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WHEN AMERICA IS THE TARGET FOR “REGIME CHANGE”

In Bureaucracy, History, Military, Politics, Social commentary on September 7, 2026 at 12:10 am

The CIA, FBI and National Security Agency (which cracks codes and listens to the telephone conversation of foreign leaders) unanimously agree: Russian trolls and Intelligence agents played a major role in subverting the 2016 Presidential election.

Special Counsel Robert Mueller III, assigned in May, 2017, to investigate charges of Russian interference, believed there was collusion. He indicted or obtained guilty pleas from 34 people and three companies. 

Robert Mueller

And about 58% of Americans believe that President Donald Trump tried to obstruct the investigation.

Apparently, most Americans don’t like having their elections subverted by enemy nations.

Subverting the governments of other countries is a right that Americans have long reserved for themselves. Among those regimes that have been toppled:

  • Between 1898 and 1934, the United States repeatedly intervened with military force in Central America and the Caribbean.
  • Americans staged invasions of Honduras in 1903, 1907, 1911, 1912, 1919, 1924 and 1925 to defend U.S. interests. These were defined as Standard Oil and the United Fruit Company.
  • The United States occupied Nicaragua almost continuously from 1912 to 1933. Its legacy was the imposition of the tyrannical Somoza family, which ruled from 1936 to 1979.
  • The United States occupied Haiti from 1915 to 1934. American banks had lent money to Haiti and requested American government intervention.
  • In 1918, 13,000 American soldiers joined armies from Europe and Japan to overthrow the new Soviet government and restore the previous Czarist regime. By 1920, the invading forces proved unsuccessful and withdrew.

Wladiwostok Parade 1918.jpg

Allied troops parading in Vladivostok, 1918  

  • From 1946 to 1949, the United States provided military, logistical and other aid to the Right-wing Chinese Nationalist Party of Chiang Kai-shek. Its opponent: Communist forces led by Mao Tse-Tung, who ultimately proved victorious.
  • In 1953, the Eisenhower administration ordered the CIA to overthrew the democratically-elected government of of Iranian Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddegh. His crime: Nationalizing the Iranian oil industry, which had been under British control since 1913. He was succeeded by Mohammad-Reza Shah Phlavi.
  • Whereas Mossadeddgh had ruled as a constitutional monarch, Phlavi was a dictator who depended on United States government support to retain power until he was overthrown in 1979 by the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini.
  • In 1954, the CIA overthrew the democratically-elected government of Guatemalan President Jacobo Arbenz. His crime: Installing a series of reforms that expanded the right to vote, allowed workers to organize, legitimized political parties and allowed public debate. Most infuriating to American Right-wingers: His agrarian reform law, which expropriated parts of large land-holdings and redistributed them to agricultural laborers.
  • The United Fruit Company lobbied the United States government to overthrow him—and the CIA went into action. Arbenz was replaced by the first of a series of brutal Right-wing dictators.
  • From 1959 until 1963, the United States government was obsessed with overthrowing the revolutionary Cuban government of Fidel Castro. Although not democratically elected, Castro was wildly popular in Cuba for overthrowing the dictatorial Fulgencio Batista.
  • On April 17, 1961, over 1,400 CIA-trained Cuban exiles invaded Cuba at the Bay of Pigs. Cuban military forces crushed the invasion in three days.
  • Infuriated with the failure of the Bay of Pigs invasion, President John F. Kennedy authorized “Operation Mongoose” to remove Castro through sabotage and assassination. The CIA, wanting to please Kennedy, teamed up with the Mafia, which wanted to resurrect its casinos on the island.
  • Among the tactics used: Hiring Cuban gangsters to murder police officials and Soviet technicians; sabotaging mines; using biological and chemical warfare against the Cuban sugar industry. None of these proved successful in assassinating Castro nor overturning his regime.

Ernesto “Che” Guevera 

  • In 1970, President Richard M. Nixon ordered the CIA to prevent Marxist Salvador Allende from being democratically elected as president of Chile. When that failed, he ordered the CIA to overthrow Allende. Allende’s crime: A series of liberal reforms, including nationalizing large-scale industries (notably copper mining and banking).
  • In 1973, he was overthrown by Chilean army units and national police. He committed suicide rather than be captured. He was followed by Right-wing dictator Augusto Pinochet, who slaughtered 3,200 political dissidents, imprisoned 30,000 and forced another 200,000 Chileans into exile.

And how did Americans react to all these attempts—successful and unsuccessful—at regime change?

Through indifference or outright support.

The popular 1960s TV series, “Mission: Impossible,” regularly depicted a CIA-type agency supporting regimes “we” liked or toppling those “we” didn’t.

Americans generally assume their Presidents and Congress know best who is a “friend” and who is an “enemy.”  America’s friends usually turn out to be Right-wing dictators like Chiang Kai-Shek, Fulgencio Batista, Augusto Pinochet and Mohammad-Reza Shah Phlavi.

And its enemies often turn out to be liberal reformers like Augusto Sandino, Mohammad Mosaddegh and Salvador Allende. 

Americans tend to favor intervention for the flimsiest of reasons. In 2003, President George W. Bush claimed Iraq’s dictator, Saddam Hussein, had plotted 9/11 with Osama bin Laden. There was absolutely no proof to substantiate this, yet Americans overwhelmingly supported Bush’s unprovoked invasion of Iraq. 

But now the shoe is on the other foot. 

Except for President Donald Trump and his fanatical supporters, Americans became furious that a foreign power dared to install “regime change” on them.

WANT TO NEGOTIATE WITH TRUMP? STUDY HITLER: PART TWO (END)

In Bureaucracy, Business, History, Military, Politics, Social commentary on September 4, 2026 at 12:10 am

The “negotiating” methods of German Fuhrer Adolf Hitler serve as a useful guide to what domestic and world leaders can expect from trying to reach an agreement with President Donald Trump.      

In September, 1938, seven months after seizing Austria, Hitler gave another exhibition of his “negotiating” methods.                 

This time, the target of his aggression was Czechoslovakia. Once again, he opened “negotiations” with a lie: The Czechoslovak government was trying to exterminate 3.5 million Germans living in the “Sudetenland.”

Then he threatened war: Germany would protect its citizens and halt such “oppression.”

For British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain, the thought of another European war erupting less than 20 years after the end of World War I was simply unthinkable.

He quickly sent Hitler a telegram, offering to help resolve the crisis: “I could come to you by air and am ready to leave tomorrow. Please inform me of earliest time you can receive me, and tell me the place of the meeting. I should be grateful for a very early reply.”

[Mistake #1: Showing his willingness to placate a brutal dictator. Such men see any concessions as weakness—leading to only greater demands. Trump, like Hitler, relishes attacking those weaker than himself.]

The two European leaders met in Berchtesgaden, Germany, on September 15, 1938.

Neville Chamberlain and Adolf Hitler

Hitler denied that he had threatened war:Force? Who speaks of force?“

Then, suddenly, he accused the Czechs of having mobilized their army in May. They had mobilized—in response to the mobilization of the German army.

“I shall not put up with this any longer,” shouted Hitler.I shall settle this question in one way or another. I shall take matters in my own hands!”

Suddenly, Chamberlain seemed alarmed: “If I understood you right, you are determined to proceed against Czechoslovakia in any case. In the circumstances, it is best for me to return at once. Anything else now seems pointless.”

Hitler, taken aback, softened his tone and said they should consider the Sudetenland according to the principle of self-determination.

Chamberlain agreed to the cession of the Sudetenland. Three days later, French Prime Minister Edouard Daladier did the same. No Czechoslovak representative was invited to these discussions.

[Mistake #2: Instead of conceding to Hitler, which emboldened the dictator, Chamberlain should have pressed his advantage. When Hitler faced an opponent he couldn’t bribe or cow—such as British Prime Minister Winston Churchill or Soviet Premier Joseph Stalin—he raged and sulked.

[When Trump faces an opponent he can’t buy or intimidate—such as Special Counsel Jack Smith or Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei—he does the same.] 

Chamberlain met Hitler again in Godesberg, Germany, on September 22 to confirm the agreements. But Hitler aimed to use the crisis as a pretext for war.

He now demanded not only the annexation of the Sudetenland but the immediate military occupation of the territories. This would give the Czechoslovak army no time to adapt their defense measures to the new borders.

To achieve a solution, Italian dictator Benito Mussolini suggested a conference of the major powers in Munich.

On September 29, Hitler, Daladier and Chamberlain met and agreed to Mussolini’s proposal. They signed the Munich Agreement, which accepted the immediate occupation of the Sudetenland.

The Czechoslovak government had not been a party to the talks. Nevertheless, it promised to abide by the agreement on September 30. 

It actually had no choice. It faced the threat of an immediate German invasion after being deserted by its pledged allies: Britain, France and the Soviet Union.

[Mistake #3: Selling out an ally and making a concession to an insatiable dictator—and believing that Hitler could be trusted to keep his word.

[Just as Chamberlain sold out Czechoslovakia, Trump plans on selling out Ukraine to Russian dictator Vladimir Putin. He’s blamed Ukraine for starting the 2022 war—even though Russia invaded Ukraine.

He’s long wanted a Trump Tower in Moscow. Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky can’t give him that. Putin can.]

Chamberlain returned to England a hero. Holding aloft a copy of the worthless agreement he had signed with Hitler, he told cheering crowds in London: “I believe it is peace for our time.”

OnThisDay 3 September 1939, Neville Chamberlain addressed the nation in a public broadcast that Adolf Hitler had ignored Britain's ultimatum to withdraw German troops from Poland and that consequently a state of

Neville Chamberlain

Hitler—still planning more conquests—knew better. In March, 1939, the German army occupied the rest of Czechoslovakia.

Chamberlain would soon be seen as a naive weakling—even before bombs started falling on London.

Believing himself invincible, Hitler turned his attention—and demands—to Poland. 

German General von Manstein meets Hitler for dinner, to propose ambitious new plans for the Western invasion: rather than fighting French & British troops in Belgium, encircle & trap them against Channel

Adolf Hitler and his generals

Believing himself invincible, Trump now threatens violence against Canada, Greenland and Cuba.

Hitler ordered the invasion of Poland on September 1, 1939. To his surprise, France and England honored their pledges to support Poland—triggering World War II. Six years and 50-56 million deaths followed.

On February 28, 2026, Trump—in concert with Israel–attacked Iran without warning. To his surprise, the Iranians closed the Strait of Hormuz, through which 20-30% of the world’s oil total daily oil supply passes. This has triggered a global oil crisis and severely tightened international energy supplies.

Hitler couldn’t “turn off” the war he had started. He could only lash out as his enemies multiplied.

The same has proven true for Trump.

WANT TO NEGOTIATE WITH TRUMP? STUDY HITLER: PART ONE (OF TWO)

In Bureaucracy, Business, History, Military, Politics, Social commentary on September 3, 2026 at 12:10 am

To understand the “negotiating” style of Donald Trump, it’s essential to study that of Adolf Hitler.     

Both men, dictatorial by nature, did/do not believe in compromise. Their idea of “compromise” was/is: “You do what I want—or I’ll destroy you.”                 

In Hitler’s case, his mania for absolute control began with the Nazi party and eventually extended to Germany. Then it reached to Austria, Czechoslovakia, Poland, Norway, Denmark, France, Greece, Yugoslavia and Russia. At least 50 million men, women and children perished in the wars he unleashed from 1939 to 1945.

Newly released doctor's letters show Adolf Hitler's fear of illness | Adolf Hitler | The Guardian

Adolf Hitler 

Similarly, Trump’s mania for control started with building a real estate empire. Then it encompassed his “reality TV” show, The Apprentice—and finally politics.

He began dominating the Republican party by winning a series of Presidential primaries—and then the White House. Then came asserting control over the Justice Department and the judiciary—up to the Supreme Court.

Re-elected in 2024, he now seeks to dominate Americans, has asserted but failed to control Iran, attacks Mexico and Canada with trade wars, and threatened Greenland and Panama with invasion.

Much can be learned about Trump’s “negotiating” methods—and what it takes to counter them—by studying those of Germany’s Fuhrer.

Robert Payne, author of the bestselling biography, The Life and Death of Adolf Hitler (1973), described Hitler’s “negotiating” style thus: 

“Although Hitler prized his own talents as a negotiator, a man always capable of striking a good bargain, he was totally lacking in finesse. 

Related image

Donald Trump

“He was incapable of bargaining. He was like a man who goes up to a fruit peddler and threatens to blow his brains out if he does not sell his applies at the lowest possible price.”

What Payne writes about Hitler applies equally well to Trump.

Hitler revealed his “bargaining style” in 1938, when he invited Austrian Chancellor Kurt von Schuschnigg to his mountaintop retreat in Obersalzberg, Germany. 

Hitler, an Austrian by birth, intended to annex his native land to Germany. Schuschnigg was aware of this, but felt secure in accepting the invitation. He had been assured that the question of Austrian sovereignty would not arise.

The meeting occurred on February 12, 1938.

Shuschnigg opened the discussion with a friendly compliment. Walking over to a large window, he admired the breathtaking view of the mountains.

HITLER: We haven’t come here to talk about the lovely view or the weather!

Austria has anyway never done anything which was of help to the German Reich….I am resolutely determined to make an end to all this business. The German Reich is a great power.  Nobody can and nobody will interfere if it restores order on its frontiers. 

[Like Hitler, Trump relies on insults and anger to put his victims on the defense.]

 Kurt von Schuschnigg

SCHUSCHNIGG: We simply have to go on living alongside one another, the little state next to the big one. We have no other choice.

And that is why I ask you to tell me what your concrete complaints are. We will do all in our power to sort things out and establish a friendly relationship, as far as it is possible to do so.

HITLER: That’s what you say, Herr Schuschnigg. And I am telling you that I intend to clear up the whole of the so-called Austrian question—one way or another. Do you think I don’t know that you are fortifying Austria’s border with the Reich? 

SCHUSCHNIGG: There can be no suggestion at all of that—

HITLER: Ridiculous explosive chambers are being built under bridges and roads— 

This was a lie, and Hitler knew it was a lie. But it gave him an excuse to threaten to destroy Austria.

[For Trump, winning—not truth—is all that matters. During his first term as President, he told a documented 30,573 lies.]

HITLER: I have only to give one command and all this comic stuff on the border will be blown to pieces overnight. You don’t seriously think you could hold me up, even for half an hour, do you?

The S.A. [Hitler’s private army of Stormtroopers] and the [Condor] lLegion [which had bombed much of Spain into rubble during the Spanish Civil War] would come in after the troops and nobody—not even I—could stop them from wreaking vengeance.

Schnuschigg made a cardinal mistake in dealing with Hitler: He showed fear.  And this was precisely what the Nazi dictator looked for in an opponent. 

[Like Hitler, Trump relies on fear: “Real power is—I don’t even want to use the word—fear,” he said in March 2016 when still only a candidate for President.]

Contrary to popular belief, Hitler did not constantly rage at everyone. He used rage as a weapon, knowing that most people feel intimidated by it. 

In the case of Schuschnigg, Hitler opened with insults and threats at the outset of their discussion. Then there was a period of calm, to convince the Austrian chancellor the worst was over.

Finally, he once again attacked—this time with so much fury that Schuschnigg was terrified into submission. 

With one stroke of a pen, Austria became a vassal-state to Nazi Germany.

[Like Hitler, Trump threatens only those he feels are weak—thus his threats to use military force against Canada, Greenland and Panama.]

“THE HUMAN PRINTER” AND HER ADONIS: PART THREE (END)

In Bureaucracy, Business, History, Medical, Military, Politics, Social commentary on September 2, 2026 at 12:10 am

President Donald Trump is haunted by the fear of a third impeachment action against him if Democrats retake the House of Representatives in the fast-approaching midterm elections scheduled for November 3.      

Speaking at a rally in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, to support Senate candidate Darline Graham, sister of the late Senator Lindsey Graham, Trump warned: “If we lose the midterms, I am going to be impeached. They are going to impeach me. They have no idea why!” 

On the contrary: Democrats know well why they want to remove him from office. Among their reasons: 

  • Starting an unprovoked war with Iran.
  • Attacking longtime American allies like Canada, England and Greenland.
  • Cozying up to Communist dictators such as Vladimir Putin, Xi Jinping and Kim Jong-Un.
  • Ordering the Justice Department to indict his critics such as New York Attorney General Letitia James and former FBI Director James Comey.
  • Flooding Minneapolis and St. Paul, Minnesota, with 3,000 Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents who terrorized (and murdered) both American citizens and illegal aliens. 

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Donald Trump

Trump’s Republican accomplices in Congress fully understand the threat he faces—and what it poses for them. Thanks to his unprovoked war on Iran, oil shipments have been constrained worldwide—and Americans are furious at soaring prices for gas, food and housing.

Meanwhile, Trump arrogantly claims that “affordability” is a “Democratic hoax.” And, like Adolf Hitler contemplating architectural models while Nazi Germany neared destruction, he focuses on vanity projects like a 90,000 square foot White House ballroom and a towering “Victory Arch” overlooking Arlington Cemetery. 

As a result, Trump’s current national approval rating hovers between 33% and 38%. And Republicans fear that his unpopularity will spell doom for their own re-election prospects.

On June 26, Mike Johnson (R-LA), Speaker of the House of Representatives, warned his colleagues:

“If we were to lose the midterms, heaven forbid, these Democrats, y’all, impeachment’s not even the biggest concern. They will turn every committee of Congress into an investigative body, and they’ll go after the president’s family, the Cabinet, his donors and friends—half of you in this room will be targeted.”

Mike Johnson

Frederick Wellman, the Democratic congressional candidate for Missouri’s 2nd District, was quick to agree:

“You’re damn right we will investigate crimes and corruption. Who moved $180 million in oil futures 15 minutes before Iran announcements? Who has gotten sole source contracts because of their connections to the Trump family

“Where did our Social Security data go when DOGE downloaded it into portable hard drives? Where are the rest of the Epstein files? On and on this Congress has chosen covering up crimes instead of stopping them. That ends in November.”

Donald Trump is notorious for being thin-skinned. He has never displayed a sense of humor—nor an ability to laugh at himself. And he cannot abide listening to news that contradicts whatever he wants to do or believe.

The role that Natalie Harp plays in his life cannot be fully understood unless one accepts this fundamental truth: Trump, like Adolf Hitler, believes that if he just thinks positively, reality will bend to meet his wishes.

For this, he needs—and devours—a constant supply of “happy news” that confirms what he wants to believe. “News” that Harp is thrilled to constantly supply.

Thus, six months after launching a war he expected to be over in four to six weeks, Trump could say: “Right now, the situation is so good.”

Trump said this after leading reporters on a tour of the White House’s South Lawn to show off his latest renovations.

Presidents—and tyrants—who substitute “happy news” for hard truth usually come to a bad end. Hitler fired generals like Heinz Guderian—the architect of his sweeping victory over France in 1940—when they told him an offensive could not be continued or that their soldiers were needlessly dying for lack of supplies. 

It did not win Hitler his war.

As Donald Trump lurches from one self-manufactured crisis to another, two warnings from Niccolo Machiavelli, the Florentine statesman and father of modern political science, take on special meaning: 

“I must not omit an important subject, and mention of a mistake which princes can with difficulty avoid, if they are not very prudent, or if they do not make a good choice. And this is with regard to flatterers, of which courts are full, because men take pleasure in their own things and deceive themselves about them that they can with difficulty guard against this plague.”

And:

“It is an infallible rule that a prince who is not wise himself cannot be well advised, unless by chance he leaves himself entirely in the hands of one man who rules him in everything, and happens to be a very prudent man. In this case, he may doubtless be well governed, but it would not last long, for the governor would in a short time deprive him of the state.”

Noted historian Barbara Tuchman put it even more directly: “A great empire and little minds go ill together.”

“THE HUMAN PRINTER” AND HER ADONIS: PART TWO (OF THREE)

In Bureaucracy, Business, History, Military, Politics, Social commentary on September 1, 2026 at 12:10 am

Michael Wolff, a longtime biographer of Donald Trump, recently published letters from White House aide Natalie Harp to the President in The Daily Beast.      

Among their revelations: 

“If there is anything else I have done to cause you trouble, please forgive me. I want things to always be right between us. I also know I’ve been distracted all week (forgetting to eat throughout the days, and even forgetting to sleep, and only catching a couple hours at a time).”  

And

“I never want to bring you anything but joy. I’m sorry I lost my focus. You are all that matters to me. I don’t want to ever let you down. Thank you for being my Guardian and Protector in this life.”

On August 16, Georgia’s Democratic United States Senator, Jon Ossoff, said at a campaign rally in Atlanta: 

“He golfs and trades stocks. See, he doesn’t want to do the job. He wants to build his ballroom and travel with Natalie on their apparently defenseless flying palace gifted by the Emir of Qatar.”

A clip of this remark was widely shared on social media. 

Senator Jon Ossoff of Georgia in his official portrait, taken in 2021 right after his election to the Senate.

Jon Ossoff

Ossoff didn’t accuse Trump and Harp of tripping the light fantastic, but the White House immediately and viciously reacted as if he had: 

  • White House Communications Director Steven Cheung: Jon Jackoff has to be the biggest cuck loser in politics. Instead of denigrating hard working people serving their country, Jon should look deep into his soul and ask himself why he’s a miserable person who hates this country. It’s because he’s a radical, extremist Dumocrat.” [“Denigrating” actually means “insulting.” The word Cheung meant was “praising.”]
  • Trump spokesman Davis Ingle: A cringeworthy, feminine theatre kid cosplaying as Barack Obama.”  
  • Right-wing CNN pundit Scott Jennings: “A garbage human.” 
  • When a CNN reporter asked Trump about Ossoff’s remarks, a White House-run X account attacked her as “a disgraceful, humiliating embarrassment to her alleged profession.” 

Even some Democrats feel that Ossoff went too far. One of these was David Axelrod, former advisor to President Barack Obama.

“No one has been more consistently eloquent or incisive in exposing @realDonaldTrump than @Ossoff. The paragraph from his weekend speech that has gotten so much attention was a brutal takedown. But two words in it, ‘with Natalie’ seemed gratuitous and unnecessary,” Axelrod wrote on X.

David Axelrod

This despite the fact that Trump has built his political career on countless brutal insults to both Republicans and Democrats.

The attacks on him haven’t fazed Ossoff: “It’s been amazing to watch this White House melt down over this all week,” he told MS NOW. “These White House staffers are adults, public officials paid by the taxpayer with immense power in positions of public trust.” 

Even if there is no affair between the President and his adoring aide, their relationship underscores a fundamental Trumpian dilemma:

On one hand, he craves not simply loyalty but constant adoration. He must be repeatedly told he’s the most handsome, brilliant, powerful, beloved man on the planet.

On the other hand, his flagrant greed, egotism and constant attacks on a seemingly endless number of people—politicians, journalists, celebrities, ordinary Americans—ensure that the hatred he spews is returned in kind. And this makes him all the more desperate to feel adored. 

Thus, enter Natalie Harp.

Ossoff’s comment has clearly touched a White House nerve. And it couldn’t have happened at a worse time for Trump.

He’s an 80-year-old, easily distracted man who repeatedly falls asleep in public events—such as during White House meetings or a World Cup game. He launched a losing war on Iran, predicted it would be over in four to six weeks, and has seen it spiral into six months with no end in sight.

Meanwhile,  Iran continues to control the Strait of Hormuz, through which about 20 million barrels of oil used to pass each day. That flow has been reduced to between two million and six million barrels each day.

Strait of Hormuz

This has created a worldwide spiral in oil prices—and fueled inflation in the United States and other nations. But as prices for housing, energy and food soar in the United States, Trump claims that “affordability” is a “Democratic hoax.”

Like Adolf Hitler contemplating architectural models while Nazi Germany neared destruction, Trump focuses on vanity projects like a 90,000 square foot White House ballroom and a towering “Victory Arch” overlooking Arlington Cemetery. 

Trump is haunted by the fear of a third impeachment action against him if Democrats retake the House of Representatives in the fast-approaching midterm elections scheduled for November 3. 

Speaking at a rally in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, to support Senate candidate Darline Graham, sister of the late Senator Lindsey Graham, Trump warned: “If we lose the midterms, I am going to be impeached. They are going to impeach me. They have no idea why!” 

His Republican accomplices in Congress fully understand this as well. Most of them now hold their positions to his support—or by not daring to cross him in any way.

And they fear that his current unpopularity—at  33% to 39%—will upend their own chances for re-election.