Trump’s Opposite World on Flynn, the Press, and the Holocaust

Trump’s Opposite World on Flynn, the Press, and the Holocaust

Let’s start with the last. Trump holds a joint news conference with Israel Prime Minister Netanyahu, and mentions genocide, but skips calling it the Holocaust. This, after weeks of Jewish criticism, for speaking at the US Holocaust Memorial Museum and not mentioning the Jews. This is in contrast to when Trump takes the terrorist group ISIS and keeps labeling it by a religion, as “radical Islam”, something President Obama and Secretary Clinton refused to do. Trump could have chosen to be “inclusive” at the memorial by including Jews, Catholics, and gays.

It now appears that the White House has created a National Press, similar to Russia and all other dictatorships. Only two questions are allowed at Trump’s news conferences, and only from certain conservative or conservative religious news sources. He again called other news sources as “fake news”. Both of these violate the First Amendment, and the freedom of the press.

President Trump tweeted and at today’s news conference said that Flynn did nothing wrong, but that the lawbreakers were the leakers. They leaked that Flynn had violated the Logan act when he dealt with Russia as a private citizen, before Trump was inaugurated. I am reminded of an old motto of lawbreakers: “You’re not guilty, unless you’re caught.”  The leaked documents that Trump was talking about would not be there to leak in the first place if Flynn and perhaps others had not had such contacts with Russia in the first place.

The Republican House is backing off on investigating, despite the years they continuously investigated Hillary Clinton over national security, both on Benghazi and her email server. There are a few outstanding Republicans in the Senate who may start an investigation. Why would Republicans back off? To keep up the Republican image, to prevent other heads from rolling, to not anger Trump, and to potentially shield Trump, if he was involved. What will be worse, the violations, or the coverup? After Watergate and Bridgegate, why has nobody labeled this a “gate” yet? Both of those actually had a gate involved, presuming the Watergate apartments were named for a river gate, and the Bridge being a gate to New York. This would have to be called the Russogate.

About Dennis SILVERMAN

I am a retired Professor of Physics and Astronomy at U C Irvine. For two decades I have been active in learning about energy and the environment, and in reporting on those topics for a decade. For the last four years I have added science policy. Lately, I have been reporting on the Covid-19 pandemic of our times.
This entry was posted in Affairs of State, Cybersecurity, Donald Trump, First Amendment, Freedom of the Press, Russia, Trump Administration. Bookmark the permalink.

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