How Many Generals Does It Have To Be Before We Call It A "Junta"?

The Atlantic has noticed "Such a lot of generals" in the new Trump administration. What does it mean?

The Washington Post has noticed the same. So many generals! Does it mean a more militarized regime?

There I go. I said "regime." Do we have regimes in this country? When we say "regime" we tend to mean tinpot countries with a faceless leadership wearing military uniforms.

SLATE is noticing lots of generals too.

Is Trump trying to make his presidency militarily unremovable? Make it “Coup-Proof”?

Or is this part of Trump’s own coup?

What does this mean? Is this a different America? Will Trump call himself Generalissimo?

Will Dear Leader Trump review parades of marching armies and tanks and nuclear missiles on trucks while flanked by generals with chests encrusted with medals, just like in Russia and North Korea?

Funny all of this is happening after two and a half million more people voted against him than voted for him. And after his campaign and his bullyboys suppressed the vote by millions more in key states.

Or maybe that is why he is generaling up like this.

A Stark Choice Between Good And Evil, Competent and Incompetent, Moderate/Progressive and Extreme Right

We have a choice in this election. A man who brags about assaulting women, who incites violence against minorities, who doesn’t pay the people he hires, who has reaped many millions by bankrupting companies and violating contracts, who promises to imprison his opponent, who has no relevant experience for the job, very limited understanding of the issues, and an unstable personality and hair trigger. The list is almost endless… Why is Donald Trump still supported by as many people as he is. To quote a famous song title: It Smells Like Team Spirit. He can be a monster but he’s their monster. By the way, Donald Trump will be brought into court on multiple fraud charges in November, and child rape charges in December.

The other candidate, Hillary Clinton is being questioned about her managing of an email account. Why is this an issue? Because the Republicans could find no other issue to attack her on. Ever Since Nixon the Republican strategy has been to attack the Democrats’ strongest candidate and tear them apart. They’ve done that and found nothing to attack but her womanhood and her use of email. Her strengths are obvious and many. Her weaknesses have all been attacked to death and she is still standing, a remarkable testament to her fiber and courage.

The Email issue is not a scandal, it's a witch hunt. SLATE asks why we're still talking about it with all that's at stake.

Trump meanwhile promises a dangerous sea change unlike anything we’ve ever seen.

Donald Trump’s thirst for revenge is almost as great as his thirst for power and money

NBCNews reports on Donald Trump's vengeful world view. Once in power he will use that power to punish and destroy his opponents.

The GOP is now the authoritarian party angry white men have been dreaming about

New York Magazine has this analysis of the extremist authoritarian angry white man's party the GOP has become.

Some Americans Long For A Dictator

Trump continues to talk like a dictator. Jailing his opponent? Who does that? Tin pot dictators do. Putin does that and worse. Journalists and political opponents and garden variety critics in Russia are disappeared fairly routinely.

There are a lot of Americans who want a dictator and they seem to have the weird idea that this dictator would take dictation from them personally.

Maine's embarrassing bigoted governor said this week that America needs Trump to assert some "authoritarian power." Find the story here, via USAToday. Governor LePage longs for a bully boss, a mob-enforcer-in-chief, a dictator. The same people who shout the loudest about enforcing the Constitution shout even louder demanding we tear it up.

Americans are unfamiliar with what dictators do, because we’ve never had one here.

Actually, we have. I think the people (white, male, angry, Southern and rural predominantly) who long for a dictator may base their longing upon the experience of local dictatorships, local sheriffs for instance, who they’ve never felt the hard, sharp edge of, never suffered from, because they’re white and they’ve been chummy with these little rural dictators. These weren't the sweet, gentle Southern sheriffs played by Andy Griffith.

There may be some in urban areas who miss the old city bosses in once corrupt cities like KC and Chicago and points east. You can bet that Trump's supporters in those places are nostalgic for the days when their political boss meted out vengeance on the other party's followers when he won.

Trump's most rabid supporters don't mind the idea of dictatorship here because they were never the ones who suffered when it occurred. They were the ones favored by these corrupt bosses and tinpot sheriffs. They received the benefit of harm done and confiscations targeted at various minority groups.

If it sounds familiar in another way, this was the way Nazi Germany financed its economy during the thirties, by confiscating the property and businesses and land owned by the Jews. In the Jim Crow South sheriffs routinely swept up black laborers returning home from work, charged them with loitering, and sent them as unpaid laborers to the timber and mining operators; they also financed their county budgets out of the fees these industries paid them for the slave labor, and out of the fines the laborers were charged for "loitering." An excellent and disturbing film was recently made about this and broadcast on PBS.

This tin-pot caricature is a familiar one from movies and novels about the South and Jim Crow. African Americans remember its ugly side even if most Americans have never learned about this sorry legacy. Women suffered too. Abused women who tried to get justice over sexual assault know this good ol’ boy clubbishness and how it invalidated their full citizenship. The authorities dismissed any complaint a woman might make the same way Senator Jeff Sessions dismissed the outrage over Trump's sexual assault boasting.

The dictator figure has been very real and a problem in the parts of America where Trump’s fan base lives.

Privatizing Our Democracy

There are some chilling articles being published these days. A few making it into the mainstream media describe what's going on in state capitals all across America, where "Tea Party" Republicans, funded, organized, trained and instructed by Big Oil, Big Tobacco and Big Pharma, are taking orders from bosses like the Koch Brothers and working to kill not only the middle class but representative government as we know it–––while neatly wrapped in the flag and singing God Bless America.

From TruthOut.Org

From In These Times

It's like a scene out of Mr. Smith Goes to Washington; government by the bosses.

What's the alternative to government operated for the convenience and profit of multinational corporations and rich individuals like the Koch Brothers and Rupert Murdoch? It's us. It's government by us.

It's ordinary, practical, people-centered elective government. Ever since Teddy Roosevelt that's meant "progressive" government, not big government necessarily, or not any bigger than we are––let's face it, the US is now home to over 300 million people––but progressive, focused on more of us doing better and living better, having better jobs and secure lives.

This is both progressive and conservative. Flexible and practical. Led for and by the people rather than for and by corporate bosses. It's as American as apple pie.

It's both liberal and conservative––conservative in that it preserves and improves what works. Which means preserving what worked well for the best fifty years in America history–– the time-tested institutions and commonsense rules, put in place by TR and FDR and Truman and Ike. This is what the modern Republican Party is trying to tear down. The Republican Party isn't conservative at all, it's dangerously radical.

Laughing at Rupert Murdoch, Ha Ha

We can laugh at Rupert Murdoch all we want, but he's laughing at us because he has enormous power over us. Think of it: a right-wing Australian owns a dominant part of the American media, the key parts being the Wall Street Journal and FoxNews. He uses these platforms to lie to us. Does he also use them to spy on us?

The Daily Show's take is funny in a creepy kind of way. Andy Borowitz's piece begs the question: are the readers and viewers of Murdoch's news operations intelligent enough to be granted adult privileges? Should Murdoch be trusted with a news operation at all?

No, we shouldn't laugh. News tells us what to do in our lives, and if we are lied to we behave like fools. Corrupt news is a public danger. Here is an excellent summary of the Rupert Murdoch machine, with excellent links.

The shameless, predatory propaganda 'n scandal sheet News of the World [sic] is just one media enterprise owned by Rupert Murdoch. He also owns the Times of London, the New York Post, the Wall Street Journal and FoxNews. Would you guess that he runs his other organizations any differently than the runs the NOTW?

Ran, actually. The British public, after being nauseated and addicted by it for years finally had enough and Murdoch shut it down...presumably shifting the vermin from that paper to his other papers. Not to FoxNews, presumably, because it's all vermined-up. But it does make you wonder... Does the Wall Street Journal engage in the same criminal tactics to get news and to distort the news into balloon animals to amaze its captive audience? What about the New York Post? What about FoxNews? Dumb question. I think we need an aggressive progressive paper like the Guardian over here. It was the Guardian that blew the lid off the News of the World [sic] sleaze factory.