Anyone who has ever been bullied either comes to hate and oppose bullies or becomes a bully himself. The first reaction takes a certain amount of integrity and a sense of self-worth, the second, only a reflex to appear tough and hurt others before they can hurt you.
Free speech protected in the United States includes verbal bullying, lying, divulging private details about others on-line, making many kinds of threats, claiming imaginary outrages are real (Biden is a pedophile who drinks the blood of his victims, etc.) and all sorts of disgusting speech. The truth does not always prevail over such speech. Here’s today’s bit from Trump v. United States and Common Decency, part 7,582.
This is 42 year-old Huyen “Steven” Cheung, MAGA loyalist and current Trump spokesman. Here are two quotes to give you the context of his general credibility, from his Wikipedia page:
Cheung was named the spokesman of the Trump 2024 presidential campaign. After Trump was criticized in October 2023 for his statement that undocumented immigrants were “poisoning the blood of our country,” echoing language of white supremacists and Adolf Hitler, Cheung responded:
That’s a normal phrase that is used in everyday life – in books, television, movies, and in news articles. For anyone to think that is racist or xenophobic is living in an alternate reality consumed with non-sensical outrage.[40]
After Trump was criticized in November 2023 for using language of fascist dictators by referring to his political opponents as “vermin”, Cheung said:
Those who try to make that ridiculous assertion are clearly snowflakes grasping for anything because they are suffering from Trump Derangement Syndrome and their sad, miserable existence will be crushed when President Trump returns to the White House.[41]
Mr. Cheung was right that the phrase “poisoning the blood” is common in books, movies, television shows and news articles … about Adolf Hitler. Fuck that fucking puto.
Here’s Heather Cox Richardson, reporting on the recent stink Trump, Cheung and others made at a recent transgressive campaign photo op at Arlington National Cemetery that involved at least one member of Trump’s entourage shoving a female employee of Arlington National Cemetery who politely tried to prevent the forbidden campaign photo op. An Army spokesperson defended the professionalism of the employee, who although abruptly pushed aside avoided further disruption.
Spoiler, Trump spokesman Huyen Cheung graciously claimed that the Arlington National Cemetery employee shoved aside “was clearly suffering from a mental health episode”.
Heather:
A statement from the Arlington National Cemetery reiterated: “Federal law prohibits political campaign or election-related activities within Army National Military Cemeteries, to include photographers, content creators or any other persons attending for purposes, or in direct support of a partisan political candidate’s campaign. Arlington National Cemetery reinforced and widely shared this law and its prohibitions with all participants. We can confirm there was an incident, and a report was filed.”
Republican vice presidential candidate Senator J.D. Vance of Ohio first said there was a “little disagreement” at the cemetery, but in Erie, Pennsylvania, today he tried to turn the incident into an attack on Harris. “She wants to yell at Donald Trump because he showed up?” Vance said. “She can go to hell.” Harris has not, in fact, commented on the controversy.
VoteVets, a progressive organization that works to elect veterans to office, called the Arlington episode “sickening.”
In an interview with television personality Dr. Phil that aired last night, Trump suggested that Democrats in California each got seven ballots and that he would win in the state if Jesus Christ counted the votes. As Philip Bump of the Washington Post pointed out today, Trump has always said he could not lose elections unless there was fraud; last night he suggested repeatedly that God wants him to win the 2024 election.
Heather, in a follow-up posted early this morning:
And now the U.S. Army has weighed in on the scandal surrounding Trump’s visit to Arlington National Cemetery for a campaign photo op, after which his team shared a campaign video it had filmed. The Army said that the cemetery hosts almost 3,000 public wreath-laying ceremonies a year without incident and that Trump and his staff “were made aware of federal laws, Army regulations and [Department of Defense] policies, which clearly prohibit political activities on cemetery grounds.”
It went on to say that a cemetery employee “who attempted to ensure adherence to these rules was abruptly pushed aside…. This incident was unfortunate, and it is also unfortunate that the… employee and her professionalism has been unfairly attacked. [Arlington National Cemetery] is a national shrine to the honored dead of the Armed Forces, and its dedicated staff will continue to ensure public ceremonies are conducted with the dignity and respect the nation’s fallen deserve.”
“I don’t think I can adequately explain what a massive deal it is for the Army to make a statement like this,” political writer and veteran Allison Gill of Mueller, She Wrote, noted. “The Pentagon avoids statements like this at all costs. But a draft dodging traitor decided to lie about our armed forces staff, so they went to paper.”
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