The Man in the KKK T-Shirt
and the Yellow Star
By
Leonard Zwelling
http://www.cnn.com/videos/politics/2016/02/27/donald-trump-protester-kkk-shirt.cnn
If you want to see what the country will be like should
Donald Trump become President, look no further than this video clip from CNN.
A young man showed up at a Trump rally standing near the
podium wearing a crudely made t-shirt saying KKK Endorses Trump. Now, that’s an
awful thing to put on a t-shirt about anyone, let alone a man running for
President, but it is free speech. Trump calls for the young man’s removal by
the police and bemoans that it hasn’t happened already without his asking. Why?
Because the man disagrees with Trump? Because he implies Trump is a racist, an implication for which there is more than
adequate foundation? Because he wears the yellow star of the Holocaust Jews?
None of these things are illegal, even if they are in bad taste. Mr. Trump is
often accused of saying and doing things in bad taste so I am not sure why he
is offended by this young man’s quiet demonstration. Oh, now I remember. Trump
is a bully.
I myself was bullied in a similar fashion by the current
President of MD Anderson when he accused me of leaking documents to the press. He
regaled me in his office for 30 minutes while trying to embarrass me as I sat
between the active and pending Faculty Senate chairs. His accusation was not
true and he had no idea whether it was or not and furthermore didn’t care. He
was demonstrating to me his power and I demonstrated my indifference toward his
power right back. Tenure is a blessing, ain’t it?
Let me spell this out so there is no mistake. Donald Trump
has about as much right or qualifications for being President of the United
States as Ron DePinho has for being President of MD Anderson. None.
Now we have another MD Anderson conflict of interest,
research misconduct story making its way through the press:
It is impossible to do a credible
investigation of this allegation of misconduct that may have occurred at
Anderson because the institution itself has a vested financial interest in the outcome of
the investigation. Only an external independent inquiry into these allegations
can exonerate the principals and if they are in fact guilty of misconduct, the
chips need to fall where they may. Once again, the DePinho push to
commercialization takes down an MD Anderson core value—integrity. I wonder if anyone is caring.
I personally cannot believe that we may
well have a choice for President of the US between a likely felon and a for
sure con artist. Wow! It’s come to this. Why?
On the Democratic side, the party and
its non-constructive leader Debbie Wasserman-Schultz elected a strategy of
coronation of Hillary and only Bernie would stand in her way. The Bern won’t be
enough. The Democratic machine decided long ago who their proposed successor
for Barack Obama would be and that’s what is going to happen. After all, it’s
her turn, isn’t it? It’s the backroom deal of the century and luckily for her,
Loretta Lynch’s Justice Department is unlikely to prosecute her for what has to
be criminal stupidity if not an outright felony in the email fiasco.
By contrast, the GOP only wishes it had
taken a page from the DNC playbook:
NOW, the Republican leadership has
finally figured out that having 17 candidates was the key element that allowed
the rabid and discontented one-third of their voters to place Mr. Trump in an
unassailable position to win their nomination. Now they are either pandering
like Christie or hoping for four more years of Democrats in the White House
because it is more likely that they can work with Mrs. Clinton, one of their
Senate colleagues, than with Mr. Trump, a divisive wild card they cannot
control at all. Mitch McConnell cannot be a happy man, especially if he
believes that Trump on the top of the ticket will return him to being the
Minority Leader of the Senate, which with several Republicans running for
re-election in Blue states is possible.
This primary season will be written
about for 100 years. On the one hand there was a token resistance on the
Democratic side to the party’s machine. On the other, the GOP formed a circular
firing squad with Trump above it all in his 787 waiting to swoop in and take
the prize.
I think that Hillary will win the White House after all, despite not
being wholly happy about it myself and having predicted it wouldn’t happen. This
shows how much I know.
Mr. Trump is a fraud, a con man and a bad guy who
thinks he’s a good guy. He’s not. He’s just rich and that doesn’t make you good
or bad. He’s Bernie Madoff with funnier hair. Having $10 billion and the GOP
nomination for President virtually wrapped up and wanting the police to haul
off a young person in an offensive t-shirt makes you bad and unfit for public
office.
