Tag: GOP silent on Trump abuse of power

Federal judge slams Trump and his allies for targeting juror in Roger Stone case

AlterNet logoTomeka Hart, who served as the forewoman on veteran GOP operative Roger Stone’s criminal trial last year, has been lambasted by President Donald Trump as well as by some well-known figures in the right-wing media — including InfoWars’ Alex Jones and Fox News’ Tucker Carlson. And Judge Amy Berman Jackson, according to CNN, asserted on Tuesday that attacks on Hart are part of a campaign of intimidation against the jurors.

Jackson, who presided over Stone’s trial, sentenced him to three years and four months in federal prison on February 20. Stone has requested a retrial, and Jackson — during a hearing on Tuesday — stressed that making the identities of the jurors public “would put them at substantial risk of harm.” Although Hart has spoken publicly about Stone’s trial, Jackson asserted that the privacy of the jurors must be respected.

“While judges may have volunteered for their positions … jurors are not volunteers,” Jackson explained. “They are deserving of the public’s respect.”  Continue reading.

Understanding our bully-in-chief: Donald Trump’s ‘antisocial personality disorder’ fits a pattern

AlterNet logoI wasn’t surprised by Donald Trump’s rage-tweet attack on Reps. Ilhan Omar, Ayanna Pressley, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Rashida Tlaib, any more than I was surprised by the maturity and sobriety of their response. After all, Trump’s racism is legendary, and telling them to “go back where you came from” is not just textbook racism, it’s a schoolyard bully’s taunt. And a racist schoolyard bully is the sum and substance of what Trump is.

In fact, one expert, physician and psychiatrist Dr. Frederick “Skip” Burkle, told me that autocratic leaders typically have histories of being bullies, and that that the most important thing about them that the public needs to understand. I first contacted Burkle by way of counselor and therapist Elizabeth Mika, whose chapter in “The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump” (Salon review here) explained that “Tyrannies are three-legged beasts”: the tyrant, his supporters and the society as a whole. That perspective is vital to understand our specific predicament, which is historically unique only within our national borders.

he generic predicament of racism is nothing new — particularly for the Republican Party. (See “The Long Southern Strategy.” Salon author interview here.) What is new is Trump’s malignant psychology, a character disorder shared by dozens of destructive autocratic leaders whose patterns of murderous rule Burkle described in a 2015 paper, “Antisocial Personality Disorder and Pathological Narcissism in Prolonged Conflicts and Wars,” drawing on  decades of experience as a world  leader in emergency public health crises such as war and conflict, as well as his background in psychiatry and pediatrics. A recent follow-up paper (“Character Disorders,” for short), focused on the negative impact autocratic leaders have on health security, human rights and humanitarian care.

View the complete August 24 article by Paul Rosenberg from Salon on the AlterNet website here.