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JFK HAD POWERFUL ENEMIES. SO DOES DJT: PART TWO (OF FOUR)

In Bureaucracy, Business, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Medical, Military, Politics, Social commentary on February 17, 2026 at 12:12 am

Just as President John F. Kennedy was passionately loved and hated, so, too, is Donald J. Trump. And Trump, at 79, has already been the target of two assassination attempts.   

New official portrait of President Trump unveiled by White House

Donald Trump

Among the reasons why Trump is so widely hated:   

  • Gun rights enthusiastsAfter Customs and Border  Patrol  (CBP) agents  shot  intensive care nurse Alex Pretti  on  January  24,  Trump  criticized  Pretti  for carrying  a  licensed, concealed pistol: “You can’t  have  guns, you  can’t  walk in with guns. I don’t like that he had a gun. I don’t like that he had two fully loaded magazines. That’s a lot of bad stuff.”  
  • The National Rifle Association (NRA) called Trump’s comments “dangerous and wrong.” And the National Association for Gun Rights (NAGR) stated: “Carrying an extra magazine implies nothing. Claiming otherwise sets a dangerous precedent for Second Amendment rights and creates an easy backdoor argument for magazine bans and similar legislation.”

Headshot of a bearded Pretti wearing glasses and smiling against a white background

Alex Pretti

  • The militaryFollowing his anti-DEI executive order, the Department of  Defense  deleted content that included the achievements of nonwhite  servicemen  and  women—such  as Navajo   code  talkers,  black  Tuskegee  Airmen,  Medal  of  Honor  winners  and  women veterans.  High-ranking  militar y leaders  fear  retribution  and  the  politicization  of  the armed forces.  
  • Former high-profile military leaders, including former Chiefs of Staff John Kelly and Mark Milley and former Defense Secretary Mark Esper, have criticized Trump, with some describing him as a “fascist to the core” and a threat to democracy. 
  • Trump has deployed the National Guard to Democratic cities against the wishes of their states’ governors.
  • In September, 2025, Trump and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth aired grievances to a silent, uncomfortable audience of top military leaders.
  • CanadiansTrump has imposed 25% tariffs on Canadian goods, covering major sectors like steel, aluminum, and autos.
  • And he has threatened to impose 100% tariffs due to trade disputes. These have caused significant anxiety regarding the Canadian economy, which relies heavily on trade with the United States.
  • He has also repeatedly threatened to militarily invade Canada and make it the 51st state. Many Canadians feel betrayed by the treatment of a longstanding, peaceful ally, with 59% of Canadians now viewing the United States as their top threat.
  • GreenlandersTrump has grown increasingly bellicose about acquiring Greenland—by purchase or conquest. The official reason given: The dangers of Chinese or Russian conquest of the island, where the United States has an active military base for missile warning, defense and space surveillance.
  • The real reason: To gain total access to Greenland’s rare earth minerals. This despite Greenland’s being a self-governing, autonomous part of the Kingdom of Denmark. The United States has recognized Denmark’s ties to Greenland since 1917 and signed a joint defense agreement in 1951.

Greenland: Explore the World's Largest Island | Polar Latitudes Expeditions

Greenland

  • Secret Service agents – There has never been a case of a Secret Service agent assassinating a President. But there are historical precedents for bodyguards turning on those they are supposed to protect.  On January 22, 41 A.D. Cassius Chaerea and several other bodyguards hacked Roman Emperor Gaius Caligula to death with swords before other guards could save him.
  • Caligula had often taunted Chaerea for having a weak voice. Similarly, Trump has forced Secret Service agents to work without pay through two major government shutdowns—for 35 days in 2018-19 and 43 days in 2025. Secret Service agents had to worry about meeting their bills and the needs of their families.
  • Many agents could have friends or family members whose lives have been shattered by Trump’s massive layoffs of government employees and/or his assaults on the American medical establishment.
  • Wall Street executivesFor Trump’s attacks on Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell and public criticism of the Fed, which threaten the independence of the institution and the stability of the economy.
  • And for suing JP Morgan Chase and its CEO Jamie Dimon for $5 billion, alleging the bank “debanked” him after the January 6, 2021 Capitol attack.
  • Major investors and CEOs fear that Trump’s tariff policies will ignite a global crash—as happened in April ,2025.
  • IraniansFor his scrapping the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), commonly known as the Iran nuclear deal.
  • And for re-imposing “highest-level” economic sanctions on Iran, targeting critical sectors such as oil, finance and shipping.
  • ordering the June 21, 2025, bombing of three key Iranian nuclear sites: Fordow, Natanz, and Isfahan. 
  • Barons of Columbian/Mexican drug cartelsFor threatening to invade Columbia and Mexico and directly attack the drug lords who feed America’s demand for cocaine.
  • This scenario forms the plot of the 1994 thriller, “Clear and Present Danger,” starring Harrison Ford. The movie ends with the American force almost wiped out by a drug lord’s army and being forced to evacuate Columbia.

Cali Cartel - Wikipedia

Columbian drug lords 

  • JournalistsFor his repeatedly attacking the nation’s free press as “the enemy of the people” for reporting his growing list of crimes and disasters.
  • And barring the Associated Press from the White House for refusing to call the Gulf of Mexico “the Gulf of the United States.”
  • Jeff Bezos, the CEO of Amazon, bought the Washington Post—which played a pivotal role in uncovering Watergate—-in 2013 and has turned that once-respected newspaper into a Right-wing cheerleader.
  • And CBS News is now being rigorously censored by Editor-in-Chief Bari Weiss, a notorious Trump ally.

JFK HAD POWERFUL ENEMIES. SO DOES DJT: PART ONE (OF FOUR)

In Bureaucracy, Business, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Medical, Military, Politics, Social commentary on February 16, 2026 at 12:55 am

The 2013 book, The Kennedy Half-Century: The Presidency, Assassination and Lasting Legacy of John F. Kennedy, offers a truly astounding chapter.      

Its early chapters provide an overview of the major events of the brief Kennedy administration: “The Torch Is Passed,” “Steel at Home and Abroad,” “Europe, Space and Southeast Asia.”

The next chapters concentrate on the assassination: “Echoes From Dealey Plaza,” “Questions, Answers, Mysteries,” “Rounding Up the Usual Suspects,” “Examining the Physical Evidence.” 

For anyone who’s previously delved into the thousand days of the Kennedy administration, much of these subjects will be at least generally familiar. But Chapter 11 zooms into an area that might seem right out of The Twilight Zone: “Inevitability: The Assassination That Had to Happen.”

Amazon.com: The Kennedy Half-Century: The Presidency, Assassination, and Lasting Legacy of John F. Kennedy: 9781620402801: Sabato, Larry J.: Books

The chapter opens: “It has taken fifty years to see part of the truth clearly: John F. Kennedy’s assassination might have been almost inevitable. It didn’t have to happen on November 22, 1963, but given a host of factors, one could reasonably argue that JFK was unlikely to make it out of his Presidency alive.”

Among the “host of factors” who had reason to hate Kennedy:

  • New Orleans Mafia boss Carlos MarcelloFurious over the crackdown on organized crime by JFK’s brother, Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy, he spoke of having the President assassinated to render RFK impotent.
  • Anti-Castro CubansEnraged at Kennedy’s failure to overthrow Cuban dictator Fidel Castro after landing 1,700 armed Cuban exiles at the Bay of Pigs.  
  • James R. HoffaPursued relentlessly by Robert Kennedy, the president of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters Union talked privately of having the Attorney General assassinated.
  • The KGB For Kennedy’s humiliating the Soviet Union during the Cuban Missile Crisis. 
  • Chicago Mafia boss Sam Giancana Expecting to win immunity from federal prosecution, he fixed the 1960 Illinois election for John F. Kennedy. Instead, he found himself under intense investigation by RFK’s Justice Department—and raged that the Kennedys had “welshed” on their part of the deal.
  • FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover Fearing dismissal by the Kennedys, he withheld lethal threats his agents overheard when bugged Mafiosi railed against the President and Attorney General.

J. Edgar Hoover - Death, Facts & FBI

J. Edgar Hoover

  • Southern racistsWho believed that JFK was a “nigger lover” for supporting civil rights for blacks. Especially after he sent deputy U.S. marshals and National Guardsmen to  desegregate the University of Mississippi and, later, the University of Alabama.
  • The CIABlamed by Kennedy for failing to overthrow Castro at the Bay of Pigs, its legendary director, Allen Dulles, was forced to resign. Many of its agents blamed JFK for refusing to commit American military forces during that attack—and laying the seeds for the Cuban Missile Crisis.
  • Military and defense establishment Appalled by Kennedy’s “weak” response to the Cuban Missile Crisis and support of the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty with the Soviet Union.  
  • Fidel Castro Enraged by a series of CIA-Mafia attempts on his life, he publicly warned: “U.S. leaders should think if they are aiding terrorist plans to eliminate Cuban leaders they themselves will not be safe.”

Fidel Castro - Wikipedia

Fidel Castro

Just as President Kennedy was passionately loved and hated, so, too, is Donald J. Trump. And Trump, at 79, has already been the target of two assassination attempts.  

New official portrait of President Trump unveiled by White House

Donald Trump

Among the “host of factors” who have reason to hate Trump: 

  • Blacks For his racist attacks on Barack and Michelle Obama and on black journalists, politicians and celebrities.
  • His issuing executive orders to eliminate diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) programs—and remove references to black historical figures from government websites.
  • A major reason for his flooding Minnesota with 3,000 ICE agents: Its large Somali population, which he publicly labeled “garbage.”
  • Hispanics For turning them into the #1 target of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). Throughout 2025, ICE arrested nearly 300,000 to 328,000 people, the vast majority of them Hispanics. These included not only illegal aliens but those with green cards awaiting their processing as citizens.
  • More than 70,000 migrants are now held in detention centers. ICE vows to detain an additional 80,000 people in them. Some centers will reportedly hold up to 10,000 detainees apiece. This will allow Trump to imprison and then deport vastly more people much more quickly.
  • MuslimsHe’s said “I think Islam hates us” and called for a “total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States.”
  • And he’s imposed a travel ban on 11 Islamic countries in the Middle East, North Africa and sub-Saharan Africa.
  • He’s proposed a registry for American Muslims and expressed support for surveillance of mosques.
  • And he’s sided with Israel in its military attacks on Gaza and Iran. 
  • Police officers Despite his claiming to be a “law and order” President, Trump pardoned more than 1,500 of his supporters who had attacked Capitol Police on January 6, 2021. More than 140 police officers were injured.
  • In November 2025, he issued preemptive pardons for 77 people involved in the plot to overturn the 2020 election results, including Rudy Giuliani and Mark Meadows.
  • Among the convicted drug kingpins serving life sentences he has pardoned: Andre Donnell Routt, Zechariah Benjamin, Joe Angelo Sotelo, Edward Ruben Sotelo and Larry Hoover.

REAL COPS VS. TV COPS

In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Politics, Social commentary on February 13, 2026 at 12:10 am

Lori Tankel had a problem: A lot of angry people thought she was George Zimmerman.            

She began getting death threats on her cellphone after a jury acquitted the would-be police officer on July 13, 2013, of the second-degree murder of black 17-year-old Trayvon Martin. 

Unfortunately for Tankel, her number was one digit away from the number Zimmerman used to make his call to police just before he fatally shot Martin. 

That phone number had been shown throughout the trial. And, believing the number was Zimmerman’s, someone posted Tankel’s number online.

Just minutes after the verdict, Tankel began getting death threats. “We’re going to kill you. We’re going to get you. Watch your back,” threatened a typical call.

George Zimmerman

Tankel worked as a sales representative for several horse companies. She had grown used to relying on her phone to keep her business going.

But, almost as soon as the Zimmerman verdict came in, “My phone just started to blow up. Phone call after phone call, multiple phone calls,” Tankel said.

So she did what any ordinary citizen, faced with multiple death threats, would do: She called the police.

According to her, the Seminole County Sheriff’s Office told her the department itself receives around 400 death threats a minute on social media sites.

In short: Unless you’re wealthy, a politician or—best of all, a cop—don’t expect the police to protect you if your life is threatened.

First, above everyone else, police look out for each other.

Robert Daley bluntly revealed this truth in his 1971 bestseller, Target Blue: An Insider’s View of the N.Y.P.D. A police reporter for the New York Times, he served for one year as a deputy police commissioner.

Related image

“A great many solvable crimes in the city were never solved, because not enough men were assigned to the case, or because those assigned were lazy or hardly cared or got sidetracked,” wrote Daley.

“But when a cop got killed, no other cop got sidetracked. Detectives worked on the case night and day….    

“In effect, the citizen who murdered his wife’s lover was sought by a team of detectives, two men. But he who killed a cop was sought by 32,000.”

That’s why the Mafia tried to bribe cops, but never killed them.

Second, don’t expect the police to do for you what they’ll do for one another.

In February, 2013, Christopher Dorner declared war on his former fellow officers of the Los Angeles Police Department.   

The LAPD assigned security and surveillance details to at least 50 threatened officers and their families. A typical detail consists of two to five or more guards. And those guards must be changed every eight to 12 hours

Christopher Dorner.jpg

Christopher Dorner 

Those details stayed in place long after Dorner was killed in a firefight on February 12, 2013.

But if your bullying neighbor threatens to kill you, don’t expect the police to send a guard detail over. They’ll claim: ”We can’t do anything until the guy does something. If he does, give us a call.”

Third, the more status and wealth you command, the more likely the police are to address your complaint or solve your case.

If you’re rich, your complaint will likely get top priority and the best service the agency can provide. In Boston, such cases are known as “Red balls.”

But if you’re poor or even middle-class without high-level political or police connections, you’ll be told: “We just don’t have the resources to protect everybody.”

Fourth, don’t expect your police department to operate with the vigor or efficiency of TV police agencies.

“I want this rock [Hawaii] sealed off,” Steve McGarrett (Jack Lord) routinely ordered when pursuing criminals on “Hawaii Five-O.”

Jack Lord as Steve McGarrett

Real-life police departments, on the other hand:

  • Often lack state-of-the-art crime labs to analyze evidence.
  • Often lose or accidentally destroy important files.
  • Are—like all bureaucracies—staffed by those who are lazy, indifferent or incompetent.
  • Are notoriously competitive, generally refusing to share information with other police departments-–thus making it easier for criminals to run amok.

Even when police ”solve” a crime, that simply means making an arrest. After that, there are at least three possible outcomes:  

  • The District Attorney may decide not to file charges.
  • The perpetrator may plead to a lesser offense and serve only a token sentence—or none at all.
  • He might be found not guilty by a judge or jury.

Fifth, the result of all this can only be increased disrespect for law enforcement from a deservedly—and increasingly—cynical public.

It is the witnessing of blatant inequities and hypocrisies such as those displayed in the Christopher Dorner case that most damages public support for police at all levels.

When citizens believe police lack the ability—or even the will—to protect them or avenge their victimization, that is a deadly blow to law enforcement.

Police depend on citizens for more than crime tips. 

They depend upon them to support hiring more cops and buying state-of-the-art police equipment.

When public support vanishes, so does much of that public funding.

The result can only be a return to the days of the lawless West, where citizens—as individuals or members of vigilante committees—look only to themselves for protection.