This letter printed in the NY Times was written by an autistic man who called another autistic man "obsessed with politics" and assumed another man was lonely and isolated to justify the decision to match another man with a mutual acquaintance who had had no contact with one of the autistic men for about 7 years.
It takes a dictator to know a dictator. Both Mark Bernkopf and Viktor Orban manipulate elections in different sectors. Orban is a dictator in the state sector. Bernkopf is a dictator in the nonprofit corporate sector. Bernkopf showed he was a dictator by pushing out another trustee he interrupted in small talk by ignoring the substance of the talk in favor of scolding for raised inside voices. Bernkopf calls other people "obsessed with politics" and matches mutual acquaintances after making assumptions people are lonely and ‘need a friend to talk to’ about nonpolitical subjects. Bernkopf denies any wrongdoing when called out by walking away and scolding for being suspicious of others’ motives, or stalking him, and putting other people in an awkward position as third party contacts. The third party contacts get understandably exasperated too and cut off contact as well. Bernkopf manipulated a vote to expel a trustee by threatening to resign if he doesn’t get his outcome in a meeting agenda. Then he hid the dictatorial style by not speaking the threat orally to keep threat out of minutes. Bernkopf exploited a flaw in Robert’s Rules of Order harming transparency in governance process. Finally Bernkopf reserved the right to file TOS complaints with google to suppress this blog post being called out online with the pretext of disclosing confidential information.
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/11/26/opinion/letters/elderly-covid.html
To the Editor:
“U.S. and Allies Spur Much of World’s Democratic Decline, Data Shows,” by Max Fisher (The Interpreter, Nov. 17), uses the phrase “illiberal democracy” several times.
The term was used by Fareed Zakaria in Foreign Affairs in 1997 (“The Rise of Illiberal Democracy”) and was popularized by Prime Minister Viktor Orban of Hungary to describe his regime.
Let us give that oxymoron a well-deserved rest. Suppression of human rights, repression of the press and government manipulation of elections bear not the slightest resemblance to any form of democracy. “Illiberal democracy” is not democracy; it is dictatorship pure and simple.
And its perpetrators are not merely “authoritarians” or “autocrats”; they are dictators.
Mark Bernkopf
Arlington, Va.
Folks who write letters like these to political trivia columns shouldn’t call others obsessed with politics. The interest in politics simply differs between process and activism to do more good for more people more quickly. Calling people interested in activism obsessed with politics as a substitute for disagreement is cruel and unkind. The process knowledge helps in manipulating votes and bylaw changes to expel people from organizations. The process knowledge also helps in cutting off contact with people and isolating them to exasperate people to quit participating or expel them for not accepting the original vision of the founder and president of a nonprofit corporation. Exasperating people to quit and banning people from one's purported 'support group' both happened and cost the 'support group' its shared lending library. Moderating an email list in 2011 drove away one group librarian and disagreement over whether to rename a dinner and a small talk disagreement and interruptions in conversation cost the group its third librarian and the book collection. Covid19, not 'raised inside voices' cost the 'support group' its IRL meeting place in a restaurant.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/politics/campaigns/junkie/archive/junkie092598.htm?noredirect=on
Question: After a federal judge or executive officer is removed by a two-thirds vote of the Senate, the Senate may then, by a majority vote, bar that official from ever again holding any federal office. Apparently, after removing him from the bench, the Senate did not bar Judge Alcee Hastings from ever again holding federal office, because today he is a member of Congress from Florida. My question: Of all federal judges and executive officers removed by a two-thirds vote of the Senate, how many were subsequently barred by the Senate from ever again holding federal office? – Mark Bernkopf, Arlington, Va.
Answer: Of the 16 federal officials impeached by the House since 1797, seven were convicted in the Senate and removed from office, including now-Rep. Hastings. In three of those seven convictions, the Senate took separate votes to disqualify that person from holding future office. Of those three, the Senate voted to do so twice
https://www.northcountrypublicradio.org/news/npr/91919635/democrats-to-pick-up-4-senate-seats-at-least
CLINTON DID IT: The June 11 column included a query on whether a NYC mayor has ever been elected governor, and I said no. My mistake was that I was looking only at the mayors since the creation of Greater New York in 1898. Daniel Soyer of Brooklyn points out that DeWitt Clinton, who served as mayor from 1803-1807, 1808-1810 and 1811-1815, was elected governor for the first of four times in 1817. Similarly, John Hoffman, mayor from 1866-1868, won the governorship in 1868.
For the record, DeWitt Clinton was ex-mayor when he was elected governor. One interesting note is that he was re-elected governor in 1820 (and later in '24) on the "Clinton Republican" ticket; it's not the kind of party one could envision in modern times. Others readers, including Mark Bernkopf of Arlington, Va.; Jeff Roberts of Ankeny, Iowa; and two Manhattanites, Philip Lentz and Paul Manias, also knew about the Clinton mayor/gov connection. Paul adds that DeWitt Clinton "reshaped Manhattan (literally flattening it and putting down the street grid) and pushed for the Erie Canal, which is what truly shaped New York and NYC more than anyone else into what it is today." And Philip reminds us that Clinton also ran for president, losing in 1812 to James Madison — "continuing another tradition of New York mayors failing to move into the White House."
https://www.krpoliticaljunkie.com/6052-2/
History. There are many instances of governors who were elected to the Senate but very few that went the opposite way. Here’s a list of the six successful ones over the past 60 years: Price Daniel (D-Texas) in 1956, Pete Wilson (R-Calif.) in 1990, Dirk Kempthorne (R-Idaho) in 1998, Frank Murkowski (R-Alaska) in 2002, Jon Corzine (D-N.J.) in 2005, and Sam Brownback (R-Kansas)* in 2010. I can name at least three senators who tried but failed: Irving Ives (R-N.Y.) in 1954, William Knowland (R-Calif.) in 1958 and Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-Texas) in 2010. Any additions to this list?
*Thanks to Mark Bernkopf of Arlington, Va., for reminding us about Brownback.
Here are 2 more letters from the guy who called another person obsessed with politics because the person wouldn’t accept being yelled at that they didn’t know the history [of the Iran 1953 coup and it’s why Iran hates USA and Israel]”. And fixed up with a mutual acquaintance who tried to evade political subjects and only initiated contact if contact between a person and Bernkopf approached in time more than coincidently. At least the third person apologized to Coleman [who raised his inside voice with no admonishment] the same day Bernkopf interrupted the third person who yelled in response-got corruptly voted off the trustee board with hidden resignation threat- and later banned from the group with TOS threats to google to suppress call outs like this post.
https://boyang-bearings.net/2021/03/officials-missteps-on-covid-then-and-now/
To the Editor:
It is disheartening to read of Dr. Deborah Birx and several of her medical colleagues only now publicly condemning the Trump administration’s negligent handling of the Covid-19 crisis (Live briefing, nytimes.com, March 29).
In a democracy, one of the loudest and most honorable means of drawing attention to a disagreement with one’s superiors is public resignation on account of principle. Dr. Birx, Donald Trump’s coronavirus response coordinator; Robert Redfield, former director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention; Stephen Hahn, former F.D.A. commissioner; and Adm. Brett Giroir, former assistant secretary for health, owed it to the American people to draw public attention — loud and clear — to the incompetence of President Trump and his health secretary, Alex Azar.
For these former officials only now to protest their disagreements is too little, too late. Had they acted in a timely manner, lives might have been saved.
Mark Bernkopf
Arlington, Va.
https://www.nytimes.com/2001/02/07/opinion/l-in-prison-and-innocent-793310.html
To the Editor:
Your Feb. 2 news article about Peter Limone, wrongly imprisoned for murder for 33 years, including four on death row, is heartbreaking.
It is tragic that his fellow defendant, Louis Greco, died in prison before he could be exonerated and released, and disgusting that F.B.I. agents knew that their informants committed the murder, yet were complicit in framing innocent men.
In recent years, many innocent death-row prisoners have been released. A few of those innocent prisoners came within a whisker of execution; other prisoners have been executed despite the lack of evidence truly proving guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.
Ultimately, there is only one argument that will ever end capital punishment in the United States: the execution of an innocent prisoner can never be reversed.
MARK BERNKOPF
Arlington, Va., Feb. 2, 2001
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