September 12, 2011
I wrote a piece on September 15, 2001, as downtown Manhattan was engulfed in flames, fear and dust, panicked about the notion of seeking revenge by targeting the wrong people. I was thinking of innocent Afghanistan citizens who were already targets of the Taliban, who would likely bear the brunt. I hadn’t even contemplated Iraq.
What changed for me permanently on 9/11 was magnitude. I couldn’t comprehend the damage or loss of life from the first tower as it was hit, and then the second, and then the collapse, of the first, and then the second. Sure there was Hiroshima, but that was before my time. And I didn’t watch it live on television.
By that point what happened to the Pentagon and in a Pennsylvanian field was almost collateral damage – a sideshow away from the main feature. The notion that a hijacked commercial plane flying into the Pentagon seemed trivial was simply a result of the magnitude of what had happened in Manhattan. That the apparent heroics of Mark Bingham and others who brought down Flight 93 could be so easily relegated to an afterthought unless I actively force myself to consider what happened, and what could have.
The article I wrote was a desperate plea to take a step back. A foreboding prediction of what might otherwise become, which came true far worse and much quicker than I had imagined.
Timing and our capacity to heal wounds – both physiological and psychological — plays a significant role in how we respond to tragedy and how we recalibrate our world view and human understanding. The notion of “too soon†applied to comedians that use humor or artists that use their craft to laugh or comment on something that is still raw is the first step in permission to heal.
On the first anniversary of 9/11, I produced a piece called “Things Go Better,†depicting the twin towers as giant Coca Cola bottles looming with vaguely comforting familiarly behind the Statue of Liberty. An unmistakable, globally recognized icon of American brand power and reach. Fused with the fallen symbols of America’s economic might. Fragile, vulnerable made of glass, easily crushed. The response from many – disgust, vitriolic messages and threatening warnings – was as much a response to the timing of the piece as it was to its content and message. The deeper truth was what proved more upsetting. That it was just a matter of time before 9/11 became a cheap, gaudy commoditization of tragedy to be packaged, wrapped in jingoism and paranoia, and exploited to feed our consumerist obsession and stoke our fear. A subconscious foreboding that the blatant message that Osama Bin Laden sought to visually depict as America’s economic downfall was not simply a metaphor, and would become, and since has, a reality.
On the second anniversary of 9/11 I produced a piece called Phoenix Rising, the identical landscape as the first, except that the Statue of Liberty wore a gas mask, her outstretched arm like a Sig Heil salute. The once proud towers morphed and twisted into a swastika. Perhaps more misunderstood than any piece I’ve done (and for which I bear responsibility) the image was a warning. We were already heading that way. Godwin’s law renders the reference of Nazis or Hitler out of bounds in the pursuit of consensus or intelligent debate, but when the comparisons are so stark, why not?
The passage of the newspeaky Patriot Act that made emergency powers commonplace and threatens the very tenets of democracy, that fundamental extremist terrorists abhor, which continue. The denial of habeus corpus and our extraordinary rendition program. An ironic exercise in which we “extradite†detainees to countries like Egypt (although that now remains to be seen), where they can be tortured legally, because we supposedly don’t. (And of course, when we do, we pretend we didn’t really, and “look forward†instead.) America doesn’t torture so how can we prosecute ourselves for it?
The conflation of the twin towers with a symbol so universally reviled (except for those who hate a black president more than they desire economic relief) produced the same vile, ugly, threatening response. The first year was “too soon†for any symbols, even proudly American ones. The second “too soon†for iconic associations like swastikas designed as a warning to refrain from becoming something different. Phoenix rising from the ashes was a call to remember what was once valued, not a comment on who we had already become — or were fast becoming.
And so now, ten years later, having seen a new generation, who were too young to experience 9/11, dance in the streets at the death of Bin Laden – orchestrated by a Commander in Chief who put an enormous amount at stake for only a momentary boost to his approval ratings, without any understanding as to what else we lost that day, or how similar the dancing in the streets looked on 9/11 in various parts of the Middle East.
America has become a very different place from that fateful Tuesday. The outrageous costs of life and treasury in two wars that have done nothing other than to give credence to Bin Laden’s ugly predictions have left our economy in ruins, our political system immobilized and useless and our moral standing lost in the ashes of the rubble at Ground Zero.
Thousands upon thousands of lives later, countless tortured confessions later, we are no safer nor better off than we were on September 11th. Only more universally reviled and just as likely to blame every Muslim that lives and breathes – or those killed on 9/11 – for the events of that fateful day. Millions of photos and tears later, we rage without introspection, still unable to separate our anger from our self-righteousness.
Billions of confiscated bottles later, we still wait barefoot in lines at airports, subject to radiation or molestation by the TSA. While our unsupervised railway lines, busses and uninspected ports remain just as vulnerable as they ever were, thanks to regulation loathing politicians who would sooner give a billionaire a tax break than a federal job that serves us all to someone who desperately needs it.
Thousands of gay bashings later, and concerted efforts to brand, scapegoat, marginalize and ensure or retain second-class citizens, far too many Americans still seek to deny rights to anyone who isn’t straight or part of an idealized nuclear family. The same rights they would deny Mark Bingham, or Father Mychel Judge as they weep over their memorials. The same ugly, dangerous, hate-filled vitriol vomited by the likes of Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell remains unchanged, other than that Jerry Falwell is now somewhere answering to his bitter, uncompromising God. As the Pamela Gellers and Michelle Malkins of the world fill the void in a sad, ironic salute to gender equality.
Millions of hypocritical musings and flag-draped, lip-serviced, patronizing mutterings later, the first responders hailed on Fox News and other right wing blogs and websites and radio stations, are the same people whose membership in unions have deemed them enemy number one, as America seeks to cut their wealth and weaken their collective bargaining rights to ensure greater profit and less accountability to anyone or anything other than the bottom line.
Millions of iPads and iPhones and smart this and smart that later, our incredible advances in technology come with very costly strings attached. Secret Apple “investigative units†acting in concert with the San Francisco Police Department, cell phone companies (that were aiding and abetting illegal secret wiretapping policies) and transportation agencies cutting off service to quell First Amendment rights of protestors against police brutality, fifty-four page intellectual property contracts and draconian digital rights management policies, and an unprecedented erosion of privacy that we complicity accept in the name of convenience, just like we do unconstitutional legislation under the guise of security.
Millions of underwater homes later – both from loan-sharking predators killing the lives and dreams of those seeking to better themselves, and literally underwater from an old, crumbling infrastructure – we continue to prop up banks and financial institutions that got us into this mess, while cutting vital services we expect from the government, such as the Federal Aviation Agency, so vitally important on September 11th.
Billions of carbon emissions later, we still choke our environment with shrieks for reduced “job-destroying†regulations that fly in the face of science, deny the realities of climate change, and allow giant corporations like BP to continue reckless drilling experiments at the expense of our oceans, marine life and livelihoods, while they “remedy†accidents by pouring toxic, inadequately tested dispersants to hide rather then fix the devastation.
It’s difficult to contemplate the almost irreparable, catastrophic damage exacted on the American people and rest of the world by a greedy, profit-only-at-any-cost-motivated, corrupt, dishonest, thieving, financial industry, dependent on a boated military industrial complex designed to make defense industry CEOs and Wall Street billionaires even richer at the expense of everyone else.  With the help of a complicit, empty joke of a puppet-controlled political system disguised as two-party to keep everyone divided and distracted.
Had so many of the victims not been regular, hard-working people going about their day, or homeless victims asleep in the subways below, or first responders rushing to help and save their fellow citizens, the symbolism of Bin Laden’s attack on the World Trade Center and Pentagon might be a lot more readily understood, if not applauded, by Main Street — would it have happened today.
Ten years later, we are just as stupid, pathetic, unsafe, and deluded as we ever were, if not more. The only thing that’s changed is that we have grown older as the memories and potential lessons of 9/11 fade into the distance. And unless and until we do something about it, Osama Bin Laden won.
Clinton Fein is an internationally acclaimed author, artist, and First Amendment activist, best-​known for his 1997 First Amendment Supreme Court victory against United States Attorney General Janet Reno. Fein has also gained international recognition for his Annoy​.com site, and for his work as a political artist. Fein is on the Board of Directors of the First Amendment Project, “a nonprofit advocacy organization dedicated to protecting and promoting freedom of information, expression, and petition.†Fein’s political and privacy activism have been widely covered around the world. His work also led him to be nominated for a 2001 PEN/Newman’s Own First Amendment Award.
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House Republicans are circulating a “menu” of options that Speaker Mike Johnson’s conference could chose from—reportedly a massive $5 trillion worth of federal government programs to put on the chopping block to pay for the President-elect’s promised priorities, including tax cuts and border security.
According to Politico, there is an “early list” of proposed cuts (below) that “includes changes to Medicare and ending Biden administration climate programs, along with slashing welfare and ‘reimagining’ the Affordable Care Act.” Also, in addition to suggesting cuts to Medicaid and the Affordable Care Act (ObamaCare), “the document floats clawing back bipartisan infrastructure and Inflation Reduction Act funding.”
Politico also reports that Republicans appear to be considering cuts to “the country’s largest anti-hunger program”—or, SNAP, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program formerly known as food stamps. This would “spark massive opposition from Democrats and would also face some GOP resistance.”
There is far more, including siphoning about $2.3 trillion from Medicaid, a federal government program that has been providing critical health insurance for low-income adults and children for six decades.
READ MORE: Trump Trying to Buy Back His DC Hotel Seen as ‘Magnet’ for Conflicts of Interest: Reports
The early list, published by Politico, has positive-sounding categories like “Making Medicaid Work for the Most Vulnerable,” but within that are proposals like “Medicaid Work Requirements.”
Republicans have for years been trying to institute work requirements for Medicaid recipients, despite the fact that about two-thirds of recipients who are able to work are already employed.
“An analysis from the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) found that a national Medicaid work requirement would result in 2.2 million adults losing Medicaid coverage per year (and subsequently experiencing increases in medical expenses), and lead to only a very small increase in employment,” KFF (formerly the Kaiser Family Foundation) reported in 2023.
The list also proposes “Ending Cradle-to-Grave Dependence,” which, among other items, suggests “Reduce TANF by 10 Percent.”
According to the federal government, “Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) is a federally funded, state-run program. Also known as welfare, TANF helps families pay for” items including food, housing, home energy, and child care.
Republicans also suggest they can save $152 billion in the section titled, “Reimagining the Affordable Care Act.”
Politico got a hold of a leaked list of GOP plans to cut federal spending on Medicaid and the Affordable Care Act
www.politico.com/news/2025/01…— Cynthia Cox (@cynthiaccox.bsky.social) January 10, 2025 at 2:01 PM
Politico adds that Republicans are “also eyeing repealing significant Biden administration health care rules, which could include ending a rule requiring minimum staffing levels at nursing homes.” It is unclear how that would provide cost savings to the federal government.
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They also suggest they can pull $468 billion in savings by putting President Joe Biden’s climate policies “on the chopping block.”
Politico’s Meredith Lee Hill on social media noted: “Huge cuts to SNAP – the country’s largest anti-hunger program – proposed in here…would quickly hit +40 million low-income Americans…it’s already triggering immense backlash among some GOP centrists + even more conservative Rs.”
“Speaker Johnson can’t afford any GOP defections,” she added.
Vanity Fair’s Molly Jong-Fast characterized the proposals as “Taking food stamps away from hungry children to pay for tax cuts for wealthy people.
Salaam Bhatti, the director of the Food Research and Action Center, remarked: “Cutting & gutting SNAP and kicking millions of poor people off the program at a time when people voted because they can’t afford to put food on the table is the most out of touch thing I’ve ever seen.”
“Trump voters in red states who rely on those programs are going to love this,” quipped Alex Gonzalez, a political analyst and editor-in-chief for Latino Public Policy Foundation. “Trump wants to cut $5.6 trillion from federal programs to fund $10 trillion in tax cuts for the wealthy and corporations. Ironically, red states depend more on these programs than blue states.”
READ MORE: ‘Bananas’: Congressman Asks How Trump’s ‘Insane’ Threats Benefit Americans Economically
Image via Reuters
President-elect Donald Trump, set to move back to Washington in ten days after he is sworn in as the nation’s 47th President, is reportedly in talks to buy back his former D.C. hotel, a source of constitutional concern during his first term, where foreign governments and dignitaries could spend lavishly. Some legal experts warned of possible violations of the Emoluments Clause.
“Donald Trump’s real-estate company is in talks to reclaim its former Washington, D.C., hotel, a move that could offer an early test of how the president-elect will handle potential conflicts of interest,” The Wall Street Journal reports. “Eric Trump this week met at his family’s Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida with an executive from merchant bank BDT & MSD Partners, which controls the long-term lease on the hotel, according to people familiar with the matter.”
“An executive vice president at the company, Eric Trump discussed purchasing the lease, though the talks are still preliminary and may not lead to any sale, these people said,” The Journal added. “The Trump International Hotel in Washington, D.C., is now a Waldorf Astoria and operates in the Old Post Office building, which is owned by the federal government and was leased to the Trumps. Trump opened the hotel in 2016, but sold the lease rights in 2022 for $375 million.”
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Bloomberg News, also reporting on what it calls “early talks to reacquire its former Washington hotel,” notes that critics “said the mixing of business and political activities was a conflict of interest. The hotel was at the center of at least two lawsuits accusing the president of violating the emoluments clause of the US Constitution, which bars presidents from receiving gifts or payments from foreign governments.”
According to a report in The Independent, the Trump International Hotel Washington D.C. took in more than $3.7 million from foreign governments during Trump’s tenure as President. “This raises concerns about possible violations of the Constitution’s foreign emoluments clause, which says that Congress should approve any gifts to officeholders from foreign governments.”
The U.S. Secret Service spent at least $1.4 million at his D.C. hotel as well, according to an ABC News report citing congressional documents.
“The Trump Organization on some occasions charged the Secret Service more than five times the government rate to stay at Donald Trump-owned properties while the agency was protecting him and his family,” ABC News also reported.
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Legal experts and a watchdog group are once again expressing concern.
“Instead of mitigating conflicts of interest ahead of his inauguration, looks like Trump is doubling down on corruption by trying to get the lease on the DC hotel back,” warned CREW, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington.
CQ Roll Call White House Correspondent and editor-at-large John T. Bennett responded to CREW by saying, “Not sure why anyone would expect him to, after all these years.”
New York Times’ business investigations reporter David Enrich notes: “The Trumps are looking to reclaim their DC hotel, which is down the street from the White House and was a magnet for conflicts of interest in his first administration.”
READ MORE: ‘Mexican America’: President of Mexico Trolls Trump With Vintage Map
Image via Reuters
President-elect Donald Trump, at 10:07 AM ET on Friday, was sentenced by Acting New York Supreme Court Justice Juan Merchan after a jury of his peers found him guilty on 34 criminal felony counts of business fraud for what Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg described as “falsifying New York business records in order to conceal his illegal scheme to corrupt the 2016 election.”
He received no punishment. In 10 days, Donald Trump will become the first person to enter the White House as President of the United States as a convicted felon, barring any extraordinary efforts.
Trump’s “conviction, a Class E felony offense, is eligible for a penalty of up to four years in prison and several thousands of dollars in fines per count,” Politico reports. But Judge Merchan “instead issued a so-called ‘unconditional discharge,’ a decision that will spare the incoming president any jail time, fines or probation.”
Merchan told Trump, “This court has determined that the only lawful sentence that permits entry of judgement of conviction, without encroaching on the highest office of the land is unconditional discharge,” The Guardian’s Hugo Lowell reports.
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Trump said Thursday night he will appeal the conviction.
The President-elect was allowed to appear virtually and was accompanied by his attorney, Todd Blanche. Trump has indicated he will nominate Blanche to be the United States Deputy Attorney General.
an image from Trump’s sentencing pic.twitter.com/ds2yP7hoKQ
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) January 10, 2025
A billionaire real estate magnate who entered politics with no experience in 2015 by showcasing his wealth and attacking Mexican immigrants, Trump found his 2016 presidential campaign in jeopardy after the “Access Hollywood” tape was released. It showed a grown man making lewd comments about women, including what many perceived as him joking about, and appearing to brag and admit to, sexual assault. Originally recorded in 2005, it was released just one month before the 2016 election to widespread and bipartisan condemnation. Denying his comments were admitting to sexual assault, Trump called it “locker room talk.”
Trump was found to have paid “hush money” to adult film actress Stormy Daniels—with whom he reportedly had a sexual encounter—in what prosecutors said was an effort to protect his presidential campaign.
A Manhattan grand jury indicted Trump in March of 2023. He was arraigned days later. The jury trial was held in April of 2024. Trump was convicted on all 34 felony counts.
Trump had made desperate attempts to delay sentencing, which originally had been scheduled for July 11, and had already been postponed twice. But Thursday night, after three New York courts refused his requests, the U.S. Supreme Court also refused to stay Friday’s sentencing.
“Over the past week, Trump’s lawyers filed hundreds of pages of high-pitched arguments in four courts, at every level of the NY judiciary and SCOTUS, in a failed bid to stop these proceedings,” reported Just Security’s Adam Klasfeld.
During Friday’s sentencing, New York prosecutor Joshua Steinglass berated Trump and his actions.
“This defendant has caused enduring damage to public perception of the criminal justice system and has placed officers of the court in harm’s way,” he told Judge Merchan, according to Courthouse News reporter Erik Uebelacker.
Steinglass added that Trump “engaged in a coordinated campaign to undermine its legitimacy. Far from expressing any kind of remorse for his criminal conduct, the defendant has purposely bred disdain … for the rule of law,” Uebelacker also reported.
Klasfeld reported that Steinglass also told the court: “Today’s sentence ‘cements’ Trump’s ‘status as a convicted felon’ and ‘gives full respect to the jury’s verdict.'”
“After confirming that prosecutors recommend a sentence of unconditional discharge,” Klasfeld added, “Assistant DA Joshua Steinglass tears into [Trump] and his ‘threats’ to ‘retaliate against prosecutors.'”
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Politico’s Kyle Cheney observed, “The reality of Trump’s long-delayed sentence means he will have to fight the appeal while in office, a dynamic his lawyers argued would be a distraction on the presidency. But an appeal is also his only chance to erase the ‘felon’ label, and he seems eager to begin that process.”
“NOW you can call him a convicted felon,” remarked NBC News Justice and Intelligence Correspondent Ken Dilanian.
Some critics, including legal experts, are expressing disappointment and frustration.
“Donald Trump sentenced to a complete and total victory over the justice system,” civil rights lawyer Matthew Segal, the co-director of the ACLU’s State Supreme Court Initiative, wrote from his personal social media account.
“Trump, escaping all punishment for dozens of felonies, says he’s been treated ‘very unfairly,'” observed Talking Points Memo founder Josh Marshall.
“45, 47, Felon,” remarked former U.S. Attorney Barb McQuade, an MSNBC/NBC News legal analyst.
SiriusXM host Dean Obeidallah, a lawyer, lamented the outcome: “No where can you find a person convicted of 34 felonies who is sentenced to no penalties. Period,” he wrote.
“Trump should not be heading to the White House. He should be reporting to prison,” he added.
Obeidallah also predicted that “Trump will 100% commit more crimes in the next few years. How do I know that? Simple, because Trump knows he will never be held accountable.”
Former TIME magazine managing editor Richard Stengel, who served as an Under Secretary of State for President Barack Obama, commented: “I don’t know about you, but I’d prefer to live in a country where no person—not a president-elect, not a president—is above the law.”
MSNBC/NBC News legal correspondent Lisa Rubin notes that “now that the sentencing is over, the gloves could come off. Why? Merchan has no more leverage over Trump. The sentencing is over, and so, according to a June 2024 order, is the gag order Trump constantly complains about and frequently distorts. That order expressly expires with ‘the imposition of sentence.'”
READ MORE: ‘Mexican America’: President of Mexico Trolls Trump With Vintage Map
Image via Reuters
‘Slashing Welfare’: GOP Eyes Chopping $5 Trillion to Pay for Trump Priorities—Like Tax Cuts
Trump Trying to Buy Back His DC Hotel Seen as ‘Magnet’ for Conflicts of Interest: Reports
‘45, 47, Felon’: Trump Sentenced But Expert Warns ‘Now the Gloves Could Come Off’
‘MAGA Friendly’ Fetterman Blasted for Accepting Trump Mar-a-Lago Invite
Alito’s ‘Unmistakable Breach’ Warrants Recusal in Trump Case: Judicial Policy Expert
News3 days ago‘45, 47, Felon’: Trump Sentenced But Expert Warns ‘Now the Gloves Could Come Off’
News4 days agoAlito’s ‘Unmistakable Breach’ Warrants Recusal in Trump Case: Judicial Policy Expert
News4 days ago‘MAGA Friendly’ Fetterman Blasted for Accepting Trump Mar-a-Lago Invite
News3 days agoTrump Trying to Buy Back His DC Hotel Seen as ‘Magnet’ for Conflicts of Interest: Reports
News3 days ago‘Slashing Welfare’: GOP Eyes Chopping $5 Trillion to Pay for Trump Priorities—Like Tax Cuts
News4 days ago‘All Eyes on SCOTUS’ After Trump Loses Sentencing Bid at Top NY Court