A Certain Point of View: Writing, Film and Stuff

Why was Nixon impeachable but somehow Trump isn't? The times, they have a-changed since the 1970s. There are various reasons as to why Richard M. Nixon was easier to consider impeachable in the 1970s and Donald J. Trump seems to be “untouchable.” The biggest factor is, of course, the differences in the political environment in which both Administrations existed. Nixon was elected in 1968 and took the Presidential oath of office on January 20, 1969, and was re-elected in November of 1972 and managed to stay in office until he resigned on August 9, 1974. Trump was elected in November 2016 in a vastly different electoral and cultural environment. Nixon’s Presidency took place at a time when the Internet was not quite a thing; a proto-Internet existed in 1969, but it was essentially limited to the federal government and academia. The Vietnam War and its divisiveness were sowing the seeds of social discord that made Trumpism possible. The war - which America was losing an...

On Quora, Adrian J. Zarazua asks: If it’s true that Russia meddled with the 2016 US election then why did they want Donald Trump to win and not Hillary Clinton? My reply:  First of all, there is no “if.” Russian state-run hackers working for Russian Military Intelligence (or GRU in its Russian acronym) worked at the Internet Research Agency (IRA) to intervene in the ’16 elections in favor of now-President Trump. Second, Vladimir Putin had several motives for wanting Trump to win and Hillary Clinton to lose. And none of these motives were because he favors Republicans over Democratic Party pols or because he believed all the innuendoes and myths that the conservative movement has been crafting about Hillary Clinton since the 1992 Presidential election. In any criminal investigation, you have to apply the principle of  cui bono,  or, “who does it benefit?” Or more germane to the matter at hand, what does Putin’s Russia get out of a Trump Presidency? W...

On Quora, die-hard Trump supporter Eda Acuri asked this question yesterday: Why should the American public NOT take the Democrats interpretation of the Mueller's report? Quora has marked this question as being insincere. Here's my reply to Ms. Acuri: First, my fellow American, it’s not “Mueller’s report,” it’s the “Report On The Investigation Into Russian Interference In the 2016 Presidential Election,” by Special Counsel Robert S. Mueller III. If you’re going to ask loaded, insincere questions in an effort to defend  “the greatest President in American history,”  as some of you like to call Donald J. Trump, you can at least try for a modicum of accuracy when you write, especially on a public forum like Quora. Second, it’s not the “Democrats interpretation” of the above-mentioned “Report On The Investigation Into Russian Interference In the 2016 Presidential Election.” The way you phrased that question is as dishonest as it is grammatically incorrect, my friend....

On Quora, Trump supporter David Smith asks: If the Mueller report has been submitted and there is nothing about Trump, why are the investigations continuing? I reply:  Oh, sweet summer child. Such an assumption clearly indicates that you’ve not read any of the Mueller Report, which even in its redacted version shows a disturbing picture of not just Russian interference with the 2016 Presidential election with a specific goal in mind, i.e., to help Donald Trump win said election, but also of links between members of the Trump Campaign and representatives of organizations and oligarchs with ties to the Russian government. Here’s an excerpt of some of its conclusions: That fall, two federal agencies jointly announced that the Russian government "directed recent compromises of e-mails from US persons and institutions, including US political organizations," and, [t]hese thefts and disclosures are intended to interfere with the US election process." After the elect...

Why are so many Trump supporters acting like the Mueller investigation ending is a victory and proof of Trump’s innocence; when the findings of the report have yet to be made public, and any actions against Trump have not been decided yet? There are several reasons why I believe that many Trump supporters are either literally or figuratively high-fiving themselves in the belief that the President is innocent of collusion after yesterday’s news that Robert Mueller finished his investigation and that a report was handed over to the Justice Department per the rules established for such an inquiry. Obviously, the main reason is that most Trump supporters do not believe that “their” President has done anything wrong, period. To them, he is the Chosen One who will build the wall on the southern border, “make America great again,” and even though he has flaws up the yazoo, “God chose him to lead our country to undo the damage that that Muslim ‘fake President’ Obummer did over eight yea...

How much support will Donald Trump lose if Mueller reveals unequivocal evidence that he conspired with Russia to win the election? Based on my interactions with Trump supporters, as well as observations of what they say on Facebook, Twitter, and, yes, Quora, I’d say that the current President will lose less than 1 percent of his supporters  if Mueller provides them with unequivocal evidence that he colluded with Russia to win the election. Consider, Trump supporters have so far stayed loyal to Donald John Trump, Sr. for over two years  in spite  of the firing and/or resignations of two National Security Advisers, one Attorney General, one Secretary of State, two communications directors, one Secretary of Defense, and one Press Secretary for a plethora of reasons. In addition, several individuals who were investigated for Russiagate and election-related shenanigans have been arrested, pleaded guilty, or made plea deals with Special Counsel Robert Mueller and other e...

Reaper (the drone formerly known as Predator). Photo Credit: Wikipedia Commons Someone on Quora asks:  Would drone strikes on their cyber war facilities be an appropriate response to the Russian attacks on our election? No. Sending armed Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) over Russian territory and firing, say, Hellfire missiles at the Internet Research Agency’s headquarters in St. Petersburg (the former Leningrad) would be, don’t you know, an act of war. Seriously, dude. What  are  you thinking? Okay, let’s say that a future President (not Donald Trump or Mike Pence) decides that the proper response to Russia’s interference in our elections is what amounts to a conventional air strike, albeit using drones. First, let’s look at the graphics of this. Imagine, if you will, Russia’s state-controlled media beaming pictures of the burning IRA building wherever it may be in St. Petersburg. Chances are that the drone strike would be a “no warning” strike (be...

If you are old enough to remember the earthshaking events that took place between June 1989 (the Tianamen Square massacre in Beijing) and December 25, 1991 (Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev's announcement that the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics would cease to exist six days later as a political entity), you probably recall feeling a sense of relief and exultation.  After all, unless you were a die-hard Marxist who believed that Communism was the solution to humanity's problems - never mind that it is one of the most oppressive and tyrannical forms of governance - there was plenty to celebrate, especially once the red and gold banner with the hammer and sickle was lowered from the Kremlin's Spasky Tower for the last time. The Cold War between the Russian-led Warsaw Pact and the U.S.-led free world was over. There was no need for an expensive and never-ending arms race. Countries such as Cuba, North Korea, and all of the former Soviet satellites in Easte...

As someone who studied journalism in high school and college, I often wonder how professional journalists feel about Rupert Murdoch's Fox News Channel, the cable news outlet he founded 21 years ago to - in part, anyway - combat what he and many conservatives saw as the liberal domination of print and broadcast media. In a 2004 interview with the Australian Associated Press , Murdoch said that Fox is  "full of Democrats and Republicans, the others only have Democrats. We don't take any position there at all. " Murdoch's public position on Fox News' bias - or lack thereof- is reflected in the network's slogan, Fair and Balanced. However, given Murdoch's acknowledged support for former President George W. Bush's foreign and domestic policies and his reliance on the late Roger Ailes (who resigned in disgrace last summer as Fox News' chairman after several women at the network accused him of sexual harassment), many observers accuse Fox N...