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ONCE AGAIN, ACCOMPLICES TO OUR OWN DESTRUCTION: PART FOUR (OF SEVEN)

In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Politics, Social commentary on February 3, 2026 at 1:01 am

Even as an ex-President, Donald Trump continued to benefit from the routine cowardice of the Democratic party. 

While Congressional Republicans relentlessly investigated President Joe Biden and his family, Democrats refused to similarly investigate Trump’s family. 

Democrats never probed why Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law and  former White House adviser, received $2 billion from Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. The money came to Kushner’s private equity firm after Kushner left the White House in 2021. 

Jarred Kushner

Democrats also refused to investigate the Trump administration’s illegally seizing vitally-needed medical supplies in at least seven states during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) did not publicly report the thefts, despite the outlay of millions of dollars of taxpayer money. Nor did the Trump administration explain how it decided which supplies to seize and where to reroute them.

Nor did FEMA inform states if they would receive the materials they ordered and paid for.

Interferon Plays Pivotal, Inflammatory Role in Severe COVID-19 Cases

COVID-19 virus

Americans willingly ignored Trump’s crimes because they were angry about surging numbers of illegal aliens pouring into the country. But the Biden administration refused—until its closing months—to dramatically address this issue.  

A Vox story, dated July 12, 2024, warned:  “According to Gallup,  2024 is the first time since 2005 that most of the public have wanted less immigration, and this year marks the largest share of Americans feeling resistant to immigration since 58 percent said so in 2001….”  

Six months later, on January 17, 2025, another Vox story offered: “What Democrats must learn from Biden’s disastrous immigration record.” 

It opened: “One of the main reasons Vice President Kamala Harris lost the election is the Biden administration’s record on immigration and the border — polls show it ranks up close with inflation among the top issues that drove swing voters to Trump.…”

From 2021 to 2023, the number of illegal aliens skyrocketed. Even blue states and cities complained they were overwhelmed. In December 2023, a record 250,000 illegal aliens tried to cross the border.

Illegal alien climbing over the border fence in Brownsville, Texas

Then, starting early in 2024, and continuing throughout the year, border arrivals plummeted—by more than 80%.

The reasons:

  1. The Biden administration got the Mexican government to launch an extensive crackdown on migrants passing through its territory to the United States. 
  2. Biden decreed that new unauthorized migrants would be ineligible for asylum if too many people were coming to the border. Essentially, this meant shutting down the asylum process.

Unfortunately for Harris, the downturn in illegal immigration came too late.

In times of economic uncertainty, hostility rises toward immigrants—especially those who are alien to a host country’s language and culture. This has proven true in Europe as well as the United States.

Americans blamed President Biden for inflationary price increases—especially for groceries such as eggs. And they believed Trump’s lies that he would immediately reverse those price increases.

According to a December 20, 2024 article—“Why are groceries so expensive? What you need to know”—by the Center for Science in the Public Interest:

“Since January 2019, food prices have risen nearly 30 percent in the US, leaving many households struggling to afford groceries.”

Among the issues responsible for this:

  • COVID-19: Caused worldwide disruptions in supply chains.
  • Transportation costs and fuel prices: Fuel costs are directly tied to how much retailers charge for groceries and other goods.
  • Animal diseases, weather events, crop failures: When bird flu (H5N1) first struck the U.S. in 2022, eggs were priced at around $2 per dozen. They peaked at $4.82/dozen in January, 2023, and in December, 2024—following the infection of over 123 million chickens—prices fell to about $4.15/dozen.
  • Global conflict: In February, 2022, Russia invaded Ukraine, which exports wheat, corn and agricultural fertilizer, among other products. Russia has tried to strangle Ukraine’s exports by attacking the nation’s agricultural centers.

No President—including Biden and Trump—can control such events. Unfortunately, every Presidential candidate virtually promises to be Superman. And voters repeatedly fall victim to this absurdity.

Trump benefitted from the Politically Incorrect truth that misogynistic Americans don’t want a woman President.

American voters proved that in 2016 when former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton ran for President—and lost to Trump in the Electoral College by a count of 227 to 304. 

And Hillary had an advantage that Vice President Kamala Harris lacked: Hillary was white.

Official vice presidential portrait. Head shot of Harris smiling, wearing an American flag lapel pin and pearl earrings, and dressed formally.

Kamala Harris

England has elected a female Prime Minister: Margaret Thatcher. And Mexico—notorious for the machismo of its men—has elected a woman President: Claudia Sheinbaum Pardo. But in the United States, electing a woman chief executive is unthinkable to most American men.

Machismo played a major role in Trump’s popularity, especially among Hispanics.

Roughly six in 10 men described Trump as a strong leader, compared with 43% who said that in 2020. About half of Hispanic women said Trump was a strong leader, up from 37%.

This despite Trump’s past derogatory comments about Hispanics (“When Mexico sends its people, they’re not sending their best….They’re bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists. And some, I assume, are good people”).

And despite a sea of “MASS DEPORTATION NOW” signs at the 2024 Republican National Convention 

More than any other group, Hispanics would face the full fury of Trump’s campaign to deport at least one million illegal aliens each year.

ONCE AGAIN, ACCOMPLICES TO OUR OWN DESTRUCTION: PART THREEE (OF SEVEN)

In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Politics, Social commentary on February 2, 2026 at 12:10 am

On January 13, 2021, Donald Trump was impeached for the second time for “incitement of insurrection”—inciting the January 6, 2021 attack on the United States Capitol.  

The reason: To try to stop the counting of Electoral College votes, which he knew would prove that former Vice President Joseph Biden had won the 2020 Presidential election.

The evidence against Trump was overwhelming—including video of his inciting a mob of his followers to storm the Capitol Building.

But Republican Senators again acquitted Trump on February 13, 2021—choosing ambition over patriotism.

Had they done so, he could not have again been a candidate for President. 

Related image

Donald Trump

Even after Joseph Biden took the oath of office as President, his Justice Department treated Trump with a deference never shown any other criminal defendant. 

Only on November 18, 2022—a year and a half after becoming Attorney General—did Merrick Garland appoint Jack Smith Independent Counsel to investigate Donald Trump’s role for: 

  1. Inciting the January 6 attack on Congress; and
  2. Illegally seizing and storing highly classified government documents at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, Florida.

This gave Trump time to play his “deny and delay” game. Had he been prosecuted and convicted before the November 5 Presidential election, the results might well have been different.

Even hardcore supporters might have proved unwilling to vote for someone found guilty of inciting a riot and//or stealing highly classified documents.

Even while under multiple indictments, Trump was allowed to hurl insults and threats at Special Counsel Jack Smith and even Smith’s family.

One such post, published on Trump’s website, Truth Social, went: “Deranged Jack Smith, who is a sick puppet for A.G. Garland & Crooked Joe Biden, should be DEFUNDED & put out to rest. Republicans must get tough or the Dems will steal another Election. MAGA!” 

Laura Rozen on Twitter: "Jack Smith bio from the Hague court https://t.co/5iOsfwMSAa https://t.co/wAG6RmQ7N4" / Twitter

Jack Smith

By “A.G. Garland” Trump meant Attorney General Merrick Garland. By “put out to rest,” he meant that his followers should assassinate Smith. 

Not even Mafia bosses like Charles “Lucky” Luciano and Albert “The Executioner” Anastasia dared issue such threats.

By contrast: Jimmy Hoffa was president of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters. But that didn’t prevent Robert F. Kennedy’s Justice Department from indicting him for jury tampering—and convicting him on March 4, 1964. He was sentenced to eight years in prison and a $10,000 fine. 

No one in the Kennedy Justice Department said: “He’s the elected president of the Teamsters Union—so we can’t touch him.” Yet that is precisely how the Biden Justice Department repeatedly acted toward Trump—simply because, in 2016, he won a Presidential election.

In June, 2023, Trump was indicted for illegally seizing and storing hundreds of highly classified government documents at his Mar-a-Lago estate.

Aileen Cannon, a Trump appointee as Federal Judge of the United States District Court for the Southern District of Florida, presided over the case.

She repeatedly ruled in his favor and finally dismissed the case in July, 2024. claiming that Special Counsel Jack Smith’s appointment was unconstitutional. 

Aileen Cannon

Many legal experts, citing her handling of the civil case against Trump, called for her recusal from the case. Jack Smith could have requested her removal from the case but did not ask a Federal appeals court to do so.

MSNBC analyst Barbara McQuade told Newsweek that Smith likely refused to do so to “return public trust” to the Justice Department, which had been challenged in recent years.

Cannon’s kid-gloves treatment of Trump echoed that of the Right-wing judge who presided over Adolf Hitler’s trial in 1924 for trying to overthrow the government of Bavaria. 

Throughout his struggles to stay out of prison, Trump was aided by the unrelenting support of the Republican party.  

Republicans loudly and repeatedly claimed that Donald Trump was the legitimate winner of the 2020 Presidential election—despite overwhelming evidence that he wasn’t.

They also claimed that, by appointing Special Counsel Jack Smith to investigate Trump, the Democrats had weaponized Federal law enforcement.

They also fully supported Trump’s demand for the release of those who attacked the Capitol Building on January 6, 2021.

Republican Disc.svg

For example: Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) depicted these coup supporters as persecuted martyrs.

On March 24, 2022, members of the Republicans’ House Oversight Committee toured a Washington, D.C. jail where some of these defendants were held. “Their due process rights are being violated. And they have been mistreated and treated as political prisoners,” Greene told reporters after the tour.

Adolf Hitler similarly portrayed as martyrs the Nazis who tried to violently overthrow the government of Bavaria on November 9, 1923.

A March 2, 2020 Washington Monthly story concluded ominously:  “U.S. democracy wasn’t set up to deal with a president openly behaving like a James Bond villain while being protected by a political party behaving more like a mafia than a civic institution.” 

While Congressional Republicans relentlessly investigated President Joe Biden and his family, Democrats refused to similarly investigate Trump’s family.

The Republican House Oversight Committee opened its investigation into the Biden family on January 11, 2023. The investigation included the foreign business activities of Biden’s son, Hunter, and brother, James. 

By November 2023, the investigation had not found any evidence of wrongdoing by President Biden.

ONCE AGAIN, ACCOMPLICES TO OUR OWN DESTRUCTION: PART TWO (OF SEVEN)

In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Military, Politics, Social commentary on January 30, 2026 at 12:10 am

Once he became the 45th President of the United States, Donald Trump began undermining one public or private institution after another.          

On November 3, 2020, 80 million voters decided they wanted a change—and elected former Vice President Joe Biden as the 46th President of the United States.

Trump refused to accept that verdict. 

Speaking from the White House in the early hours of November 4, he said:

“Millions and millions of people voted for us tonight, and a very sad group of people is trying to disenfranchise that group of people and we won’t stand for it.”

For the first time in American history, a President demanded a halt to the counting of votes while the outcome of an election hung in doubt.

States ignored his demand and kept counting.

Next, Trump ordered his attorneys to file lawsuits to overturn the election results, charging electoral fraud. 

Specifically:

  • Illegal aliens had been allowed to vote.
  • Trump ballots had been systematically destroyed.
  • Tampered voting machines had turned Trump votes into Biden ones.

Throughout November and December, cases were filed in Wisconsin, Arizona, Nevada, Michigan, Minnesota and Georgia challenging the election results. And, one by one, more than 30 cases were withdrawn by Trump’s attorneys or dismissed by Federal judges—some of them appointed by Trump himself.

For 20 days, General Services Administrator Emily Murphy refused to release $7.3 million in transition funding and Federal resources to the President-elect’s team.

Under the law governing presidential transitions, Murphy was responsible for determining the winner based on publicly available information before the actual Electoral College vote. 

Finally, on November 23, Murphy released the transition funding and resources.

File:Seal of the General Services Administration.svg - Wikimedia Commons

Losing in the courts, Trump invited two Republican legislative leaders from Michigan to the White House to persuade them to stop the state from certifying the vote.

Nothing changed. 

On December 5, Trump called Georgia Governor Brian Kemp and asked him to call a special legislative session and convince state legislators to select their own electors that would support him, thus overturning Biden’s win.

Kemp refused, saying he lacked the authority to do so.

Meanwhile, top Republicans—such as Vice President Mike Pence and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell—refused to congratulate Biden as the winner. 

None of them branded Trump’s efforts to overturn the election as those of a tyrant.

Just as Germans did nothing to stop Adolf Hitler’s inexorable march toward war—and the destruction of millions of lives and Germany itself—so, too, did Americans seem paralyzed to put an end to the equally self-destructive reign of the man often dubbed “Carrot Caligula.”

Donald Trump is mad right now 😆 🤣 😂 😹 😆 🤣 Good Job Democrats

Gaius Caligula was “the mad emperor” of ancient Rome. Like Trump, he lived by a philosophy of “Let them hate me, so long as they fear me.”

He ruled as the most powerful man of his time—three years, 10 months and eight days. And all but the first six months of his reign were drenched in slaughter and debauchery.   

There are basically three ways America’s continuing slide into tyranny could have been stopped:

Congressional Republicans could have revolted against Trump’s authority and/or agenda.

They could, for example, have demanded that Trump accept the verdict of the electorate—as every other past President had. But they didn’t.

Invoking the Twenty-Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution.

This allows the Vice President and a majority of the Cabinet to recommend the removal of the President in cases where he is “unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office.” It also allows the House and Senate to confirm the recommendation over the President’s objection by two-thirds vote. 

If you want a simple explanation of the 25th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which is of profound current importance, read on. This Amendment was enacted in 1967 to provide clearer guidelines

The Vice President then takes over as President.

A case could easily have been made that Trump, emotionally distraught over his loss and determined to circumvent the will of the electorate, had been rendered unfit to continue in office. But, once again, Republicans let fear and/or lust for power be their guide.

The “Caligula solution.” Like Trump, Roman emperor Gaius Caligula delighted in humiliating others. His fatal mistake was taunting Cassius Chaerea, a member of his own bodyguard. Caligula considered Chaerea effeminate because of a weak voice and mocked him with names like “Priapus” and “Venus.”

Gaius Caligula

On January 22 41 A.D. Chaerea and several other bodyguards hacked Caligula to death with swords before other guards could save him.

Trump had similarly behaved arrogantly toward his Secret Service guards. He forced them to work without pay during his 35-day government shutdown in 2018. He also forced them to accompany him to COVID-infected states—both during the Presidential campaign and afterward. Many of them were stricken with this often lethal disease as a result. 

During the 12 years that Adolf Hitler ruled Nazi Germany, at least 42 assassination plots were launched against him.

The best-known of these literally exploded on July 20, 1944, when Colonel Count Claus Shenk von Stauffenberg planted a bomb in a conference room attended by Hitler and his generals. Hitler survived only by sheer luck. 

By contrast, no similar plot was aimed at Donald Trump.

ONCE AGAIN, ACCOMPLICES TO OUR OWN DESTRUCTION: PART ONE (OF SEVEN)

In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Military, Politics, Social commentary on January 29, 2026 at 12:10 am

“Why are we letting one man systematically destroy our nation before our eyes?” 

It’s a question millions of Americans have asked themselves since Donald Trump once again became President of the United States.

Millions of Germans asked themselves the same question throughout the 12 years of the Third Reich.

In September, 1938, as Adolf Hitler threatened to go to war against France and England over Czechoslovakia, most Germans feared he would. They knew that Germany was not ready for war, despite all of their Fuhrer’s boasts about the invincibility of the Third Reich.

A group of high-ranking German army officers prepared to overthrow Hitler–provided that England and France held firm and handed him a major diplomatic reverse.

But then England and France—though more powerful than Germany—flinched at the thought of war.

They surrendered to Hitler’s demands that he be given the “Sudetenland”—the northern, southwest and western regions of Czechoslovakia, inhabited mostly by ethnic Germans.

Hitler’s popularity among Germans soared. He had previously absorbed Austria, and now, by annexing Czechoslovakia, he had vastly expanded the territories of the Reich—without firing a shot!

The plotters in the German high command, realizing that public opinion stood overwhelmingly against them, abandoned their plans for a coup. They decided to wait for a more favorable time.

It never came.

Adolf Hitler and his generals

Less than one year after the infamous “Munich conference,” England and France were at war—and fighting for the lives of their peoples.

As for the Germans: Most of them blindly followed their Fuhrer right to the end—believing his lies (or at least wanting to believe them), serving in his legions, defending his rampant criminality.

And then, in April, 1945, with Russian armies pouring into Berlin, it was too late for conspiracies against the man who had led them to total destruction. 

Berliners paid the price for their loyalty to a murderous dictator—through countless rapes, murders and the wholesale destruction of their city. And from 1945 to 1989, Germans living in the eastern part of their country paid the price as slaves to the Soviet Union. 

Have Americans learned anything from this this warning from history about subservience to a madman? 

The answer seems to be half-yes, half-no.

In 2016, almost 63 million Americans elected Donald Trump—a racist, serial adulterer and longtime fraudster—as President.

Related image

Donald Trump

Upon taking office on January 20, 2017, Trump began undermining one public or private institution after another.

  • Repeatedly attacking the nation’s free press for daring to report his growing list of crimes and disasters, using Joseph Stalin’s phrase to brand it “the enemy of the people.”
  • Siding with Russian dictator Vladimir Putin against the FBI, CIA and National Security Agency which unanimously agreed that Russia had subverted the 2016 Presidential election. 
  • Firing FBI Director James Comey for investigating that subversion.
  • Giving Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and Russian Ambassador Sergey  Kislyak highly classified CIA Intelligence about an Islamic State plot to turn laptops into concealable bombs.  
  • Shutting down the Federal Government for 35 days because Democrats refused to fund his ineffective “border wall” between the United States and Mexico. An estimated 380,000 government employees were furloughed and another 420,000 were ordered to work without pay. The shutdown ended due to public outrage—without Trump getting the funding amount he had demanded.
  • Trying to coerce Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to smear former Vice President Joe Biden, who was likely to be his Democratic opponent in the 2020 Presidential election.
  • Enabling the COVID-19 virus to kill 400,000 Americans through his lies about its deadliness by the time he left office.
  • Attacking medical experts and governors who urged Americans to wear masks and socially distance to protect themselves from COVID-19.
  • Ordering his Right-wing followers to defy states’ orders to citizens to “stay-at-home” and wear of masks in public to halt surging COVID-19 rates.

And throughout all those outrages, House and Senate Republican majorities remained silent or vigorously supported him.

A typical example:

On June 4, 2020, during protests over the police murder of black security guard George Floyd, a curfew was imposed on Buffalo, New York. As police swept through Niagara Square, Martin Gugino, a 75-year-old peace activist with the Catholic Worker Movement, walked into their path as if attempting to speak with them.

Two Buffalo police officers charged with assault - CGTN

Martin Gugino falls backward

Two officers pushed him and he fell backwards, hitting the back of his head on the pavement and losing consciousness. 

On June 9, Trump charged that Gugino was part of a radical leftist “set up.” Trump offered no evidence to back up his slander.

Typical Republican responses included:  

  • Kentucky Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell refused to say whether Trump’s tweet was appropriate.
  • Texas Senator Ted Cruz: “I don’t comment on the tweets.” 
  • Wisconsin Senator Ron Johnson said he hadn’t seen the tweet—and didn’t want it read to him: “I would rather not hear it.”
  • Tennessee Senator Lamar Alexander: “Voters can evaluate that. I’m not going to give a running commentary on the President’s tweets.”

On November 3, 2020, 80 million voters decided they wanted a change—and elected former Vice President Joe Biden as the 46th President of the United States.

WHAT ICE MOST FEARS

In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Politics, Social commentary on January 20, 2026 at 12:11 am

On January 7, Renee Nicole Good, a 37-year-old writer and poet, was fatally shot three times by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agent Jonathan Ross in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

A day earlier, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) had announced what it called the largest immigration enforcement operation ever carried out, sending 2,000 agents to the Minneapolis-Saint Paul metropolitan area. 

According to Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison and United States Representative Ilhan Omar, Good was acting as a legal observer of ICE’s activities at the time of her encounter with Ross. But Good’s ex-husband said that she had dropped her son off at school and was on her way home with her partner “when they came upon a group of ICE agents.”

Good was in her SUV, stopped sideways in the street when Ross drove his SUV around her car. He stopped ahead of her, began recording video, and stepped out with his face covered. Ross recorded Good’s face and rear license plate. Good stated: “That’s fine, dude. I’m not mad at you.” 

Good’s partner, Becca Good, standing behind their SUV, told the agent: “Hey, show your face, Big Boy. Show your face. That’s OK. We don’t change our plates every morning, just so you know. This will be the same plate when you come talk to us later. That’s fine. US citizen, former fucking veteran, disabled veteran.”

Other agents approached, and one repeatedly yelled, “Get out of the fucking car!” as he reached through her open window.

Killing of Renee Good - Wikipedia

Renee Good

Ross moved to the front-left of the vehicle as Good briefly reversed, then began driving into the direction of traffic while turning away from Ross. While remaining upright, Ross fired three shots, killing her: one through the windshield, then two through the open driver’s side window from the side of her vehicle as it passed him.  

He later drove away from the scene.

The SUV continued down the street until crashing into a parked car and light pole. An agent’s voice captured on Ross’ body camera shouted, “Fucking bitch!”

Some have speculated that Good died because she and her partner had refused to show fear or even anger toward Ross, and this may have enraged him.

Those who lust for power over others demand deference, if not subservience. And when it’s not forthcoming, they can only respond with violence.

This is best illustrated in a work of fiction: The 1996 historical novel, The Friends of Pancho Villa, by James Carlos Blake. 

The Friends of Pancho Villa | James Carlos Blake | First Edition

The book depicts the Mexican Revolution (1910 – 1920) and its most famous revolutionary, Francisco “Pancho” Villa. It’s told from the viewpoint of Rodolfo Fierro, Villa’s most feared executioner. In one day, for example, Fierro—using two revolvers—executed 300 captured Federale soldiers.Related image

As in history, Blake’s Fierro presides over the execution of David Berlanga, a journalist who had dared criticize the often loutish behavior of Villa’s men.

On Villa’s command, Fierro approaches Berlanga in a Mexico City restaurant and orders: “Come with me.”

Standing against a barracks wall, Berlanga lights a cigar and requests permission to finish it. He then proceeds to smoke it with such a steady hand that its unbroken ash extends almost four inches.

The cigar finished, the ash still unbroken, Berlanga drops the butt to the ground and says calmly: “I’m ready.” 

Then the assembled firing squad does its work.

Later, Fierro is so shaken by Berlanga’s sheer fearlessness that he seeks an explanation for it. Sitting in a cantina, he lights a cigar and tries to duplicate Berlanga’s four-inch length.

But the best he can do is less than three inches. He concludes that Berlanga used a trick—but he can’t figure it out.

Rodolfo Fierro

It had to be a trick, Fierro insists, because, if it wasn’t, there were only two other explanations for such a calm demeanor in the face of impending death. 

The first was insanity. But Fierro rules this out: He had studied Berlanga’s eyes and found no madness there.

That leaves only one other explanation (other than a trick): Sheer courage. 

And Fierro can’t accept this, either—because it’s disturbing.  

“The power of men like me does not come solely from our ability to kill….No, the true source of our power is so obvious it sometimes goes unnoticed for what it is: Our power comes from other men’s lack of courage.

“There is even less courage in this world than there is talent for killing. Men like me rule because most men are faint of heart in the shadow of death.

“But a man brave enough to control his fear of being killed, control it so well that no tremor reaches his fingers and no sign shows in his eyes…well. Such a man cannot be ruled, he can only be killed.”

* * * * *

Throughout his life, Donald Trump has relied on intimidation to gain his ends. And his private police-army, ICE, well understands the power of fear it holds over most people.

What he, and they, cannot understand—and truly fear—is that some people cannot be frightened. They can only be killed.

People like Renee Good.

A TRUTH LOST ON TRUMP: HUMANITY CAN PREVAIL WHEN VIOLENCE FAILS

In Bureaucracy, History, Law Enforcement, Politics, Social commentary on January 19, 2026 at 12:13 am

Two stories—one fictitious, the other historical.    

Story #1: In the 1961 historical epic, “El Cid,” Rodrigo Diaz de Vivar, known as “El Cid”—“The Lord”—besieges the Spanish city of Valencia, which has been captured by the Moors.   

Months have passed. The city’s population is starving and without hope.

Then, one day, El Cid (Charlton Heston) calls out over the city’s walls: “Soldiers and citizens of Valencia! We are not your enemy! Ben Yusof [the powerful emir who plans to conquer Spain with an invading army] is your enemy! 

“Join us! We bring you peace! We bring you freedom! We bring you bread!”

Amazon.com: El Cid Poster Movie 30x40 Charlton Heston Sophia Loren ...

Suddenly El Cid’s Spanish catapults spring into action—loaded not with stones but loaves of bread. The loaves land in the city’s streets, where starving citizens and soldiers greedily devour them. 

Then those citizens attack the bodyguards of the well-fed emir ruling Valencia—and throw the emir himself from a high wall. 

The army of El Cid marches peacefully into the city.

Story #2: In Book Three, Chapter 22 of his classic masterwork, The Discourses, Niccolo Machiavelli offers the following: “An Act of Humanity Prevailed More With the Falacians Than All the Power of Rome.”

Marcus Furius Camillus, a Roman general, was besieging the city of the Faliscians, and had surrounded it. A teacher charged with the education of the children of some of the noblest families of that city decided to ingratiate himself with Camillus by leading those children into the Roman camp. 

Presenting them to Camillus ,the teacher said to him, “By means of these children as hostages, you will be able to compel the city to surrender.”

Camillus not only declined the offer but went one step further. He ordered the teacher stripped and his hands tied behind his back. Then Camillus had a rod put into the hands of each of the children and directed them to whip the teacher all the way back to the city. 

Upon learning this, the citizens of Faliscia were so much touched by the humanity and integrity of Camillus, that they surrendered the place to him without any further defense. 

Summing up the meaning of this, Machiavelli writes: “This example shows that an act of humanity and benevolence will at all times have more influence over the minds of men than violence and ferocity. It also proves that provinces and cities which no armies…could conquer, have yielded to an act of humanity, benevolence, chastity or generosity.

“…History also shows us how much the people desire to find such virtues in great men, and how much they are extolled by historians and biographers of princes….Amongst these, Xenophon takes great pains to show how many victories, how much honor and fame, Cyrus gained by his humanity and affability, and by his not having exhibited a single instance of pride, cruelty or luxuriousness, nor of any of the other vices that are apt to stain the lives of men.” 

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

Niccolo Machiavelli

These stories—the first the product of a movie screenwriter’s imagination, the second recorded by a master political scientist and historian—remain highly relevant today.

On May 25, 2020, George Floyd, a black unemployed restaurant security guard, was murdered by Derek Chauvin, a white Minneapolis police officer. While Floyd was handcuffed and lying face down on a city street during an arrest, Chauvin kept his knee on the right side of Floyd’s neck for eight minutes and 46 seconds. 

Cities across the United States erupted in mass protests over Floyd’s death—and police killings of black victims generally. Most of these demonstrations proved peaceful.

But cities such as Los Angeles, San Francisco and New York City saw stores looted, vandalized and/or burned. In response, President Donald Trump called for harsh policing, telling governors in a nationwide conference call that they must “dominate” protesters or be seen as “weak.”

To drive home his point, Trump ordered police and National Guard troops to violently remove peaceful protesters from Lafayette Square, which borders St. John’s Church near the White House.  

The purpose of the removal: To allow Trump to have a photo opportunity outside the church.

“I imposed a curfew at 7pm,” tweeted Washington, D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser. “A full 25 minutes before the curfew & w/o provocation, federal police used munitions on peaceful protestors in front of the White House, an act that will make the job of @DCPoliceDept officers more difficult. Shameful!”

Contrast that with the example of Sheriff Christopher Swanson of Genesee County, Michigan. 

Sheriff Chris Swanson

Sheriff Christopher Swanson

Confronting a mass of aroused demonstrators in Flint Township on May 30, Swanson responded: “We want to be with you all for real.”

So Swanson took his helmet off. His deputies laid their batons down.

“I want to make this a parade, not a protest. So, you tell us what you need to do.”

“Walk with us!” the protesters shouted.

“Let’s walk, let’s walk,” said Swanson. 

Cheering and applause resounded.

“Let’s go, let’s go,” Swanson said as he and the cheering crowd proceeded. “Where do you want to walk? We’ll walk all night.”

And Swanson and his fellow officers walked in sympathy with the protesters.

No rioting followed. 

DANCING WITH EBOLA

In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Medical, Social commentary on January 14, 2026 at 12:12 am

I have type 2 diabetes but I manage it well It’s a little pill with a big story to tellI take once daily Jardiance at each day’s startAs time went on, it was easy to seeI’m lowering my A1cJardiance is really swellThe little pill with a big story to tell.

Millions of Americans have heard this jingle for Jardiance—an anti-diabetes medication—whose ads flooded the airways. And millions of Americans are furious about those ads. 

The pharmaceutical industry is flooding the airways with ads for its products—especially on the national news broadcasts at dinnertime.

Jardiance (2024) - Probably the Most Hated Commercial in 2023 is back. - YouTube

Jardiance ad

Catch any of the “Big Three” national newscasts—on ABC, CBS and NBC—and you’ll see that the vast majority of their ads are funded by Big Pharma.

The United States and New Zealand are the only two countries that allow pharmaceutical companies to directly advertise prescription drugs to consumers. 

In 2022, the pharmaceutical industry spent just under $8.1 billion on ad campaigns, which includes all advertising areas, such as TV, print, social media and streaming channels.

In 2025, pharmaceutical companies spent over $7 billion on TV ads alone. 

In 2025, the three most-advertised drugs in the United States were:

Eliquis (for preventing blood clots)

Dupixent (curbs the immune system over-reaction that results in atopic dermatitis) 

Ozempic/Wegovy (for managing Type 2 diabetes and promoting weight loss, respectively).

Drug companies view the ads as an increasingly effective way to target viewers—especially older ones—who need more extensive medical care and treatment for potentially life-threatening conditions. 

No doubt the companies would love to be able to hand out their medications on street corners—the way pushers of heroin and meth now do. But that would put them directly in the crosshairs of federal and local law enforcement.

Drug Enforcement Administration - Wikipedia

So the best these companies can do is try to convince patients to nag their doctors: “Oh, I want that drug.”  

Meanwhile, there are widespread concerns that:

  • Drugs will be prescribed inappropriately by patients asking for drugs they have seen on TV;
  • Patients will ask for or receive expensive brand-name medications, which are often featured in commercials, instead of less expensive generic ones; and
  • Patients will show less interest in shedding unhealthy lifestyles and rely simply on drugs. 

The last one is especially important, given the cheerful atmosphere of so many of these ads. Take the one for Jardiance, for example.

The clearly obese woman in the ad is shown at her office. She isn’t working—because she’s too busy singing about having a life-threatening disease. Her co-workers are equally joyful as they join her in singing the praises of Jardiance.

It’s easy to imagine a parody of such commercials. If a cure is eventually found for Ebola, a similar ad could be based on Barry Manilow’s classic song, “Only in Chicago”: 

I got sickAnd I sat on the bedAnd puked out my guts.And oh I swearI remember how much I bledAnd I thought I’d die.With Ebola I knew I’d lose it allIt was real, it was Death.

This would be followed by a cheery ad for a pill that eliminates the symptoms of this usually fatal disease.

Ebola (Ebola Virus Disease) | CDC

Ebola virus

The Harvard Gazette, in a March 1, 2023 article, warned that most advertised medicines don’t prove much better than other treatment options:

“We’ve all seen the commercials. People relaxed, smiling, and having fun with friends and family despite having a horrible or uncomfortable — or at least chronic — condition. Their new lease on life comes courtesy of a drug. Then the fine print. Roll the list of potential side effects, some of which seem worse than the malady itself.

“So why are the spots so popular with sponsors? Because they’re so effective — at least in terms of sales. In a recent issue of JAMA Network Open, Aaron Kesselheim and colleagues published the results of a study showing that some of the most heavily advertised drugs are largely no better at treating disease than other options.

“Direct-to-consumer advertising is really intended for consumers. As a primary care physician, people certainly come into my office with advertisements that they’ve printed off the internet or that they remember seeing during the football game the previous Sunday and say, ‘What about this drug?’ 

Even more worrisome: Pharmaceutical companies are a major source of drug information for doctors, often through sales reps, sponsored educational events and promotional materials. This information is widely recognized as biased, leading to increased prescribing of brand-name drugs and potentially affecting clinical decisions. 

Says Aaron Kesselheim, a professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School:

“Studies show that when patients come in and ask their physicians about particular drugs, they’re more likely to get prescriptions for those drugs. Doctors of course also watch TV, but the pharmaceutical industry spends much more money advertising its drugs directly to physicians, through visits to their offices, sponsorship of continuing medical education, support of professional society meetings, consultancies, and the like.

“Actually, the amount of money that pharmaceutical companies spend on advertising to physicians is far higher than the amount spent on direct-to-consumer advertising because physicians are the ones writing the prescriptions.”   

SCAMMER ALERT: “WE WANT TO GIVE YOU MONEY!”

In Business, History, Law Enforcement, Self-Help, Social commentary on January 12, 2026 at 12:12 am

Receiving unsolicited, get-rich-quick emails has become a regular headache for millions of Internet users. 

All too often, the result is fraud for their recipients. The Federal Trade Commission reported losses of $12.5 billion from online get-rich Ponzi schemes in 2024..

Here’s how to spot the warning signs of fraud:

  • Addressed Generally: “Attention!” “Dear Friend,” “Attention the owner of this email,” “Hello, Dear.” Your name is not mentioned, because this email has been mass-mailed to thousands of intended victims. 
  • Unsolicited:  You’re told that you’ve won a lottery you never entered, or have inherited a fortune from someone you never knew existed.
  • Appeals to Religion: “Hello Beloved in the Lord” or “Yours in Christ” seeks to create a bond with those who deeply believe in God.
  • Misuse of English: Mis-spellings and faulty grammar usually denote someone—probably a foreigner—using English as a second language. Examples: Run-on sentences; “you’re” for “your”; “except” instead of “accept”; “Dear Beneficial” instead of “Dear Beneficiary.”
  • Appeals to Sympathy: “My husband just died” or “I am dying of cancer.” This is to make you feel sorry for the sender and lower your guard as an intended victim.

Spotting a scam: Expert reveals seven ways to identify fake website - What Gadget

  • Use of Important Titles/Organizations: Director,” ‘Barrister,” “Secretary General of the United Nations,” “Police Inspector.” This is to impress recipients and convince them that the email comes from a trusted and legitimate organization.
  • Request for Personal Information: This includes some combination of: Name / Address / Telephone Number / Bank Name / Bank Account Number / Fax Number / Driver’s License Number / Occupation / Sex / Beneficiary / Passport Number
  • Claims of Deposit: “We have deposited the check of your fund to your account” is a typical line to instantly grab your attention. Someone you’ve never heard of claims he has just put a huge amount of money into an account you know nothing about. Nor can you access it unless you first pay a “contact fee.”
  • The “Bank” is in Africa: Unless you know you have relatives there, this should be a dead giveaway to a scam. Africa is a continent kept alive by the charity of other nations. It’s not in the business of doling out large sums of money to Westerners.
  • Overseas Phone Numbers: If you call these, you’ll have a huge bill. So many people skip calling and just send the money “required” to receive their “cash prize.”

Online Scam? What to do

  • Highly Personal Requests: Asking you—someone they’ve never met—to assume the burden of acting as the executor of their “Last Will and Testament.”
  • Love Scams: The scammer poses as a man or woman—usually outside the United States—seeking love. After days/weeks, the scammer says s/he will fly to the United States to be yours. All you have to do is put up the money for the flight cost.
  • “Make Money From Home”: Work from home” scams promise a way to support yourself and your family. You’re required to provide bank information or pay an up-front “registration fee.” Then you wait for job orders—that never come.
  • Debt Relief: Scammers promise to relieve most or all of your debt—for a large up-front fee. You pay the fee—and are not only out of that money but still in debt.
  • Home Repair Schemes: Huge down payments are required for home repairs that never happen.
  • “Free” Trial Offers: The service or product is free for awhile, but you must opt out later to avoid monthly billings.
  • The Email Claims to Be From the FBI: Often the “address” includes “Anti-Terrorist and Monetary Crime Division.”  One such email was addressed: “Dear Beneficiary” and offered help in obtaining a “fund.” The FBI is an investigative agency responsible to the U.S. Department of Justice. It does not resolve financial disputes or secure monies for “deserving” recipients. If the FBI wants to contact you, it will do so by letter or by sending agents to your address. The FBI’s own website states: “At this time we do not have a national e-mail address for sending or forwarding investigative information.”

FBI Headquarters: Where stopping cybercrime is now a top priority.

  • “I Need Help”: You get an email claiming to be from someone you know—who’s “in jail here in Mexico” or some other foreign country. S/he begs you to send money for bail or bribes to win his/her freedom. If you get such an email, call the person to make certain. Don’t rush to send money—chances are it will go directly to a scammer.

There are several commonsense rules to follow in protecting yourself from online scammers:

  • Don’t trust people you’ve never met to want to give you money.
  • Shop online only with well-known merchants who have a good reputation.
  • Don’t click on unknown links—especially those in emails from unknown senders.
  • If you’re required to pay an advance fee—“on faith”—to receive a big amount of money, the odds are it’s a scam.
  • If you can’t find any solid information on a company, chances are it doesn’t exist.
  • For additional information on how to protect yourself from cybercrime, check out the FBI’s page at http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/investigate/cyber.
  • If it sounds too good to be true, the odds are: It is untrue.

THE REPUBLICANS’ HORST WESSEL

In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Politics, Social commentary on January 7, 2026 at 12:10 am

Republicans—including those who pursue a Fascistic agenda—are quick to accuse their opponents of being “Nazis.”

Yet similarities abound between the tactics—and often the goals—between yesterday’s Nazis and today’s Republicans.

One of these is the need for martyrs by both parties. 

The Nazis found theirs in Horst Wessel.

As a teenager growing up in the Weimar Republic of Germany, he joined the Viking Liga (“Viking League”), a Right-wing paramilitary group. Its goal, wrote Wessel, was “the “establishment of a national dictatorship.”

He soon became a local leader, engaging in street battles with rival Leftist groups such as the Social Democratic Party (SPD) and the Communist Party (KPD). In 1926, he joined the paramilitary Sturmabteilung (“Storm Detachment” or SA) of Adolf Hitler’s National Socialist German Workers Party (Nazi Party).

Bundesarchiv Bild 146-1978-043-14, Horst Wessel.jpg

Horst Wessel

Bundesarchiv, Bild 146-1978-043-14 / Heinrich Hoffmann / CC-BY-SA 3.0, CC BY-SA 3.0 DE <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/de/deed.en&gt;, via Wikimedia Commons

His unit had a reputation as “a band of thugs, a brutal squad.” 

In September 1929, Wessel met Erna Jänicke, a 23-year-old ex-prostitute. Some sources claim Wessel acted as Jänicke’s pimp. She soon moved into his room. 

Wessel’s landlady, Elisabeth Salm, wanted Jänicke to leave. But Jänicke refused to do so.

Salm asked Communist friends of her late husband to evict Jänicke, They recruited Albrecht Höhler, an armed pimp, perjurer and petty criminal, to handle the evicting.

On February 23, 1930, Höhler knocked at the front door of Wessel and Jänicke’s room. When Wessel, 22, opened the door, Höhler shot him dead.

Nazi propagandist Joseph Goebbels quickly turned Wessel into a Nazi martyr. Wessel had written the lyrics for a new Nazi fight song: “The Unknown SA-Man.” It later became known as “Raise the Flag” and finally the “Horst Wessel Lied.” 

Its opening stanza.

Raise the flag! The ranks tightly closed!
The SA marches with calm, steady step.
Comrades shot by the Red Front and reactionaries
March in spirit within our ranks.

“The Horst Wessel Lied” became the official anthem of the Nazi Party from 1930 to 1945.

Fast forward to January 6, 2021—when the Republican Party got its own martyr: Ashli Babbitt.

A veteran of the United States Air Force, she served two tours in Afghanistan and Iraq before later deploying with the National Guard to Kuwait and Qatar.

Originally from San Diego, California, by 2020 she had recently remarried and was working at a pool service company. 

On social media, she described herself as a libertarian and a patriot. She often expressed ardent support for President Donald Trump.

On November 3, 2020, Trump lost the Presidential election to former Vice President Joseph Biden. 

Biden won the popular vote—81,268,924 to 74,216,154 for Trump—and, more importantly, in the Electoral College: 306 to 232.

But Babbitt accepted wholesale Trump’s lie that the election had been stolen from him by massive voter fraud.

On January 6, 2021, members of the United States Senate and House of Representatives would meet in the United States Capitol Building. They would count the Electoral College votes received by Trump and Biden—and pronounce Biden the President-elect.

Babbitt was determined to “Stop the Steal” by assaulting the Capitol Building on January 6. 

Inside right-wing efforts to make Ashli Babbitt into a martyr | wusa9.com

Ashli Babbitt

On January 6, she was among hundreds of Right-wing men and women who breached the Capitol. She was also the mob’s only casualty.

As lawmakers were being evacuated by Capitol Police, Babbitt tried to climb through a shattered window in a barricaded door. She was warned to back off several times by a policeman standing on the other side.

Babbitt defied the orders—and was shot in the neck/shoulder. She died of the wound—at age 35.

The shooting was later ruled justified by the Justice Department. 

Almost a century ago Nazis extolled Horst Wessel as a virtuous martyr. Today, members of Right-wing groups—and even Congressional Republicans—portray Ashli Babbitt as a fallen Joan of Arc.

During a hearing with former acting Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen in April, 2021, Rep. Paul Gosar (R-AZ.) claimed Babbitt was “executed.” 

Fox News host Tucker Carlson has made the same charge.

And, not to be outdone, so has Donald Trump himself.

“Who was the person who shot an innocent, wonderful, incredible woman?” Trump asked Fox Business anchor Maria Bartiromo. “I will tell you, they know who shot Ashley Babbitt. They’re protecting that person. I’ve heard also that it was the head of security for a certain high official—a Democrat.”

Five years later, Republicans continue to revere her as a martyr. 

On January 6, a crowd of Trump’s supporters returned to the site of the 2021 insurrection. Liz Landers, White House Correspondent for The PBS Newshour, commented:

“Officially, this was a memorial event for Ashli Babbitt, the Air Force veteran shot dead while trying to enter through a broken window in the Capitol, and four others who were lost that day or in the weeks after, including a police officer.”

Babbitt’s mother, Micki Witthoeft, spoke to the crowd: “So glad that people are not losing sight of the importance of that day. It’s a day Congress let us down and continues to let us down.”

The Nazis found in Horst Wessel a hero to inspire their followers. So, too, have Republicans generally and Trump enthusiasts specifically found the same in Ashli Babbitt.

THE EMPLOYER IS THE ENEMY: PART SEVEN (END)

In Bureaucracy, Business, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Politics, Social commentary on January 5, 2026 at 1:13 am

Another way an Employers Responsibility Act (ERA) could promote fulltime employment: It would nicely dovetail with the 1946 Employment Act.        

Codified as 15 U.S.C. § 1021, this is a United States federal law. It states: “It is the continuing policy and responsibility of the Federal government…to promote maximum employment, production, and purchasing power.”

Unfortunately, that act has been seriously neglected, according to the late Wallace C. Peterson, George Holmes Professor of Economics Emeritus at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.

Peterson, who died in April, 2012, was a proponent of Keynesian economics and authored a textbook on macroeconomics that was widely adopted in colleges and universities through eight editions.

He authored a second economics textbook, five specialized economics books and over 60 articles.

He was elected president of the Association for Evolutionary Economics (AFEE), president of the Association for Social Economics, president of the Midwest Economics Association and was the 1992 recipient of the Veblen-Commons award.

“No administration since the Kennedy-Johnson presidencies in the 1960s has taken the Employment Act seriously,” wrote Peterson in a letter to this columnist.

“President Kennedy established a 4% unemployment rate as an interim target on the road to a full employment economy.  But after President Johnson left office in 1969, full employment has not been an important policy objective for any administration, Democrat or Republican.

“The nation needs a modernized full employment policy.”

Wallace C. Peterson

Such a full-employment policy “would not only seek to bring the unemployment rate down to 3% or less, but would also aim at the creation of ‘good jobs’—jobs that carry with them an income appropriate to middle-class hopes and aspirations,” wrote Peterson.

“Too many of the millions who have lost good jobs in the last two decades have not been able to find new, fulltime jobs. or have had to take significant reduction in pay even if they were able to find fulltime work. 

“Government through the 1946 Employment Act has a major responsibility to promote conditions that make full employment possible. Workers have a major responsibility to educate and train themselves for the jobs that become available in a society characterized by rapid technical change.

“What of employers?  What is their responsibility?

“Such an [Employers Responsibility] Act would require employers to demonstrate as much responsibility for hiring as job-seekers are expected to display in finding work.

”This is certain to be controversial, but it adds yet another dimension to the debate on how an adequate number of good, well-paying jobs can be created….

“An Employers Responsibility Act, in combination with existing legislation such as the 1946 Employment Act and the 1935 National Labor-Relations Act, could be a powerful force in moving labor-management relations in this country away from its current adversarial character, toward a more harmonious and cooperative climate.”

* * * * *

For thousands of years, otherwise highly intelligent men and women believed that kings ruled by divine right. That kings held absolute power, levied extortionate taxes and sent countless millions of men off to war—all because God wanted it that way.

That lunacy was dealt a deadly blow in 1776 when American Revolutionaries threw off the despotic rule of King George III of England.

Washington Crossing the Delaware by Emanuel Leutze, 1851 (The Metropolitan Museum of Art)

George Washington crossing the Delaware

But today, millions of Americans remain imprisoned by an equally outrageous and dangerous theory: The Theory of the Divine Right of Employers.

Summing up this employer-as-God attitude, Calvin Coolidge still speaks for the overwhelming majority of employers and their paid shills in government: “The man who builds a factory builds a temple, and the man who works there worships there.”

America can no longer afford such a dangerous fallacy as the Theory of the Divine Right of Employers. 

President Donald Trump has repeatedly crowed over the passage of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, passed by the Senate on December 19, 2017, and signed into law by him on December 22. 

Yet former Secretary of Labor Robert Reich warned before the bill became law:  

“What corporations have done [with past tax cuts] is raise executive salaries and also buy back shares of stock, in order to raise stock prices. They don’t invest the money in additional jobs or additional machines or additional equipment or things like that because there is no reason for them to unless they have got more demand for their goods and services. And this bill is not going to create more demand.”

In short: The powerful never voluntarily behave responsibly or surrender their privileges.

Americans did not win their freedom from Great Britain—and its enslaving doctrine of “the divine right of kings”—by begging for their rights.

And Americans will not win their freedom from their corporate masters—and the equally enslaving doctrine of “the divine right of employers”—by begging for the right to work and support themselves and their families.

And they will most certainly never win such freedom by supporting right-wing political candidates whose first and only allegiance is to the corporate interests who bankroll their campaigns.

Corporations can—and do—spend millions of dollars on TV ads, selling lies—lies such as the “skills gap,” and how if the wealthy are forced to pay their fair share of taxes, jobs will inevitably disappear.

But Americans can choose to reject those lies—and demand that employers behave like patriots instead of predators.