threaten the stability of Putin’s regime. Some analysts contend that with enough weaponry, Ukraine could defeat Russia, a strategic victory for the West at very modest cost.

Tom Maertens had oversight responsibility for nuclear, chemical and biological issues in the U.S. Embassy in Moscow and in the White House. 

Community must act now to zero net carbon

by Louis Schwartzkopf, Ph.D.

Kudos to The Mankato Free Press for its May 16 editorial, in which it notes that the extreme weather in our region and the country this spring is another indication that our climate is changing and exhorts our policymakers to pick up the pace in fighting climate change.

Climate change isn’t going away. The biggest driver is carbon dioxide in the atmosphere from burning fossil fuels. The more carbon dioxide we put into the atmosphere, the more violent and erratic our weather will be. Once the carbon dioxide is in the atmosphere, it stays there for centuries, until natural processes pull it out. This means that the weird weather we are having is already baked in for a long time to come and will only get worse, until we reduce our greenhouse gas emissions to zero.

There is some good news on this front. In January the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency submitted its biennial report tracking Minnesota’s greenhouse gas emissions to the Legislature. The report shows a decline in emissions across all sectors of the economy of 23% from 2005 to 2020. It also shows that Minnesota is on track to meet its reduction goal of 30% by 2025.

This decline is due primarily to emissions reductions in the electricity generation sector of the economy. Since 2005, emissions from this sector have dropped by 54%, largely by shifting the production of electricity from coal to wind and solar.

Over half the electricity we use in Minnesota today comes from carbon-free sources. Building on this success, the Legislature this session passed the “100% clean electricity by 2040” bill, which became law upon the governor’s signature. This law requires all utilities in Minnesota to meet the 100% goal.

Despite these advances, we still have a long way to go. Climate scientists tell us that we have to cut our emissions in half by 2030 and reduce them to zero by 2050 to reduce the worst effects of climate change. A strategy is taking shape nationally for the next steps: electrify everything.

At the same time that the utilities are moving down the path to 100% clean electricity, we must electrify the transportation sector by replacing gasoline- and diesel-powered cars and trucks with electric vehicles, and electrify residential and commercial buildings by replacing furnaces and boilers with heat pumps. Heat pumps efficiently heat buildings in the winter and cool them in the summer.

The challenge is that electrification means we’ll need more electricity. Buildings will need to be made energy efficient, and the grid will have to be bolstered and made more resilient.

What can we do in the Greater Mankato area?

First, we must educate ourselves about electrification and the clean energy transition and be open to change. A good place to start is to watch the hour-long NOVA program "Chasing Carbon Zero", which shows how electrification is currently being deployed in the United States to get to net carbon zero.

Second, community leaders must come together and plan how best to move the deployment of electric vehicles and heat pumps. The envisioning project Greater Mankato 2040 is a good place to start.

Third, Mankato and other cities in the region must plan the infrastructure for electric vehicle charging stations and set up policies promoting heat pumps. Additional city staff will be necessary for this work, and city councils will need to support funding for them.

This will be a huge undertaking, but we have no choice. We should look at electrification, efficiency and infrastructure as an enormous opportunity for area businesses and workers that will directly benefit the local economy.

Failure to act condemns our children and grandchildren to life on an increasingly inhospitable Earth of excess heat and catastrophic weather events for centuries to come. We owe it to them to move with all deliberate speed.

We have 27 years — a generation — to reach the 2050 goal. It’s time to proceed down the path of electrification. With persistence, money and resources we can do this. But we need to start now.

Louis Schwartzkopf is a retired physics professor, a member of the executive board of the Southcentral Minnesota Clean Energy Council and the author of the Citywide Greenhouse Gas Inventory referenced on the Sustainability page of the city of Mankato website.

Trump would attempt to overthrow government again

by Tom Maertens

Based on current polls, Donald Trump will likely be the GOP nominee for president. He would be the most corrupt and dangerous candidate ever.

On Jan. 6, 2021, Trump attempted to nullify the election and stay in power. He tried to overthrow the government by fomenting the Capitol insurrection, by replacing the real electors with fraudulent electors, by browbeating Georgia officials Brian Kemp and Brad Raffensburger into claiming the election was fraudulent and to “find” 11,000 votes.

He set up the Willard Hotel “war room,” led by Rudy Giuliani, Steve Bannon and John Eastman, to coordinate the insurrection, and to encourage swing state officials to block some vote reports.

Over 1,000 people have been criminally charged for participating in that insurrection. Almost 500 have been convicted, including several far right Proud Boys and Oath Keepers, whose leaders were convicted of seditious conspiracy, a felony punishable by up to 20 years in prison.

Canada labeled the Proud Boys a “terrorist entity” in 2021. The group replied in court that they were “Trump’s Army” and that he directed them to show up for Jan. 6.

The Jan. 6 committee recommended that the Justice department prosecute Trump on four charges: aiding an insurrection, obstruction of an official proceeding, conspiracy to defraud the United States, and conspiracy to make a false statement.

As for false statements, the Washington Post database shows that Trump told 30,573 lies while in office. He piled many more lies on top of those at his recent town hall, including the Big Lie about the 2020 election being “rigged.”

He also has a long list of convictions against him: The Trump Organization was fined $1.6 million after conviction for 17 felonies, including tax fraud. Its former CFO, Allen Weisselberg, was sentenced to five months in prison. Can there be any doubt that Trump was part of the fraud?

He was fined $25 million for his Trump University fraud, was fined $10 million for 106 violations of anti-money laundering rules at his Taj Mahal casino and fined $2 million for defrauding eight children’s charities.

Four government investigations — by Robert Mueller, by the U.S. intelligence community, by the Senate Intelligence Committee and by the House Intelligence Committee — found that Russia aided Trump in the 2016 election.

Trump also attempted to blackmail the president of Ukraine by withholding U.S. assistance approved by Congress in order to frame Joe Biden.

Most ominous of all, the former head of Russian counterintelligence, KGB General Oleg Kalugin, now a U.S. resident, told Investigative journalist Craig Unger (“House of Trump,” “House of Putin: The Untold Story of Donald Trump and the Russian Mafia”) that Trump was one of 300 assets and agents that Russia recruited in the United States. He told Unger that Trump was probably compromised during his 1987 and 1994 trips to Russia.

Unger got a second former KGB spy to confirm on the record that Russian intelligence had been working with Trump for decades. Earlier this year, Trump repeated an earlier statement that he trusted Putin over his own director of national intelligence and used the occasion to describe members of the U.S. intelligence community as “lowlifes.”

Four former CIA directors have publicly asserted that they believe Trump is a Russian agent, and retired Admiral Bill McRaven, who led the raid on bin Laden, has written “our Republic is under attack from the president.”

Trump’s former national security adviser, Gen. H.R. McMaster said that Trump was “aiding and abetting” Putin’s efforts to sow doubt about the American electoral system.

Trump is currently under indictment on 34 felony charges. He was just convicted of sexual abuse and defamation; he has been accused of sexual assault by 26 women, three of whom were 14 or 13 at the time.

This is credible: when the convicted child sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein died in prison, the press reported that his address book had 14 phone numbers for Trump; in addition, we know that Trump and Epstein held a “private” party with 28 young girls at Mar-a-Lago.

Based on the public record, Trump is a pedophile and serial sex offender, a career criminal, a traitor and a seditionist. And that’s before Special Counsel Jack Smith and Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis even announce charges.

He’s supported by the sedition party; 147 Republican legislators supported Trump’s efforts to overthrow the government on Jan. 6. Six of them subsequently asked Trump for a pardon.

If he is elected, he will attempt to overthrow the government again, and the Republican Party will support him again.

Tom Maertens worked in the White House under presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush.

Criminalizing books? In the U.S.?

DeSantis’s anti-Woke warriors don’t want students to know.

by Tom Maertens

Ron DeSantis’s “Stop Woke Act” in Florida prohibits teaching eight specific subjects or issues, including slavery or systemic racism. It also bans books, mostly by Black authors, about past actions that might cause distress, guilt or anguish to other students.

Over 100 books have been banned statewide, including by such authors as Nobel Prize/Pulitzer Prize winner Toni Morrison. No book can be in a classroom that is not on the state-approved list and reviewed by a “certified media specialist” — Ron DeSantis’s thought police.

To comply with those restrictions, a publisher removed references to Rosa Parks’ race in a draft of its textbook, The New York Times reported, and removed references to race in a lesson on the Civil War. Slavery? What’s that?

And what about “separate but equal” schools which were the subject of the Brown v. Board of Education ruling? What was Jim Crow, and why were the Voting Rights and Civil Rights Acts enacted? And why was six-year-old Ruby Bridges escorted into New Orleans’ all-white William Franz grammar school under federal protection?

There was an Underground Railroad heading south long before there was one heading north. That’s because slavery was abolished in Florida in 1693 by the Spanish, which made it a haven for runaway slaves.

In 1738, those fugitives established Fort Mose near St. Augustine, the site of the first free Black community in what became the United States; it is now a state park. They fought on the tribesmen’s side during the three Seminole Wars against the white settlers and their slaveholder allies.

Among the 566 Native American tribes recognized by the United States government, the Seminoles are the only tribe which was never conquered, never surrendered and never signed a peace treaty.

In 1815, the British-formed Corps of Colonial Marines, comprised largely of fugitive slaves, established a fort overlooking the Apalachicola River, variously referred to as “Negro Fort,” “African Fort,” and other names. It is now in the National Register of Historic Places as Prospect Bluff Historic Site, part of Apalachicola National Forest.

DeSantis’s anti-Woke warriors don’t want students to know.

In January, Florida banned the teaching of AP African American studies because it dealt with several topics on DeSantis’s banned list.

The Washington Post reported that two school districts in Florida have warned teachers to hide all books to avoid felony charges until they know how DeSantis’s new book ban will be enforced. A spokeswoman from the Florida Department of Education told the Post that a teacher could face up to five years in prison and a $5,000 fine for distributing “harmful materials” to minors.

An addition to the “Don’t Say Gay” bill would require immediate removal of any books targeted for objection; one objection is sufficient to ban a book.

Vero Beach just banned Anne Frank’s illustrated diary. One member of the right-wing “Moms for Liberty” orchestrated the removal of 20 Jodi Picoult novels from school libraries in Martin County.

In Clay County, 102 books have been removed at the request of one individual. That same person said that he had a list of 3,600 additional titles of concern. In an ironic turnabout, someone objected to DeSantis’s new book.

Recently a Tallahassee principal was forced to resign after parents complained that Michelangelo’s statue of David is ‘pornographic’ and shouldn’t have been shown to a sixth grade art history class.

Meanwhile, the Orlando Sentinel reports that DeSantis is expanding the “Don’t Say Gay” law to prohibit classroom instruction on sexual orientation and gender identity up to grade 12.

DeSantis wants to change libel laws so that jurors have a “presumption of malice” against journalists he claims have printed inaccurate information based on anonymous sources.

He and his Brown Shirts now want to make it a felony, punishable by up to 15 years imprisonment, for anyone to have an undocumented immigrant in their home or vehicle, according to The New Republic.

In April 2021, DeSantis got an “anti-riot bill” passed that grants civil immunity to people who drive their cars into protesters blocking a road. That bill also makes it a felony punishable by up to 10 years in prison to destroy historical monuments, such as Confederate statutes. He has also signed a permitless concealed carry law, apparently thinking Florida needs to thin the herd.

Republicans are criminalizing education: only in Florida is a teacher in danger of being charged with a felony for possession of a schoolbook; as The Guardian expressed it, “Banning ideas and authors is not a ‘culture war’ — it’s fascism.”

Tom Maertens taught at the high school and college levels in Ethiopia and Minnesota.

FOX serves as propaganda arm

by Tom Maertens 

"Fox is a hostile media platform. It has damaged our democracy and the people’s trust in government more than any foreign adversary. It promotes fake news in order to make Murdoch more money. Nothing less than a large financial judgment, including punitive damages, would persuade Fox to change its ways."

Anyone who still believes Fox News is “Fair and Balanced” hasn’t been following the lawsuit by Dominion Voting Systems. In fact, it’s not a news network at all, but a propaganda arm of the Republican Party and Trump campaign that spreads lies as part of its business strategy.

We have this on good authority: the CEO Rupert Murdoch admitted in a recording obtained by The New York Times that the fraud claims by the Trump camp were bogus — “really crazy stuff.” In a separate deposition, he said Fox repeats the lies for the money. A 92-year-old multibillionaire is still obsessed with money. Is he planning to take it with him? Murdoch also revealed private information about Joe Biden’s planned campaign ads on Fox.

In addition, Dominion has obtained thousands of internal emails and text messages from Fox employees through discovery proceedings as part of its $1.6 billion defamation suit, including from prominent fabricators Tucker Carlson, Sean Hannity and Laura Ingraham. Lou Dobbs and Maria Bartiromo, on the sister Fox Business network, were similarly implicated in the charade, as were some of Trump’s lawyers. Dobbs has been fired.

A Trump lawyer, Sidney Powell, was singled out by several Fox personalities as “nuts” for her absurd claims about vote fraud. Tucker Carlson, in an e-mail, said “Sidney Powell is a “lying fing b.”

Fox continued to invite her on regularly, even after finding out that one of her principal sources was a woman who claimed to talk to the wind, and who volunteered in a memo that the wind tells her that she’s a ghost, though she doesn’t believe it. She also claims to have been decapitated in a car accident decades ago but is still walking the earth.

Laura Ingraham said in writing “Sidney is a complete nut. No one will work with her. Ditto with Rudy (Giuliani),” whom she separately described as an “idiot.”

Fox was panicked that viewers were leaving them for farther-right alternatives such as Newsmax or One America News. That led to decisions inside Fox to continue peddling lies that almost everyone at Fox acknowledged in emails were false, but which people inside the network thought they had to repeat or they would lose their audience.

They had created a far-right monster which they had to continue feeding. Murdoch admitted in his deposition that Fox News had failed to do enough to prevent its personalities from pushing lies about the election.

That belief led Murdoch to order the firing of a senior Fox News manager, Bill Sammon, for projecting — correctly — that Biden had won the election in Arizona, a call that had angered Trump and his followers. In the corrupt world of Fox News, Sammon, who had called every election correctly over 12 years at Fox, was fired for being right.

If a jury concludes from the messages, including the 3,600 messages from Dominion to Fox, that it knew what they were putting on the air was false, and displayed actual malice in continuing to broadcast them, it could award Dominion substantial financial damages, and could levy punitive damages which might bankrupt the network.

Former Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull asserted to NPR last year that Fox News has played, by far, the largest single part in the polarization of American politics, in the “amplification of political hatred.” He added: “I would challenge anyone ... to nominate which individual alive today has done more to undermine American democracy than (former Australian citizen) Rupert Murdoch.”

It was Murdoch’s Fox that amplified Trump’s lies. Among them, Trump was the single largest promoter of lies about COVID, according to Cornell University researchers, who analyzed 38 million English-language articles about the pandemic.

Subsequent events have demonstrated again that it is easier to con people than to make them understand they have been conned. It’s worth recalling that Fairleigh Dickinson PublicMind poll some time back found that people who watched or listened to no news at all were better informed than those who watched Fox.

A University of Chicago survey in September 2021, found that 21 million Americans believe Biden is “illegitimate” and Trump should be restored by violence. They didn’t arrive at this conclusion by talking to the wind.

Turnbull is right: Fox is a hostile media platform. It has damaged our democracy and the people’s trust in government more than any foreign adversary. It promotes fake news in order to make Murdoch more money. Nothing less than a large financial judgment, including punitive damages, would persuade Fox to change its ways.

Tom Maertens served in the White House under presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush.

Republicans promoting extremism

by Tom Maertens

Sarah Huckabee Sanders is oblivious to irony. In her rebuttal to the State of the Union, she said the choice now is between “normal and crazy.”

That was after Republicans were seen jumping up and down on the House floor and shouting insults at Biden.

This is the party that promotes a “deep state” conspiracy, that elected a pathological liar as president who attempted to overthrow the government, and who demanded that the Constitution be terminated to restore him to power. He is now facing four criminal investigations.

Former Trump Chief of Staff John Kelly, a retired four-star Marine General, related how Trump was “far more limited, petty, immoral, and incurious and, frankly stupid than he could ever have imagined...”

It runs in the party. Trump’s former Chief of Staff Mark Meadows claimed that Italian satellites flipped the vote count during the 2020 election to help Biden. As bizarre as that is, a Republican Attorney General, Bill Barr, traveled to Italy with his judicial henchman and co-conspirator, John Durham, to question the Italian government about that claim.

Trump had his acting Secretary of Defense Christopher Miller, call his Italian counterpart and ask him to investigate. Instead, the Italians revealed another potential financial crime by Trump, which Barr deep-sixed.

They elected people like Marjorie Taylor Greene, who publicly advocated executing high-ranking democrats in 2018 and 2019, and another, Paul Gosar who was removed from a committee for posting an animated video that depicted him killing Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, another member of Congress. His six siblings want him removed from Congress: “I consider him a traitor to this country. I consider him a traitor to his family,” Dave Gosar said.

Taylor Greene has claimed a Jewish space laser started the Camp Fire in 2018, that 9/11 was an “inside job,” that school massacres were staged with crisis actors, and that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi could be handled with a “bullet to the head.” Additionally, she was featured speaker at a white supremacist event where her fellow speakers praised Hitler and called for Fauci to be hanged.

Attendees chanted “Putin, Putin” while Russian bombs were dropping on Ukraine. Greene also claimed during a congressional hearing that an elementary school in Illinois had received $5.1 billion in COVID-19 federal relief funding to develop a critical race theory curriculum.

Then there is Lauren Boebert … Sarah Palin without the smarts … and George Santos, a classic sociopath.

The Department of Homeland Security identifies American extremist violence, particularly among white-supremacist groups, as the country’s “most persistent and lethal threat.”

That describes the violent Trump cult that participated in the Jan. 6 insurrection, including the Boogaloo Bois, the Proud Boys, the Oath Keepers, neo-Nazis, and the Three Percenters; FBI Director Wray recently described such groups as domestic terrorists.

Trump has even met with avowed anti-Semite and neo-Nazi, Nick Fuentes, along with vocal anti-Semite (Kan)Ye West. Such actions may have encouraged violence by the far right which has been behind recent attacks on electrical facilities.

DHS reports that there have been at least nine such attacks in the last three months, which left thousands without electricity.

The Anti-Defamation League has obtained the membership list of the far-right Oathkeepers; they found 373 members in law enforcement organizations around the country, including 12 chiefs of police and 13 sheriffs. This is neo-Nazi infiltration of our law enforcement.

This is the party that has decided to obstruct raising the debt ceiling, despite the disastrous consequences of defaulting on the debt. Republicans raised the debt ceiling three times under Trump without objection or hostage-taking.

A clause in the Fourteenth Amendment essentially says that the feds cannot renege on debts, meaning the cap, which is based on a statute, could be declared unconstitutional.

The language is so sweeping — public debt “shall not be questioned” — that it seems to prohibit repudiation of the debt and require on-time payment in full.

Also, Article I, Section 10 says: “States shall not impair the obligation of contracts” — i.e., the public debt, which triggering a default would do. Because Article I forbids the states from defaulting by legislative fiat, it is unthinkable to believe that Congress might do the same thing — and even worse, to do it as a matter of whim.

Their only other “policy” is to investigate Hunter Biden’s laptop, a right-wing obsession.

Beyond these issues, the Republican Party supports voter suppression, gerrymandering, and Christian nationalism. They want to control women’s bodies, cut Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid and cut taxes on the wealthy; it’s a party dominated by seditionists, misfits, dimwits and culture warriors.

Tom Maertens served in the White House under presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush.