How Trump’s Four Ugly Words Reveal the Worst Is Yet to Come; The Daily Beast, November 22, 2025

David Rothkopf, The Daily Beast; How Trump’s Four Ugly Words Reveal the Worst Is Yet to Come

"On Tuesday, Trump welcomed Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman to his gold-plated throne room in the White House, as part of two days of high profile activities in Washington. When ABC News’ Mary Bruce asked Trump about Salman’s responsibility for the murder of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi, the president publicly insulted her, too. And then, he went further. “You’re mentioning somebody that was extremely controversial. A lot of people didn’t like that gentleman you’re talking about. Whether you like him, or didn’t like him, things happen,” Trump said. “But (the Crown Prince) knew nothing about it and we can leave it at that.”

Rather than defending a U.S. resident brutally hacked to death by thugs, Trump chose—in a moment that was as revealing as it was revolting—to attack the man who was murdered, protect the alleged murderer and, as he has done before, accept the word of an autocrat over the findings of the U.S. intelligence community.

Yet again, Trump is demonstrating that as long as he is president, any pretext that U.S. policy is grounded in morality, fundamental values or the law is out the window. The “things happen” ease with which he rationalizes actions and events that would be objectionable or even intolerable to any ethical leader may be characterized as the one overarching precept of his presidency–what we might call the ‘Trump Doctrine.’...

“Quiet, Piggy!” and “Things happen” are a distillation of Trump to his very essence. One manifests his vileness and contempt for women. The latter reflects his dangerous immorality...

We have all seen the damage those fantasies have done thus far. With warnings like this past week suggesting that greater danger lies ahead, we need to brace for worse to come. And those in the Congress, the courts, throughout the government and across society who are in a position to help contain the worst impulses of the man that the worst person in the world actually thought was even worse than him, will need to prepare to so and do so with unwavering resolve."

Shepard Smith, Late of Fox News, Gives $500,000 to a Free Press Group; The New York Times, November 21, 2019

Michael M. Grynbaum, The New York Times; Shepard Smith, Late of Fox News, Gives $500,000 to a Free Press Group

"“Our belief a decade ago that the online revolution would liberate us now seems a bit premature, doesn’t it?” Mr. Smith said in his customary Mississippi lilt. “Autocrats have learned how to use those same online tools to shore up their power. They flood the world of information with garbage and lies, masquerading as news. There’s a phrase for that.”...

The Committee to Protect Journalists, founded in 1981, works to advance press freedoms, particularly in dictatorial and autocratic countries. In recent years, speakers at its gala have increasingly referred to Mr. Trump’s attacks on the press and the hostile atmosphere faced by American journalists.

On Thursday, the group presented its Gwen Ifill Press Freedom Award to Zaffar Abbas, the editor of a daily Pakistani newspaper, Dawn. The other honorees were Patrícia Campos Mello, a journalist at a Brazilian publication, Folha de S. Paulo; Neha Dixit, a freelance investigative journalist in India; two Nicaraguan broadcast journalists, Lucía Pineda Ubau and Miguel Mora, who were imprisoned for 172 days on false charges; and Maxence Melo Mubyazi, a journalist in Tanzania."

Confronted with the bloody behavior of autocrats, Trump, instead, blames the world; The Washington Post, November 22, 2018

Kristine Phillips, The Washington Post; Confronted with the bloody behavior of autocrats, Trump, instead, blames the world

[Kip Currier: We must call out and hold accountable those leaders who engage in blurring the boundaries of objective truth, as in the example excerpted below, in which Donald Trump asserts that:

"Maybe the world should be held accountable, because the world is a vicious place."

Such a statement is the amoral apotheosis made manifest of a Gospel of the Inherent Unaccountability of Actors and States:

If everyone is culpable, then no one is culpable.

All are equal in blame.

No one is accountable to anyone else.

No system shall stand in judgment above any other.

Such a nakedly irreproachable manifesto flies in the face of bedrock principles undergirding the rule of law and the U.S. Constitutional system of checks and balances. It is a credo for unchecked anarchy, the very antithesis of originalism. It is the recurrent rhetoric and obfuscatory modus operandum of the oppressor, the despot, the tyrant. The aspiring authoritarian conman.

Its Orwellian aims--to cloud conceptions of "right and wrong", to gum up and break down the imperfect but fine-tuned cogs of systems and rules that hold people responsible for their action and inaction, to "gaslight", confuse, overwhelm with disinformation, demoralize, divide, and manipulate--must be named, called out, and rejected by those who see such self-serving machinations for what they are, and the threats to democracy, the rule of law, and free thinking peoples that they represent.

Inspired by and building upon the prescient words of George Orwell's 1984, to speak truth to power:

Mr. Trump--and those of your ilk, who weaponize facts and wield misinformation to attempt to delegitimize truth and reason--War is NOT peace. Freedom is NOT slavery. Ignorance is NOT strength.]

"In fielding questions from reporters about the killing of Washington Post contributing columnist Jamal Khashoggi, President Trump avoided blaming Mohammed bin Salman, despite the CIA’s findings that the Saudi crown prince had ordered the assassination.

“Who should be held accountable?” a reporter asked Trump Thursday. Sitting inside his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida, the president took a deep breath, seemingly mulling his response.

Then he said: “Maybe the world should be held accountable, because the world is a vicious place.""

It’s not just America: Zuckerberg has to answer for Facebook’s actions around the world; The Washington Post, April 10, 2018

Karen Attiah, The Washington Post; It’s not just America: Zuckerberg has to answer for Facebook’s actions around the world

"In many countries around the world, Facebook is the Internet. And with little ability to influence how the social media site operates, such nations are vulnerable to any policy action — or inaction — the company decides to take.

So while Zuckerberg struggles to answer for how his company is affecting Americans, let’s not forget that he has a lot more to answer for...

Time will tell if countries outside of the United States will ever be able to compel Zuckerberg to appear before their citizens and lawmakers to answer for Facebook’s actions. He may never appear in say, Germany, India, or Nigeria on his whirlwind apology tour. Nevertheless, he should not be absolved from the global consequences of the digital empire that he has built."