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FASCISTS’ DEATHS COUNT MORE THAN THOSE OF NON-FASCISTS

In History, Law, Law Enforcement, Politics, Social commentary on June 19, 2026 at 12:27 am

On September 10, 2025, Right-wing propagandist Charlie Kirk was shot and killed while speaking at a Turning Point USA public debate event on the Utah Valley University campus in Orem, Utah.  

Immediately afterward, President Donald Trump and his Republican allies threatened retribution (“consequences”) for people who spoke callously about his killing.  

Both in and out of Trump’s administration people were fired, suspended or reprimanded for exercising their Constitutional right to freedom of speech. 

Charlie Kirk 

Gage Skidmore, CC BY-SA 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0&gt;, via Wikimedia Commons

Among those so far fired or punished: Teachers, an Office Depot employee, government workers, a TV pundit. 

Over the weekend following Kirk’s death, Department of Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy posted that American Airlines had grounded pilots who he said were celebrating Kirk’s assassination.

On September 15—five days after Kirk’s death—Vice President J.D. Vance hosted Kirk’s podcast: “So, when you see someone celebrating Charlie’s murder, call them out and, hell, call their employer. We don’t believe in political violence, but we do believe in civility.”  

At the Munich Security Conference in February, Vance had criticized the preceding Biden administration for encouraging “private companies to silence people” who spread misinformation about the COVID pandemic:

“Under Donald Trump’s leadership, we may disagree with your views, but we will fight to defend your right to offer it in the public square, agree or disagree.” 

Official portrait of JD Vance, a middle-aged white man with dark hair and beard and light eyes, wearing a suit and tie, crossing his arms while standing in front of an American flag.

J.D. Vance

At the Pentagon, military leaders declared a “zero tolerance” policy for any posts or comments from troops that joked about or celebrated the death of Kirk.

“It is unacceptable for military personnel and Department of War civilians to celebrate or mock the assassination of a fellow American,” wrote Sean Parnell, the Pentagon’s top spokesman.

White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller vowed to use law enforcement to go after Americans who mocked Kirk’s death, calling that domestic terrorism:

“We will not live in fear, but you will live in exile, because the power of law enforcement under President Trump’s leadership will be used to find you, will be used to take away your money, take away your power, and if you have broken the law to take away your freedom.” 

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth suspended an Army colonel for a post criticizing Kirk after his death and said the Pentagon was “very closely tracking responses celebrating or mocking Kirk’s death.” 

Trump ordered the lowering of the American flag on all public buildings from September 10 to the 14th in honor of Kirk.

Yet he refused to do so following the June 14, 2025 murder of Minnesota State Representative and Speaker of the House of Representatives Melissa Hortman in her home in Brooklyn Park, Minnesota.

Also shot—and killed—was her husband, Mark.

Headshot of Hortman over a muted background

Melissa Hortman 

Office of Governor Tim Walz & Lt. Governor Peggy Flanagan, PDM-owner, via Wikimedia Commons

Earlier that morning, Democratic state Senator John Hoffman and his wife, Yvette, had been shot in their home in nearby Champlin. Both were hospitalized and survived.

And how did Republican United States Senator Mike Lee react to the shootings? 

Writing on X, the Utah Senator posted: “This is what happens when Marxists don’t get their way.”

On the contrary: Vance Luther Boelter, the alleged shooter, was virulently anti-abortion and anti-Democrat—and voted in the Republican Presidential primary.

And in a second post, Lee posted a picture of Boelter under the caption “Nightmare on Walz Street,” parodying the title of the slasher film, “Nightmare on Elm Street.” It was also a slam on Minnesota Democratic Governor Tim Walz. 

On Fox News’ “Sunday Morning Futures,” Senator Katie Britt (R-Ala.) blamed news outlets for having guests on who called Trump a “fascist” or compared him to the Nazi leader Adolf Hitler.

Yet it is Republicans who have repeatedly called Democrats “fascists.” 

For example: On August 14, 2023, a Georgia grand jury indicted Donald Trump and 18 allies for election interference in that state following the 2020 Presidential election. Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani responded: “We’re going to beat these fascists into the ground.”

Trump has repeatedly called “radical left Democrats” “fascists.” On his website, Truth Social, he claimed that his “persecution” by the “Biden Crime Family” was “reminiscent of Nazi Germany in the 1930s.”

On the September 10 edition of “Fox & Friends,” Fox News host Brian Kilmeade advocated the execution of mentally ill homeless people.

Kilmede was talking with co-hosts Lawrence Jones and Ainsley Earhardt about the August 22 stabbing murder of Iryna Zarufska on a train in Charlotte, North Carolina.

A homeless and mentally ill man, Decarlos Brown Jr., was arrested for the murder. 

Kilmeade’s solution: “Involuntary lethal injection, or something. Just kill ‘em. I will say this, we’re not voting for the right people.”

The Fox Network made no move to oust Kilmeade for calling for the executions of more than an estimated 120,000 mentally ill homeless Americans. 

In George Orwell’s classic political fable, Animal Farm, the dictatorial pig, Napoleon, decrees that a sign be posted:

ALL ANIMALS ARE EQUAL.

BUT SOME ANIMALS ARE MORE EQUAL THAN OTHERS.

According to Republicans’ behavior: All violent deaths of politicians are terrible. But the violent deaths of Right-wing politicians are more terrible than others.

FIGHTING TANKS WITH DAISIES: WHY DEMOCRATS LOSE ELECTIONS

In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Politics, Social commentary on June 18, 2026 at 12:10 am

Most Americans believe that Nazi Germany was defeated because “we were the Good Guys and they were the Bad Guys.” 

Not so.  

The United States—and its allies, Great Britain and the Soviet Union—won the war for reasons that had nothing to do with the righteousness of their cause. These included:

  • Nazi Germany—–i.e, its Fuehrer, Adolf Hitler—made a series of disastrous decisions. Chief among these: Attacking its ally, the Soviet Union, and declaring war on the United States.
  • The greater material resources of the Soviet Union and the United States. 
  • The Allies waged war as brutally as the Germans.

On this last point:

  • From D-Day to the fall of Berlin, captured Waffen-SS soldiers were often shot out of hand.
  • When American troops came under fire in the German city of Aachen, Lt. Col. Derrill Daniel brought in a self-propelled 155mm artillery piece and opened up on a theater housing German soldiers. After the city surrendered, a German colonel labeled the use of the 155 “barbarous” and demanded that it be outlawed. 
  • During the battle of Stalingrad in 1942, Wilhelm Hoffman, a young German soldier and diarist, was appalled that the Russians refused to surrender. He wrote: “You don’t see them at all, they have established themselves in houses and cellars and are firing on all sides, including from our rear—barbarians, they used gangster methods….”

WW2 Picture Photo 1942 Stalingrad German soldiers of the 24th Panzer Div 4167 | eBay

German soldiers in Stalingrad

In short: The Allies won because they dared to meet the brutality of a Heinz Guderian with that of a George S. Patton.

This is a lesson long ignored by the liberals of the Democratic Party. That’s why Republicans now hold both houses of Congress and the Presidency.

An example of this occurred on March 25, 2017: On CBS’ “Sunday Morning,” former President Jimmy Carter said that even if Special Counsel Robert Mueller found evidence that President Donald Trump had broken the law, “my own preference would be that he not be impeached.” 

Instead, Carter would want Trump to “be able to serve out his term, because I think he wants to do a good job. And I’m willing to help him, if I can help him, and give him the benefit of the doubt.

“You know, I have confidence in the American system of government. I think ultimately the restraints on a president from the Congress and from the Supreme Court will be adequate to protect our nation, if he serves a full term.”   

Related image

Jimmy Carter

After becoming President on January 20, 2017, Trump:  

  • Fired FBI Director James Comey for refusing to pledge his personal loyalty—and for investigating documented ties between Russian Intelligence agents and the 2016 Trump Presidential campaign.  
  • Threatened to fire Special Counsel Robert Mueller, who was assigned to take over that investigation after the Comey firing.
  • Repeatedly attacked the nation’s press as “fake news” and “the enemy of the American people.”
  • Contemptuously dismissed the warnings of American Intelligence agencies that Russia tried to subvert the 2016 Presidential campaign—and planned to do the same for the mid-term elections in November, 2018.

Trump, in short, was not going to be “helped” by the humility of a Jimmy Carter.

Head-and-shoulders shot of Trump with a serious facial expression, his right eye partly closed. He is wearing a dark blue suit, a pale blue dress shirt, a red necktie, and an American flag lapel pin. Parts of the image are slightly out of focus. The background is black.

Donald Trump

Former President Barack Obama believes in rationality and decency. He felt more comfortable responding to attacks on his character than attacking the character of his enemies. 

As a graduate of Columbia University and Harvard Law School, Obama was one of the most academically gifted Presidents in American history.

Yet he failed—like Carter—to grasp and apply a fundamental lesson taught by Niccolo Machiavelli, the father of modern political science.

In The Prince, Machiavelli warns: 

From this arises the question whether it is better to be loved than feared, or feared more than loved. 

The reply is, that one ought to be both feared and loved, but as it is difficult for the two to go together, it is much safer to be feared than loved….

And men have less scruple in offending one who makes himself loved than one who makes himself feared; for love is held by a chain of obligations which, men being selfish, is broken whenever it serves their purpose; but fear is maintained by a dread of punishment which never fails.

Quote by Machiavelli: “Necessity is what impels men to take action ...

Niccolo Machiavelli

Obama’s failure to recognize the truth of Machiavelli’s lesson allowed Republicans to thwart many of his Presidential ambitions—such as picking a replacement for deceased Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia.

Throughout 2016, liberals celebrated on Facebook and Twitter the “certain” Presidency of Vermont U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders or former First Lady Hillary Clinton. 

They fully expected to win the White House again, and even retake the Senate and House of Representatives. 

But Donald Trump had a different plan—to subvert the 2016 election by Russian Intelligence agents and millions of Russian trolls flooding the Internet with legitimately fake news.

Former Kentucky U.S. Senator Henry Clay famously said: “I’d rather be right than be President.” Trump’s attitude can be summed up as: “I’m always right, so I want to be President.” 

For Democrats to win elective victories and enact their agenda, they must find their own George Pattons to take on the Waffen-SS generals among Republican ranks. 

TRUMP AS A TRAGIC HERO?: PART THREE (END)

In Bureaucracy, Entertainment, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Medical, Politics, Social commentary on June 17, 2026 at 12:08 am

For historian and classicist Victor Davis Hanson, Donald Trump possesses an unappreciated self-awareness and sense of what it means to be a tragic hero.            

Trump was into the first year of his Presidency when Hanson penned his article, “Donald Trump, Tragic Hero,” published on April 12, 2018.  

To make his case, Hanson cited a series of popular Western movies featuring lethal men who risk—and sometimes sacrifice—their lives on behalf of others too weak to vanquish evil on their own.

Victor Davis Hanson (@VDHanson) | Twitter

Victor Davis Hanson

Thus in the classic 1960 film, The Magnificent Seven, the Seven slaughter the outlaw Calvera and his banditos—and then ride into the sunset. As they do, Chris (Yul Brynner) tells Vin (Steve McQueen): “The old man was right. Only the farmers won. We lost. We always lose.”

Wrote Hanson: “[Chris] knows that few appreciate that the tragic heroes in their midst are either tragic or heroic — until they are safely gone and what they have done in time can be attributed to someone else. Worse, he knows that the tragic hero’s existence is solitary and without the nourishing networks and affirmation of the peasant’s agrarian life.”

Chris may know this, but there is absolutely no evidence that Trump does. He has never shown even an awareness of sensitivity and self-knowledge, let alone the possession of either. Trump is at best semi-literate. The concept of tragedy—as expressed in the Greek tragedies to which Hanson refers throughout his article—means nothing to Trump.

Moreover, the Seven have risked their lives—and four of them have died doing so—on behalf of villagers who can pay them almost nothing.

It is inconceivable that Trump would risk anything—especially his life—for people he regarded as poor and thus unworthy of his concern. 

The Magnificent Seven (1960)

In their first encounter with Calvera (Eli Wallach) the bandit chief offers to make the Seven partners in his ravaging of the village. Of his intended victims, Calvera sneers: “If God had not wanted them sheared, he would not have made them sheep.”

If Trump had heard Calvera’s offer, he would have instantly accepted it.

In June 2016, USA Today published an analysis of litigation involving Trump. Over the previous 30 years, Trump and his businesses had been involved in 3,500 legal cases in U.S. Federal and state courts.

Of the 3,500 suits, Trump or one of his companies were plaintiffs in 1,900; defendants in 1,450; and bankruptcy, third party, or other in 150. Trump was named in at least 169 suits in federal court.

Many of those cases centered around his refusal to pay contractors for their finished work on his properties. Most of the contractors didn’t have the financial resources—as Trump had—to spend years in court trying to obtain the monies they were owed. As a result, they never received payment—or, at best, only a small portion of what they were owed.

When he ran for President in 2015-16, Trump repeatedly promised poor and middle-class Americans a far better plan for medical care than the Affordable Care Act. 

He spent the next four years thuggishly trying to dismantle “Obanacare,” the signature achievement of Barack Obama, America’s first black President. But never did he offer even a general outline of his own alleged plan to “replace” it. 

Hanson tries to draw a further parallel between Trump and the fictional Tom Doniphon, the unsung hero of John Ford’s 1962 movie, The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance.

Amazon.com: John Wayne Man Who Shot Liberty Valance Retro Vintage Western Movie Cowboy Cool Wall Art Print Poster 24x36: Posters & Prints

Hanson sums up the movie thus:

“Tom Doniphon [John Wayne]…unheroically kills the thuggish Liberty Valance [Lee Marvin], births the [political] career of Ranse Stoddard [James Stewart] and his marriage to Doniphon’s girlfriend [Vera Miles] and thereby ensures civilization is Shinbone’s frontier future. His service done, he burns down his house and degenerates from feared rancher to alcoholic outcast.” 

It is inconceivable that Trump would take the risk of committing a crime on behalf of someone else—or being able to resist bragging about it if he did. It is equally inconceivable that he would give up a woman he wanted for the happiness of another man.

Most unbelievable of all is the suggestion that Trump would imitate Doniphon by quietly riding off into the sunset.

Trump has often “joked” about becoming “President-for-Life.” After losing the November 3, 2020  Presidential election to former Vice President Joe Biden, he filed 60 lawsuits to overturn the will of 80 million voters. Those failing, he tried some old-fashioned but unsuccessful arm-twisting of several state lawmakers to “find” non-existent votes for him.

Finally, on January 6, 2021, he incited a mob of his fanatical followers to attack the United States Capitol Building. Their mission: Stop the counting of Electoral College ballots certain to give Biden the victory.   

Victor Davis Hanson is a brilliant scholar and colorful writer. But his effort on Trump’s behalf is embarrassing and appalling.

In a series of bestselling books, he has eloquently chronicled the heroism of the ancient Greeks in defending their budding democracy.

It is depressing—and frightening—to discover that this same man can blatantly ignore the criminalities and even treason of the greatest and most destructive tyrant to ever attain the Presidency.