Trump Hits the Bottom of the Barrel

Trump's recent hiring decisions are not the cream of the crop.

The VA
When Harry Truman wanted to solve problems with the Veterans Administration he appointed four-star general Omar Bradley. Bradley had a deserved reputation as a soldier's general, someone who cared about the men under him, and a superb manager of large, complex organizations. His 12th Army Group held four armies and nearly one million men.

Trump is appointing the last guy to give him a prostate exam. Rear Admiral Ronny Jackson is probably a competent physician, although his overly effusive description of Trump's health makes that questionable. He has never commanded more than a handful of doctors as physician supervisor at Camp David and director of the White House medical unit. The VA has over 370,000 employees and 152 medical centers plus over 1400 out-patient facilities.

Trump Hires Matlock
Trump's new personal lawyer for the Russia probe has never been employed at a major law firm and never served as a defense attorney. He is an elderly, cracker-barrel attorney who is a part time assistant to the Georgia Attorney General. His CV is replete with unpublished articles about medieval history. I'm sure he is folksy and will be able to entertain Mueller's crack team of prosecutors with stories about sixth century popes but Andy Griffith would probably have been a better choice.


Federal Aviation Administration
He hasn't picked him yet, but high on Trump's list for director of the FAA is John Dunkin, his personal pilot. The post has been empty for over a year. The previous administrators have had both significant private sector management experience and governmental experience in the field.

Bush the Younger's choice, Marion Blakey, had run a consulting firm that specialized in transportation issues and had previously been chairman of the National Transportation Safety Board. Dunkin's major accomplishment is avoiding turbulence so as to not upsetting Trump's stomach.

National Economic Council
The new Director, Larry Kudlow isn't an economist, but he plays one on TV.

CIA
Gina Haspel's principle experience is running CIA torture camps in Thailand and destroying video evidence of CIA torture. At least she is experienced.

Rick Santorum: Asshole of the Week

There were a lot of candidates. Dom Giordano, a Philly radio magpie, accused the teen activists fighting gun violence of acting "as if they are bulletproof." Actually, it was their knowledge that they are not bulletproof that has powered their activism. But the winning loser is Mr. Frothy.

Santorum thinks students shouldn't be involved in useless political activities (politics is how Santorum has spent his entire career). They should do something useful like learning CPR (so they will know how to revive the victims of the next mass shooting). He wants them to abandon their powerful united efforts to change the country and focus on weak, individual hobbies.

FBI Director's Reading Habits

It is interesting to know that FBI Director Chris Wray appears to think century old pulp fiction is intelligence research. Last month, Wray told a Senate committee, "One of the things we’re trying to do is view the China threat as not just a whole-of-government threat, but a whole-of-society threat on their end."

China a threat to the whole of American society? That's classic racist Yellow Peril stuff.

But he is supposed to be a reasonable voice in the administration. Sounds like just more 19th century bigotry.

John Bolton: National Security Advisor

As each day passes I am less and less worried that I will outlive my retirement funds. Sure, the stock market is collapsing and inflation will rise as the Trump tariffs cause trade wars and product shortages, but we'll all be dead in a couple of years or so either from global nuclear war or a fascist take over. So...

Why Trump's China Tariffs Will Fail

Some countries have seminal events that shape them decades and even centuries in the future. For China, one of those events was the Opium Wars.

Two hundred years ago, Europe, most notably England, was running a trade deficit with China. China made things that European consumers wanted like silk and tea while Europe didn't produce anything the Chinese found useful.

England had one potential cash crop, massive poppy fields in India but China soon made it illegal to import opium and confiscated over 1200 tons of opium in British owned warehouses in Canton. England and the East India Company were outraged.

The British sent an army and their fleet to compel the Chinese to legalize the narcotic trade and won an easy victory. China was forced to allow the free trade of opium, pay over half a trillion dollars (inflation adjusted) in reparations, and give the port city of Hong Kong to the British.

A decade later, the British decided the Chinese were not sufficiently subservient to British interests and, joined by France , Russia, and the United States, attacked Chinese coastal cities. Again, the Western forces had an easy victory and forced the Chinese to surrender more concessions and pay additional reparations.

This short YouTube film gives a good and entertaining overview of the history.

Why History Matters
China calls this the beginning of their Century of Humiliation when China was the victim of multiple foreign exploitations. Surrendering to Westerners in a trade conflict is unthinkable. Each Trump tariff will be met with a firm response. And this time the Americans are the ones with the addiction, to Chinese electronics.

Americans may view this trade war as transactional, just business. To the Chinese, a trade war is an existential attack on their nationhood. They will fight harder.

Republicans Hate Law Enforcement

There was a time when being a Republican meant being tough on crime and being the biggest supporters of law enforcement in the country.

There was a time when Republicans were at the forefront of hunting down Russian spies seeking to subvert American freedoms.

But that was long ago. Today, being a Republican means hating the FBI and doing everything in your power to undermine the FBI's credibility and undermining its efforts to uncover and combat criminal conspiracies.

Today, being a Republican means inviting Russian agents to penthouse meetings, encouraging Russian spies to corrupt American elections, and protecting those people working with Russian spies to attack America.

While a few Republicans are active traitors (Steve Bannon), most are merely "useful idiots," to use an old Russian phrase for the dupes they con into helping them.

Their greed for either money or power, or both, allows them, and along with them us, to be led to slaughter by a Russian strongman they don't even realize is their master. 

So Much News, So Little Time

1. The Future Takes a Stand

The big news today is not the Conor Lamb victory, it is the nationwide student movement against guns and gun violence. Nothing frightens establishment politicians like student movements. Want proof? The Chicago GOP is suing the Chicago public school system for not threatening retaliation against student protesters.

2. Death of a Genius

The greatest mind of our generation has passed this mortal coil to enter immortality. Stephen Hawking shined a light into the universe's blackest holes while inspiring thousands of people to study physics and millions of people to ignore handicaps and chase their dreams. The history of humanity has seen few people like Stephen Hawking and we are all diminished by his loss.

3. On Putin's Orders

First came the news that Vlad Putin vetoed Trump's choice of Mitt Romney for Secretary of State; picking instead the Putin approved recipient of Russia's Order of Friendship Rex Tillerson. Next came Trump's spokesman Sarah Sanders repeatedly refusing to even whisper the word "Russia" in connection to the nerve gas attack on a Russian ex-spy in London. Then Tillerson backed the British position that Russia was behind to nerve gas attack.

The very next day, Trump fired Tillerson. Can there be any question that the order came from Moscow and Trump followed that order obediently. We can assume that Pompeo will only keep the job as long as he is an obsequious toady to Putin.

4. Okay, Yeah, and Lamb

Sure, Conor Lamb ran a brilliant campaign while his opponent, Rick Saccone, was a lazy slug. Sure, Lamb was not a San Francisco liberal but a good fit for a blue-collar district. Still, this was a district where a Republican dead skunk would defeat a Democratic Jesus Christ. Trump won the district by twenty points. Trump campaigned for Saccone. Trump even sent his son to campaign for Saccone.

And Conor won by a whisker in a district where he should have had no chance. Republicans today are bleating sour grapes in the face of another epic failure. I feel like visiting a petting zoo and caressing a lamb.

Jeff Sessions and the New Fugitive Slave Act

Attorney General Jefferson Beauregard Sessions got the wrong end of the stick when he compared California's resistance to the roving gangs of immigration agents snatching up and deporting peaceful people in the state. Sessions compared it to slavery when the more apt comparison is to the Northern response to the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850.

The Fugitive Slave Act made it illegal for Northerners to assist an escaped slave seeking freedom. Like Sessions wants to force Californians to assist in the capture of immigrants, the Act compelled Northerners to actively participate in the hunt for blacks on pain of fine or imprisonment. Two Quakers were charged with treason for refusing to help slave hunters.

Several states passed laws forbidding state officers from helping the slave hunters. Massachusetts made it illegal for any state official to return a person fleeing slavery and disbarred any lawyer who represented slave masters.

California is on the right side of history and the right side of morality in this fight. It is Sessions who is treating people like chattel. The ICE raiders may have a perverted federal government on their side but Gov. Brown has the people of California behind him in this fight.

The people, united, will never be defeated. ~ 1960's civil rights slogan

Who Is This Peter Navarro Person?

I have the misfortune of knowing Peter Navarro. It was a quarter century ago, I was a leader of the San Diego chapter of the Sierra Club and Navarro was an economics professor in Orange County with dreams of political power. He saw in San Diego's vibrant environmental movement a possible tool for his delusions of grandeur.

Peter formed his own organization, PLAN!, ostensibly to fight rampant urbanization but really as an ego tool to promote himself.

I found myself working on a couple initiative campaigns with him. Peter was rude, crude, more interested in throwing bombs than making a reasoned case. He was Trumpian before that was a thing. We lost the first campaign in no small part due to his toxic participation.

We both served on the fundraising committee for the second campaign. The initiative was written by Sierra Club lawyers, it was so solid not even the building industry opposed it. Peter used his position on the committee to pretend to raise money for the campaign but he directed the cash to his personal organization. We won but Navarro's backstabbing has starved the campaign for funds and had we even a tepid opposition the initiative would have failed.

Peter then struck out on his own with a third initiative that was to be his launching pad for a campaign for mayor of San Diego. The initiative was badly written with dodads included for every progressive cause from labor to environmentalism. Unfortunately for Peter, the law requires initiatives to be single issue and Peter's was an over decorated Christmas tree.

Republicans took it to court over the labor provisions. Peter offered to cut them out even though labor had provided the signature gathering manpower. The judge ruled, rightly, that he couldn't rewrite an initiative after the signatures had been gathered and tossed the initiative.

No matter, Navarro ran for mayor of San Diego in 1992 against Republican career politician Susan Golding. Peter started out with a big lead but squandered it through his general ineptitude. Still, the race was neck and neck before the final debate.

Golding calmly goaded him into an unhinged tirade that doomed his chances. Peter lost. Peter lost three more times, for the county Board of Supervisors, Congress, and the San Diego City Council. Then Peter wrote an unpublishable book blaming everybody he ever met for the losses.

Peter didn't want political power for what he could do for people but what he could do to people.

To Peter there are two types of people in the world, people who worship him and people who should be destroyed. I remember his unrestrained glee when my mentor in the Sierra Club, Emily Durbin, died. She didn't worship at the alter of Navarro, instead she worked selflessly to protect the environment. I still have a lingering hatred for Peter for that alone.

Peter Now
Peter is supposed to be a China trade hawk but his steel tariffs will have no effect on China (they send the US almost no steel) but it will start a bitter trade war with our friend and neighbor, Canada.

This is completely within his long time habits - ignore the actual important issues and instead inflict the maximum pain on the maximum number of people. For nearly 30 years Peter has sought power and now, finally, he has it. He has the power to prove his superiority by crushing those he feels are beneath him. He feels everybody is beneath him.

Peter wants his trade wars. He wants war with Canada and Europe and Mexico because he thinks they are weaker than China and he can damage them more than he could hurt China.

It's who Peter is, a bomb throwing anarchist.

Tariffs Are a 19th Century Solution

Trade wars are good, and easy to win. ~ Donald the Mad

I guess we should be happy that Trump is bored with starting a nuclear war with North Korea. Now he wants to start a global trade war.

1880 Republican Platform

When George Bush imposed tariffs on imported steel in 2002, the goal was to save steel jobs and help Republicans in Ohio and Pennsylvania. The result was that more people lost their jobs as a result of the higher steel prices than were employed in the entire steel industry.

There were steel shortages as the US steel industry was unable to meet domestic demand. The US trade deficit actually increased because the cost of finished products, like automobiles, rose in the US making imported cars more attractive. Facing retaliatory tariffs from a united international trading system targeted to punish Republicans in Florida and Michigan, Bush withdrew his tariffs in less than a year.

A Brief Tariff History
Tariffs were a common tool used 150 years ago to protect domestic industries from more powerful manufacturing nations like England and Germany. Whether they worked or not then is problematic; the Gilded Age was great for the mega-wealthy but coincided with the Long Depression with high unemployment and extreme poverty for the working classes.

If you were steel magnate Andrew Carnegie, tariffs made life better than good; if you were employed by him life sucked and you worked until you died.

The most famous tariffs were the Smoot-Hawley Act during the Great Depression. They didn't cause the depression but they made it worst. Our tariffs and the retaliations slowed international trade to a crawl, isolating nations into individual islands of misery.

How a Republic Falls

You know the old saying, "those who don't study history are condemned to repeat it." How the Roman Republic fell into dictatorship is an object lesson for our times.

Proliferation of Weapons

gang of Oath Keepers

In the first century BC, it was illegal to carry weapons in the city of Rome. A supporter of Julius Caesar named Clodius ignored the law and organized armed gangs to harass citizens and disrupt elections. In response, a supporter of Caesar's rival, Pompey, named Milo (I really didn't make up these names) organized his own gangs of armed gladiators to harass other citizens and intimidate Caesar's followers.

Rigging Elections

While bribing elections officials had been illegal, and common, for years, Caesar and Pompey stepped things up in 56 BCE. The elections that year were postponed for months because of street violence by Clodius. These riots were organized by both Caesar and Pompey to freeze out their rivals and insure total control of government. When the elections finally happened the Triumvirate won as much through intimidation as popularity. Pompey then oversaw the election of lesser offices (Praetors and aediles) and openly used armed thugs to force the result in his favor.

Legislative Gridlock

The Roman constitution was designed for consensus, actions by the upper class (senators) could be vetoed by the public assembly (tribunes) and vice versa. But, as government became polarized between Caesar's populists and Cato's conservatives, consensus became impossible. The constitution called for two co-consuls to share the leadership of the government.

Yet in 59 BCE, Caesar's first as head of government, his co-consul was threatened and humiliated to the point he spend most of the year hiding out in his house. In 52 BCE, Pompey was granted sole consulship (without an election) in the hope he could get something done.

Constitutional Crisis

The Roman Republic had lasted for over 400 years, its constitution surviving invasions and civil wars. In these closing years of the Republic, Romans began seeing their constitution not as guideposts but obstacles. Increasingly, the constitution and Roman law was being ignored for convenience sake.

Law Breaker-In-Chief

When Caesar crossed the Rubicon River in 49 BCE with his 13th Legion he was breaking the law. Had Caesar returned to Rome without his army he would have been arrested and tried for the many crimes he had committed in the previous decade.

No, I am not comparing Trump to Caesar. Caesar was intelligent, brave, decisive and ruthless in his quest for total power. Trump is a cowardly senile idiot who may stumble into a dictatorship just to cover up his money laundering.

American Police State: School Zone

A couple years ago while walking Jerusalem's Old City, I stumbled upon a children's Purim party. Watching over the costumed children having fun were two uniformed men carrying automatic weapons. It was a bizarre sight, young children running around laughing while soldiers stood over them to prevent religious extremists from slaughtering the innocent.

It's a social deformity that Republicans want to bring to schools around the United States.

Of course, there are differences between Israel and the US.

• Israel is at war with Palestinian terrorists; Americans just love guns so much they want everybody to have them all the time everywhere.
• Israel uses highly trained professionals (soldiers, police); Americans just want to pass guns out to underpaid teachers and hope they will figure out what to do.
• Israel treats a rare school shooting as a national tragedy; in America it's just another Tuesday.
• Israel has strict gun laws; America has more guns than people and acts like guns are more important than people.

America the Beautiful?

The American Slaughter

Another day, another mass shooting.

The Numbers
Americans die annually of gun violence (15,590 in 2017) at a rate close to the worst year of the Vietnam War (16,899 in 1968). Americans were outraged at the carnage of that war while this home front war butchery is accepted by most as routine.

During the entire nine year Iraq War 4,424 Americans dies. That many Americans die by guns (96 per day) every seven weeks in this country.

The Non-Debate
We are told repeatedly that discussing gun control immediately after a tragedy is "too soon" but after 48 hours it becomes too late as there is probably another mass shooting to be too soon to talk about. There have been thirty mass shootings in the first 45 days of 2018.

Suffer the Children
Children are special targets. In 2017, a quarter of those shot to death (3,966) were aged 17 or younger.

School Shootings
There have been seven school shooting in the first seven weeks of 2018, killing 20 and wounding 39. There were 226 throughout the entire one hundred years of the 20th century. So far in the 21st century we are only 14 shy of matching that total.

The Constitution Is a Suicide Pact
"A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed." Why is it that nobody reads the first half of the Second Amendment?

The Predictable Outcome

• NRA politicians will vomit their standard "thoughts and prayers" although they likely gave neither a second thought nor a first prayer.
• Liberal politicians will declare that "something must be done" and then do nothing.
• Whatever gun caused the latest bloodshed will see its sales skyrocket as collector fetishists demand the newest celebrity firearm while wannabe mass murderers want something with proven killing potential.
• Rinse off the blood and wait too short a time for the next one.

Hope Hicks Is a Bit of a Slag

I had something else planned but I can't help noticing that Trump's Communications Director appears to be sleeping her way through an awful lot of Trump's staff.

Hicks was a model.

First there was the creepy story of Trump openly calling Hicks the "best piece of tail" Corey Lewandowski every had. Then came the news that Hicks is shagging serial wife abuser Rob Porter. As the cherry on top of this disgusting sundae is the rumor that Trump has an unnatural relationship with her.

I know this is slut shaming and I should be above such abhorrent behavior, but apparently not.

Trump's Wittle Parade

What Trump wants is to stand on an elevated platform...

like Kim Jung Un

probably joyishly applauding...

Stalin at a Soviet May Day parade

while tanks rumble down American streets...

Putin's tanks

like Washington D. C. was some occupied foreign capital.

Americans in Baghdad

He'll probably order American soldiers to goose step in parade because it's so showy.

Almost like the Rockettes.

Then again, maybe there will be one brave American patriot to show the world what freedom is really all about.

Beijing, 1989

'If This Be Treason, Make the Most of It'

Donald Trump today called Democrats "treasonous" for not applauding him at the State of the Union.

The first American legislator to be accused of treason for expressing his liberty from oppression was the great patriot Patrick Henry.

Damn good company for Democrats, I think. Damn good company indeed.

Stalin Is Rolling In His Grave

Old Joe Stalin knew how to purge government bureaus of their dedicated and honest workers and replace them with idiot sycophants. His show trials (this video about the 1938 Bukharin trial is worth a watch) displayed how to paint loyal patriots as traitorous scum. Even that other Joseph (McCarthy) knew to use public congressional hearings to slander innocent government employees.

But, a lightweight four page memo? Stalin's ghost is embarrassed.

Within the Fox-Breitbart echo chamber the Nunes memo will continue to be all the proof they need of treason most foul. Within the MSNBC-HuffPost echo chamber, where I live, this memo is such a nothingburger it is an insult to the very concept of nothingness.  To the people outside either chamber the 1300-word memo's convoluted vagueness will likely land like a wet turd in mud.

In chess the threat is often stronger than the execution. ~ Grandmaster Aron
Nimzowitsch

Trump's mistake was making the memo public. He should have kept it secret, blamed the secrecy on the FBI, and used it as the excuse for his FBI purge. As a secret, the memo contained all the conspiracies the human mind can imagine. Joe McCarthy knew this when he fabricated his secret list of "205 communists" in the State Department. Kept secret, it painted the entire department as treasonous.

Making the memo public robs it of its power. In the open, there is not enough there to justify show trials and purges. If anything, now people will want to see the Steele dossier for themselves and its continuing secrecy will be even more intriguing.

Soiled Doves of the West

In the 19th century, opportunities for a woman were limited. In the upper class, she was expected to learn needlepoint and marry well. A working class woman could hope for a job as a cook, maid, or servant or find herself in the hellish work of a sweatshop.

These women were paid about 50 cents a day.

Abused wives and daughters and women seeking adventure could run away and choose a different path out West where the opportunities were nearly limitless. But in a society where there were four men to every woman, a popular employment (at least popular for the men) was a career as a sex worker.

The Madams

The pimp is mostly a 20th century invention. From New Orleans to San Francisco and north to the Yukon goldfields, almost every brothel was own and operated by a woman who had grown wealthy plying the trade.

Jennie Rogers (right) was a statuesque beauty who became wealthy running one of the best houses in Denver. Jennie was not above blackmailing her clients to finance her upscale house.

Another madam, Mattie Silks (left), had a famous duel with a woman who had flirted with her lover. Mattie and her opponent, Katie Fulton, stripped to the waist, paced off, turn and fired. The only person shot was the man they were fighting over.

Mattie was a very successful businesswoman, owning brothels in both Denver and Dodge City. Her name was linked to a stylish type of boot and she endorsed a pearl handled dagger for women to carry for protection.

Pearl de Vere (real name unknown) showed up in Colorado as Mrs. Martin and adopted her pseudonym upon opening her upscale brothel in Cripple Creek. Hers was one of the swankiest parlors east of San Francisco, only the wealthiest mine owners could afford her girls.

Ladies with Nicknames

Big-Nose Kate (Mária Katalin Horony) pictured with her notorious lover Doc Holiday. She ran away from her foster home as a young teen and worked in the brothel owned by Bessie Earp, wife of Wyatt's older brother James.

Squirrel Tooth Alice (Libby Haley Thompson) was kidnapped by Comanche raiders at the age of 10. Ransomed three years later, she was ostracized by the good citizens of Bolton, Texas as used goods. At the age of 14, she ran away to Abilene where she worked in dance halls along the Chisholm Trail as a performer and prostitute before establishing her own brothel. She is pictured with one of her pet prairie dogs.

Calamity Jane (Martha Jane Canary) did, occasionally, engage in prostitution for extra cash but she is most noteworthy for showing what work was available to women in the West. She was an army scout during the Indian Wars.

The Working Life

Working women chopping wood in Dawson City, Yukon Territory.

Sex work is never glamorous. The hours are long. The customers in mining camps are numerous and smelly. In the cheap cribs of San Francisco's Barbary Coast or Los Angeles' Hell's Half Acre a woman might have to service 30 men a night for less than a dollar each.

It was a hard life, but all life in the 19th century was hard if your name wasn't Rockefeller or Vanderbilt.

Stop the World, I Want to Get Off

All I want to do right now is write a nice long piece on the soiled doves of the Old West but the news keeps coming at me like an avalanche down a ski slope being hit by a tsunami while the sun is obscured by a massive oncoming asteroid.

That Mueller Firing Thing
Those of us who can remember back to last summer can recall the rumors that Trump wanted to fire the special counsel (see link above). All the New York Times has done is sound journalistic research to confirm what we all had suspected.

Trump Says 'Fake' Three Times
Like a childishly magical incantation, Trump called the Times reporting "fake news" three times. Did you ever notice he always repeats things thrice? If he says the phrase "no obstruction" once he has to say it twice more in the same sentence. It's a blunt tell that he is lying his eyes out.

Five Republicans Tried to Meet With Neo-Fascist
A group of congressmen including Steve King, Dana Rohrabacher, and Louis Gohmert planned to meet the leader of the Czech Republic's SDP party to discuss concerns over "demographic changes." The SDP party wants to address those changes by gassing Jews, gays, and Gypsies. It was canceled at the last minute, probably because people noticed they were meeting with fucking Nazis.

Trump Booed at Davos
When he brought his America First, Fuck Everyone Else tour to the world economic forum.

Let's Party Like It's 1930
Who doesn't want to go back to the good old days - Ten Cents a Dance was playing on the Victrola, Babe Ruth was still knocking the cover off the ball, Clyde Tombaugh discovered Pluto, and Republicans passed the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act that turned the stock market crash from a recession into a global depression.

Trump wants tariffs (see the link already). He wants tariffs more than cheeseburger. Trump wants to put tariffs on pretty much everything because he thinks it will stop the world from laughing at him. And it will, too. Tariffs stop global trade which will cause economies to collapse. The world will stop laughing at Trump then. Starvation does that.

Stop the World, I Want to Get Off
If you didn't get the reference, this is the title of a 1960's Broadway musical about a miserable circus clown who can't even find happiness when elected to public office. It's most famous song was "What Kind of Fool Am I."

The FBI 'Secret Society'

In 1950, Sen. Joseph McCarthy (R-WI) held up a piece of paper in Wheeling, West Virginia and said it was a list of 205 Communists within the US State Department. The paper was blank, there was no list. McCarthy used that lie to wage a four year reign of terror on America.

 

Rep. Devin Nunes (R-CA) says he has a secret memo disclosing a secret society within the FBI. The memo is so secret that no one except a handful of right-wing media pundits can know the contents.

FBI meeting

From a propaganda perspective, the phrase "secret society" is golden. It conjures images of FBI agents in robes meeting by candlelight to sacrifice goats and children. You can't argue that there is no evidence for any such secret society because the absence of evidence is proof of how profoundly secret it is.

The evil secret society trope is shopworn but effective. In the first decade of the 20th century, Jew haters wrote the "Protocols of the Elders of Zion" that purported to be an evil plan for taking over the world. Henry Ford and Hitler published and disseminated these "protocols" to justify their violent antisemitism.

There is the fictional secret cabal of New World Order globalists funded by one man, George Soros (conveniently Jewish), plotting world domination that Steve Bannon used to build Breitbart.

It is silly and would be funny if our government's controlling political party wasn't pushing this absurdity.