Tag: donald trump
Surgeon General Fiasco Is A Perfect Trump Story

Surgeon General Fiasco Is A Perfect Trump Story

It's the perfect Trump story, one that tells you everything. It begins, as so many of them do, with a candidate whose qualification for high office is appearing on Fox News, proving once again that talking about something on television — and looking good — is not the same thing as actual experience.

In this case, Dr. Janette Nesheiwat, a New York family medicine doctor who reportedly practices at an urgent care facility, talked about medical issues as a Fox News contributor, which obviously qualified her to be the nation's leading doctor and health care expert as surgeon general. Put aside the fact that it took her six years to get through a four-year foreign medical school in the Caribbean (what you do if you don't get into an American medical school); in her autobiography, she writes,

"I studied at the University of South Florida where I enrolled in an Army ROTC program. I did basic training in Fort Lewis, Washington, and completed my medical training at the University of Arkansas where I served as chief resident."

She leaves out the part about the University of the Caribbean, as well as the fact that while she participated in ROTC, she was "medically disenrolled" in the program before being commissioned as an officer. And while she holds herself out as the director of the urgent care facility, CityMed, where she works, CBS News could not confirm that; CityMed would say only that she was a doctor there.

All of this was known about Nesheiwat, the sister-in-law of short-lived National Security Adviser and now U.N. Ambassador-to-be Mike Waltz, and none of it was getting in the way of her confirmation hearings, scheduled for Thursday. And then Sunday night, right-wing activist, conspiracy theorist and self-proclaimed Trump-loving "white nationalist" Laura Loomer took up the cause, demanding a new nominee. She unleashed on social media. While noting that Dr. Nesheiwat was a "nepo" (the sister-in-law point), is currently involved in a medical malpractice case, and didn't go to medical school in the U.S., it was her statements about vaccines that earned Loomer's wrath. Loomer posted:

"@DoctorJanette said 'Vaccine hesitancy is a Global health threat.'

"She used her access to Fox News to promote the dangerous Covid vaccine, which is now killing millions of people. She tried to shame people who didn't take the vaccine by calling them global health threats.

"Vaccines are a matter of PERSONAL HEALTH FREEDOM. "Vaccine hesitancy" is a matter of PERSONAL FREEDOM AND LIBERTY!

"It is not a Global Health Threat.

"MY BODY MY CHOICE!

"By her own logic, President Donald Trump and @RobertKennedyJr are GLOBAL HEALTH THREATS because they are challenging the safety of childhood vaccines.

"@DoctorJanette is not ideologically aligned with Donald Trump or his admin's health initiatives. The DOD is now giving back pay to armed service members who were let go because they didn't take the COVID JAB. They are now rightfully receiving back pay reparations for wrongful termination over their refusal to take an experimental DNA modifier. According to @DoctorJanette, these service members are GLOBAL HEALTH THREATS.

"How can she be confirmed in front of the US Senate on Thursday?"

She can't. On Wednesday afternoon, less than 24 hours before her scheduled confirmation hearing, President Donald Trump pulled the nomination. The last time Loomer came to town looking for scalps, supposedly with dossiers of who was and was not loyal on the National Security team, half the staff got purged.

This is who Trump is listening to.

Her position on vaccines was the one good thing about this nominee for surgeon general. It cost her the job.

Terrible things are going to happen. Measles is coming back. Children will die. When the history of this era is written, it will be a public health disaster, a shining example of the rejection of science in favor of know-nothingness, of pigheaded denials. This is how it happens.

Reprinted with permission from Creators.

White House

Fascism's Follies: Trump Create Crisis At West Point

There is a crisis at West Point. This one is not self-invented, as other crises at the have been previously, but rather invented at the White House by Donald Trump.

The crisis is familiar. Trump has ordered that all “quotas, objectives, and goals” in admissions, promotions and career fields be ended at the service academies, that teaching things called “gender ideology,” “critical race theory,” and “DEI,” (presumably as an academic subject that no one has ever heard of) be ended forthwith, and that “lethal force be promoted” by teaching that “our founding documents remain the most powerful force for human good in history.”

This has caused something of a panic at the academy. They’re tossing out history courses on “Topics in Gender History” and “Race, Ethnicity, Nation,” according to an op-ed in the New York Times written by Graham Parsons, a tenured professor of philosophy at West Point who is resigning from the faculty at the end of the term in protest against the changes forced on the academy by Trump’s gender and race warriors at the Pentagon and White House.

“West Point seems to believe that by submitting to the Trump administration, it can save itself in the long run,” Parsons opined in the Times, writing without permission or having submitted his manuscript for clearance by the academy leadership.

I am something of an expert about change at West Point. Change comes slowly to the 250-plus year old academy, but it has happened. And each time significant changes have occurred at West Point, military leadership and academy alumni have been convinced that it would lead to the end of West Point’s history of providing the nation with Army leaders of merit and honor.

This is not the first time academic change has happened at West Point. Prior to 1985, the academy had no program of “majors.” Every cadet graduated with a bachelor of science with heavy emphasis on applied mathematics, engineering, and military leadership. When the academy began offering a program of 45 majors, allowing graduates to go into graduate programs in law, medicine, computer technology and other subjects in addition to their regular service in the combat and support arms, you’d have thought the earth had shifted and West Point had begun to crumble into the Hudson. No more four years of calculus crammed into just two? No requirement to study ordnance engineering, the science of weapons? My God! What was the world coming to?

But by the time the majors program arrived at West Point, the academy had already endured two of its greatest earthquakes: the admission a Black cadet in the late 1800’s, and the arrival of women when the U.S. military was integrated by gender in 1976. The military academies also endured another major change. In the early 1970’s, compulsory attendance at church was ended with an 8-0 Supreme Court decision refusing to even hear the government’s appeal of a lower court decision. Along with three of my classmates, I played a role in the cessation of this clearly unconstitutional practice by filing complaints with the Secretary of the Army that exhausted administrative remedies, allowing a federal lawsuit to be filed after we graduated. At the time, we were told that if “mandatory chapel” was ended, it would lead to the end of West Point itself.

In 2011, the end of “don’t ask, don’t tell” allowed the admission of gay and lesbian cadets and for them to serve openly at the academy. This was yet another revolution that for decades Pentagon and academy leadership thought would lead to the collapse of “good order and discipline” and a reduction in the combat effectiveness and readiness of West Point graduates.

It goes without saying that none of the aforementioned earthquakes led to the collapse of West Point or the other service academies. In fact, they have thrived, with applications for admission higher than they have ever been.

In fact, I would make the argument that West Point is better in every way since the admission of Blacks, women, and gays and lesbians. It hardly bears saying that neither the army nor any of the other uniformed services is comprised solely of white males. We would not have a fighting force to defend the nation without the honorable service of a diverse population of volunteers who fill the ranks of enlisted soldiers, non-commissioned officers, and the officer corps.

What Donald Trump and Pete Hegseth are trying to do at West Point and the other service academies is fascistic folly. The Naval Academy, responding to Trump’s executive order on DEI and gender, removed more than 300 books from the academy library. The town of Annapolis, which surrounds the academy, responded by making all the banned books readily available in the town library and its bookstores.

The removal of certain topics of study from the curriculum at West Point is not going to materially affect cadets who undergo extensive training apart from the classroom, both at the academy and during summers spent training with real-world army units in the field. A cadet spending his or her summer training in a unit with a female company commander or a Black platoon leader – or both – is worth a half dozen books on gender studies or critical race theory. The same is true at West Point itself. The academy has had multiple women and Blacks who have served as “First Captain,” the highest-ranking cadet. West Point has had a female Commandant of Cadets, the brigadier general in charge of the Corps of Cadets, and a Black lieutenant general who has served as Superintendent of Cadets, the academy’s highest-ranking officer.

Diversity in the academy’s leadership and in the leadership of the corps of cadets will not end just because Donald Trump signed an executive order, nor will the diversity of the army itself. About 11 percent of soldiers are Black; about 17 percent of soldiers are women. I don’t know the percentage of the army who are gay or lesbian, but I can tell you that the great majority of my class of 800 had no idea that about 25 of our classmates were gay, back in the time when the closet was not a choice but a necessity for gay people in both military and civilian life.

Donald Trump can sign all the executive orders he wants, and Pete Hegseth can thunder about DEI and “wokeism” until he goes hoarse, but they are not going to change the facts on the ground either at West Point or in the Army at large. Women and Blacks and gays and lesbians are not going to be erased by fascist edicts, and by the way, neither are transgender service members, who I guarantee you will find ways to wait out the current nightmare of executive orders that can attempt to cancel their service, but will never bring to any sort of end who they are and their desire to serve their country. Even if some are forced out of the service, they will be back when Trump’s executive orders are inevitably reversed.

West Point has been there on the Hudson since Thomas Jefferson founded the it in 1802 as the nation’s first service academy. It’s not going away. The passion and patriotism of young men and women of all races and sexual persuasions and sexual identities will overpower this authoritarian hiccup in our history. Fifty-six years after I graduated from West Point, I know this as well as I know my own name.

Lucian K. Truscott IV, a graduate of West Point, has had a 50-year career as a journalist, novelist, and screenwriter. He has covered Watergate, the Stonewall riots, and wars in Lebanon, Iraq, and Afghanistan. He is also the author of five bestselling novels. He writes every day at luciantruscott.substack.com and you can follow him on Bluesky @lktiv.bsky.social and on Facebook at Lucian K. Truscott IV. Please consider subscribing to his Substack.

Reprinted with permission from Lucian Truscott Newsletter.

Donald Trump

'A Very Bad Idea': $400M Qatari Airliner Gift Unnerves Republicans

'ABC News on Sunday reported President Donald Trump is poised to accept “what may be the most valuable gift ever extended to the United States from a foreign government” — “a super luxury Boeing 747-8 jumbo jet from the royal family of Qatar” to be used “as the new Air Force One until shortly before he leaves office, at which time ownership of the plane will be transferred to the Trump presidential library foundation.”

According to ABC News, “the gift is expected to be announced next week” after “lawyers for the White House counsel's office and the Department of Justice drafted an analysis for Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth concluding that is legal for the Department of Defense to accept the aircraft as a gift and later turn it over to the Trump library.”

As AlterNet reported Sunday, the proposed gift — which aviation industry experts told ABC is estimated to value "about $400 million” — stunned Democrats and journalists alike. But, as news of the plane plan proliferated on social media Sunday, even some Republicans were concerned about conflicts of interest arising from the proposal.

“I’m sure the podcasters who are deeply alarmed by foreign influence will be all over this,” National Review editor Philip Klein wrote Sunday on X.

Call me a crazy RINO neocon, but I think it’s bad for the President of the United States to accept a $400 million ‘gift’ from an Islamist regime that funds terrorist organizations that murder Americans,” conservative writer and podcast host Ian Haworth argued.

Conservative radio host Erick Erickson agreed.

“The Qatari government is not our friend, cooperates with Iran and its proxies, and funds terrorism and pro-terror propaganda around the world,” Erickson wrote in a tweet Sunday.

The Bulwark podcast host Tim Miller suggested Trump’s interest in receiving a gift from Qatar undermines the president’s “anti-semitism initiative.” The Trump administration has threatened funding for private universities over what it claims is a failure of universities to address rampant antisemitism on campus.

“Hamas’ sugar daddies are giving Trump a fancy plane? I guess the admin’s anti-semitism initiative has some carve outs,” Miller wrote Sunday.

National Review commentator Stephen L. Miller offered a succinct analysis on reports of Trump’s gift from Qatar.

That sounds like a very bad idea,” Miller wrote.

Reprinted with permission from Alternet.

Jeanine Pirro

Fox Producer Said Pirro Is 'Nuts,' So Trump Names Her Top D.C. Prosecutor

Fox News host Jeanine Pirro is so unhinged that the network took her show off the air following the 2020 election out of (subsequently confirmed) fear that she’d use it to launder deranged conspiracy theories about the results. But she’s a fanatical supporter of President Donald Trump, and that is apparently enough to get her tapped as the top federal prosecutor for Washington, D.C.

Trump announced Thursday night that he was appointing Pirro as interim U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia, specifically praising her Fox News career. Earlier in the day, Trump indicated that he planned to move on from acting U.S. Attorney Ed Martin, another right-wing media figure, who appeared unable to muster sufficient votes for Senate confirmation. Pirro is the 23rd person with Fox on their resume whom Trump has selected to join his second administration.

While Martin’s legal support for January 6 defendants reportedly played a major role in the failure of his nomination, Pirro has no recent legal experience to speak of. She was elected as a Westchester County Court judge in New York in 1990, and then she served as the county’s district attorney before suffering through an aborted run for U.S. Senate in 2005. Pirro joined Fox in 2006 and has been firmly ensconced on its sets for the last two decades, serving as a legal analyst, host of the weekend evening program Justice with Judge Jeanine, and then co-host of the weekday panel show The Five.

Following Trump’s rise to the presidency, Pirro stood out among the network’s stable of shills and propagandists for providing what my late colleague Simon Maloy deemed “advocacy for the president [that] is so aggressive that it often borders on insane.”

Her lowlights during his first term included calling for a “cleansing” of the FBI and the Justice Department, which she said were full “of individuals who should not just be fired, but who need to be taken out in handcuffs”; describing Trump as “a nonstop, never-give-up, no-holds-barred human version of the speed of light” and comparing his negotiation prowess to the skill of NFL running back Saquon Barkley; repeatedly urging then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions to resign if he was unwilling to protect Trump and prosecute his enemies; speaking on stage at a Trump campaign event in apparent violation of network policy; and getting suspended by Fox for pointing out that Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) wears a hijab and asking, “Is her adherence to this Islamic doctrine indicative of her adherence to sharia law which in itself is antithetical to the United States Constitution?”

Pirro’s zealous support for Trump loomed over her coverage of his lies that the 2020 election had been stolen from him through election fraud. Fox preempted her first broadcast of Justice following Election Day. But when she returned to the airwaves for subsequent broadcasts, she provided conspiracy-minded segments that promoted false claims about the election results, including attacks on technology company Dominion Voting Systems. Those segments played a key role in Dominion’s defamation lawsuit against Fox, which the network ultimately settled for a massive sum.

That lawsuit also provided a keyhole view of how Pirro’s own colleagues viewed her. In an email, Fox executive David Clark, who oversaw her show, privately explained why he had taken her off the air at first: “I don’t trust her to be responsible. … Her guests are all going to say the election is being stolen and if she pushes back at all it will just be a token.” Internal Fox communications also show her executive producer describing her as a “reckless maniac” who is “nuts,” promotes “conspiracy theories,” and “should never be on live television.”

But it’s hard to get fired from Fox for being too supportive of Trump — and indeed, Pirro subsequently received a promotion to The Five. She used that post to furiously denounce the legal cases against Trump and the prosecutors and even jurors involved in them.

“We have gone over a cliff in America,” she said after a New York jury found Trump guilty on 34 counts. “This is a new era in America, and I think it goes against the ilk of who we are as Americans and our faith in the criminal justice system.”

Since Trump returned to office, Pirro has kept busy by showering him with praise. “Donald Trump is not panicked and neither should we be because he's bringing us to the golden age, Harold, and that's the end of it,” she said last month.

She’s also lashed out at anyone attempting to stand in his way, from federal employees who “think they’re entitled to a job” to “stupid” judges who rule against him to governors who won’t let state law enforcement cooperate with Immigrations and Customs Enforcement.

Pirro spent years denouncing the Justice Department for not serving as an extension of Trump’s will and throwing his political foes in jail. Now she’ll have the opportunity to do just that.

Reprinted with permission from Media Matters.

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