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WALLING OUT ILLEGAL ALIENS: A CHEAPER WAY

In Bureaucracy, Business, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Politics, Social commentary on December 9, 2024 at 12:10 am

According to Donald Trump, stopping illegal immigration is easy.    

Just build a massive, impenetrable wall along the U.S./Mexican border to keep out Mexican immigrants.

“Building a wall is easy, and it can be done inexpensively,” Trump said in an interview on July 17, 2015. It’s not even a difficult project if you know what you’re doing.”

Really?

Among the obstacles to erecting such a barrier:

  • The United States/Mexican border stretches for 1,954 miles—and encompasses rivers, deserts and mountains.
  • Environmental and engineering problems.
  • Squabbles with ranchers who don’t want to give up any of their land.
  • Building such a wall would cost untold billions of dollars.
  • Drug traffickers and alien smugglers could easily tunnel under it into the United States—as they are now doing.

There are, in fact, cheaper and more effective remedies for combating illegal immigration.

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Illegal aliens crossing into the United States

(1) The Justice Department should vigorously attack the “sanctuary movement” that officially thwarts the immigration laws of the United States.

Among the 31 “sanctuary cities” of this country: Washington, D.C.; New York City; Los Angeles; Chicago; San Francisco; Santa Ana; San Diego; Salt Lake City; Phoenix; Dallas; Houston; Austin; Detroit; Jersey City; Minneapolis; Miami; Denver; Baltimore; Seattle; Portland, Oregon; New Haven, Connecticut; and Portland, Maine.

These cities have adopted “sanctuary” ordinances that do not allow municipal funds or resources to be used to enforce federal immigration laws, usually by not allowing police or municipal employees to inquire about one’s immigration status. 

(2) Indict the highest-ranking officials of those cities who have actively violated Federal immigration laws.

In San Francisco, for example, former District Attorney Kamala Harris—who is now Vice President of the United States—created a secret and illegal program called Back on Track, which provided training for jobs that illegal aliens could not legally hold.

(3)  Even if some indicted officials escaped conviction, the results would prove worthwhile.

City officials would be forced to spend huge sums of their own money for attorneys and face months or even years of prosecution.

And this, in turn, would send a devastating warning to officials in other “sanctuary cities” that the same fate lies in store for them. 

(4) CEOs whose companies—like Wal-Mart—systematically employ illegal aliens should be held directly accountable for the actions of their subordinates.

They should be indicted by the Justice Department under the Racketeer Influenced Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act, the way Mafia bosses are prosecuted for ordering their own subordinates to commit crimes.  

Upon conviction, the CEO should be sentenced to a mandatory prison term of at least 20 years.

CEOs forced to account for their subordinates’ actions would take drastic steps to ensure that their companies strictly complied with Federal immigration laws.

(5) The Government should stop automatic citizenship to “anchor babies” born to illegal aliens in the United States.

A comparable practice would be allowing bank robbers who had eluded the FBI to keep their illegally-obtained loot.

A person who violates the bank robbery laws of the United States is legally prosecutable for bank robbery, whether he’s immediately arrested or remains uncaught for years. The same should be true for those born illegally within this country.

If they’re not here legally at the time of birth, they should not be considered citizens and should—like their parents—be subject to deportation. 

(6) The United States Government—from the President on down—should scrap its apologetic tone on the right to control its national borders.

First Lady Michelle Obama—accompanied by Margarita Zavala, the wife of then-Mexican President Felipe Calderon—was visiting a second-grade class in Silver Spring, Maryland. 

A second-grade girl said: “My Mom, she says says that Barack Obama is taking everybody away that doesn’t have papers.” 

Replied Mrs. Obama: “Yeah, well, that’s something that we have to work on right?” 

The girl then said: “But my mom doesn’t have any….”

Obama: “Well, we’ll have to work on that. We have to fix that, and everybody’s got to work together in Congress to make sure that happens.”

The Mexican Government doesn’t consider itself racist for strictly enforcing its immigration laws. 

The United States Government should not consider itself racist for insisting on the right to do the same.

(7)  Voting materials and ballots should be published in one language—English.

In Mexico, voting materials are published in one language—Spanish. 

Throughout the United States, millions of Spanish-speaking illegals refuse to learn English and yet demand that voting materials and ballots be made available to them in Spanish.

This is an English-speaking country. If immigrants don’t want to learn its national language, they should remain in their own nations. 

(8) The United States should impose economic and even military sanctions against countries—such as China and Mexico—whose citizens make up the bulk of illegal aliens. 

Mexico, for example, uses its American border to rid itself of those who might demand major reforms in the country’s political and economic institutions.

Such nations must learn that dumping their unwanteds on the United States now comes at an unfavorably high price. Otherwise those dumpings will continue.

“WORKING TOWARDS THE PRESIDENT”: PART TWO (END)

In Bureaucracy, Business, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Politics, Social commentary on December 6, 2024 at 12:10 am

In Stalingrad, a 1993 German-made war movie, a platoon of German Army soldiers leaves behind the beaches and beauties of Italy and find themselves fighting desperately to stay alive in Russia.    

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Early in the film, there is an exchange that has its real-life counterpart almost 75 years later.

A young, idealistic German lieutenant, newly transferred to the Russian front, is horrified when he sees a fellow soldier from another unit sadistically beat a Russian prisoner to death.

He seeks out the man’s superior, a captain, and says: “Captain, I must protest about the behavior of your men.”

“You want to protest?” asks the captain, grinning sardonically. “Tell the Fuhrer.”

Fast forward to January 28, 2017, the day after President Donald J. Trump signed into law an executive order which:

  • Suspended entry of all refugees to the United States for 120 days;
  • Barred Syrian refugees indefinitely;, and
  • Blocked entry into the United States for 90 days for citizens from Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen.

The new rules—and the efforts of security personnel at major international airports to enforce them—triggered a tsunami of chaos and fear among travelers.

“We’ve gotten reports of people being detained all over the country,” said Becca Heller, the director of the International Refugee Assistance Project. “They’re literally pouring in by the minute.”

Refugees on flights when the order was signed on January 27 were detained upon arrival.

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Donald Trump

Many students attending American universities were blocked from returning to the United States from visits abroad.

According to Homeland Security officials, 109 people who were already in transit to the United States when the order was signed were denied access; 173 were stopped before boarding planes heading to America. Eighty-one people who were stopped were eventually given waivers to enter the United States.

Internationally, travelers were seized by panic when they were not allowed  to board flights to the United States. In Dubai and Istanbul, airport and immigration officials turned passengers away at boarding gates. At least one family was removed from a flight it had boarded.

Earlier on January 28, Trump, isolated in the White House from all the chaos he had unleashed in airports across the nation and throughout the world, said:

“It’s not a Muslim ban, but we were totally prepared. It’s working out very nicely. You see it at the airports, you see it all over.”

Then the American Civil Liberties Union intervened.

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Two Iraqi immigrants, defended by the ACLU, accused Trump of legal and constitutional overreach.

The Iraqis had been detained at John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York City.  One had served as an interpreter for American forces in Iraq for a decade. The other was en route to reunite with his wife and son in Texas.

The interpreter, Hameed Khalid Darweesh, was released after nearly 19 hours of detention. So was the other traveler, Haider Sameer Abdulkhaleq Alshawi.

Before the two men were released, one of their lawyers, Mark Doss, a supervising attorney at the International Refugee Assistance Project, asked an official, “Who is the person we need to talk to?”

“Call Mr. Trump,” said the official, who refused to identify himself.

He might just as well have said: “You want to protest? Tell the Fuhrer.”

The ACLU action secured at least a temporary blocking of part of Trump’s order. A Brooklyn judge barred the government from deporting some arrivals who found themselves ensnared by the Presidential order.

Judge Ann M. Donnelly of the Federal District Court in Brooklyn, ruled that sending the travelers home could cause them “irreparable harm.” She said the government was “enjoined and restrained from, in any manner and by any means, removing individuals” who had arrived in the United States with valid visas or refugee status.

But she did not force the administration to let in people otherwise blocked by the executive order who have not yet traveled to the United States. Nor did she issue a broader ruling on the constitutionality of the order.

* * * * *

On November 5, 75 million ignorant, hate-filled, Right-wing Americans re-elected Donald Trump—a man reflecting their own hate and ignorance—to the Presidency. 

Summing up Trump’s character in a March 25, 2016 broadcast of The PBS Newshour, conservative political columnist David Brooks warned: “The odd thing about [Trump’s] whole career and his whole language, his whole world view is there is no room for love in it. You get a sense of a man who received no love, can give no love…. 

And so you really are seeing someone who just has an odd psychology unleavened by kindness and charity, but where it’s all winners and losers, beating and being beat. And that’s part of the authoritarian personality.”

There were countless warning signs available for Trump’s supporters to see—if they had wanted to see them:  

  • His facing 91 criminal counts in four cases;
  • His threats against his political opponents and Justice Department prosecutors;
  • His conviction for raping columnist E. Jean Carroll;
  • His continued lying about winning the 2020 Presidential election;
  • His conviction on 34 counts of falsifying business records;
  • His unjustified attacks the integrity of the FBI—causing previously “law and order” Republicans to demand its defunding. 

Those who voted for Trump will now learn the meaning of the Nazi slogan: “The Fuhrer proposes and disposes for all.”  Those who voted against him knew this already.

“WORKING TOWARDS THE PRESIDENT”: PART ONE (OF TWO)

In Bureaucracy, Business, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Politics, Social commentary on December 5, 2024 at 12:32 am

When historians—-and ordinary citizens—think about the Third Reich, the name of Werner Willikens doesn’t immediately spring to mind.  

Adolf Hitler, Herman Goring, Joseph Goebbels, Heinrich Himmler, Adolf Eichmann—yes.

But Werner Willikens?  Why him?

Ian Kershaw has unearthed the reason.

Ian Kershaw  is a British historian and author who has written extensively about the Third Reich. He is best-known for his monumental, two-volume biography, Hitler 1889–1936: Hubris (1998) and Hitler 1936–1945: Nemesis (2000). 

Ian Kershaw 2012 crop.jpg

Ian Kershaw

Willikens, State Secretary in the Ministry of Food, gave a speech on February 21, 1934 that casts new light on how Hitler came to exercise vast authority over Nazi Germany:

“Everyone who has the opportunity to observe it knows that the Fuhrer can hardly dictate from above everything he intends to realize sooner or later.

“On the contrary, up till now everyone with a post in the new Germany has worked best when he has, so to speak, worked towards the Fuhrer….

“In fact, it is the duty of everybody to try to work towards the Fuhrer along the lines he would wish.  Anyone who makes mistakes will notice it soon enough.

“But anyone who really works towards the Fuhrer along his lines and towards his goal will certainly both now and in the future one day have the finest reward in the form of the sudden legal confirmation of his work.”

Volker Ullrich, bestselling author of Hitler: Ascent 1889 – 1939, summed up the results of this interplay between Hitler and his subjects:

“Kershaw tried to show that in many instances Hitler didn’t need to do very much at all since German society–everyone from the underlings surrounding him to ordinary people on the street—-were increasingly inclined to anticipate and fulfill the Fuhrer’s every wish, ‘working towards him.’

“…Kershaw did not minimize the historical role played by Hitler and his insane, ideological fixations, but he did illustrate that without the readiness of many people to work for the man in charge, there would have been no way he could have achieved his murderous aims.

“Kershaw’s main thesis was that the dynamics of the Nazi regime arose from the interplay of Hitler’s intentions with activism emanating from subordinate individuals and institutions. The results were ever more radical ‘solutions.'” 

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With the Third Reich dying in the flames of Berlin, at about 3:30 p.m. on April 30, 1945, Adolf Hitler simultaneously bit on a cyanide capsule and fired a pistol shot into his right temple.

The concept of “working towards the Fuhrer” seemed to have come to a literally fiery end.

Fast forward almost 72 years later–to 4:42 p.m. on January 27, 2017.

Newly inaugurated President Donald J. Trump signed into law an executive order that:

  • Suspended entry of all refugees to the United States for 120 days;
  • Barred Syrian refugees indefinitely; and
  • Blocked entry into the United States for 90 days for citizens of Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen.

Trump’s executive order read as follows: “In order to protect Americans, the United States must ensure that those admitted to this country do not bear hostile attitudes toward it and its founding principles.

“The United States cannot, and should not, admit those who do not support the Constitution, or those who would place violent ideologies over American law.”

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President Donald Trump

But that statement excluded three extremely troubling facts.

First: Over the previous four decades, there had been no fatal attacks within the United States by immigrants from any of those seven banned countries. 

Second, approximately 3,000 Americans had been killed by immigrants from Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Egypt, and Turkey. Most of those victims died during the attacks on the Pentagon and World Trade Center on September 11, 2001.

In fact, 15 of the 19 highjackers who took part in those attacks came from Saudi Arabia. Osama bin Laden, the mastermind of the attacks, was himself a Saudi from a wealthy family with strong ties to the Saudi Royal Family.

Third, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Egypt, and Turkey were all countries where Trump had close business ties. His properties included two luxury towers in Turkey and golf courses in the United Arab Emirates.

Trump listed companies on his FEC filing possibly related to a development project in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia’s second-biggest city, located outside Mecca: DT Jeddah Technical Services Manager LLC, DT Jeddah Technical Services Manager Member Corp., THC Jeddah Hotel Manager LLC and THC Jeddah Hotel Manager Member Corp.

Trump listed two companies on his FEC filing possibly related to business in Egypt: Trump Marks Egypt and Trump Marks Egypt LLC.

The full dimensions of Trump’s holdings throughout the Middle East aren’t known because he has refused to release his tax returns.

On January 11, 2017, Trump said that:

  • He would resign from his positions at the Trump Organization but that he would not divest his ownership.
  • The organization would be managed by his sons Eric and Don Jr. and chief financial officer Allen Weisselberg.
  • The organization would terminate pending deals and not seek new international business.

Walter Shaub, director of the Office of Government Ethics, said that these measures did not resolve the President’s conflict-of-interest problems and called them  “meaningless.”

It was after Trump signed his executive order that the true consequences of “working towards the Fuhrer”—or President—were fully revealed.

“DEMOCRACY IST KAPUTT!”–FIRST GERMANY, NOW AMERICA: PART TWO (END)

In Bureaucracy, Business, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Military, Politics, Social commentary on December 4, 2024 at 12:11 am

During the 2024 Presidential election, the two most important issues—for voters—were immigration and inflation.  

In short: “Get rid of the spics!” and “Give us cheaper eggs!” 

Repeatedly, Vice President Kamala Harris warned that Donald Trump’s return to the Presidency would result in a Fascistic dictatorship:

“Donald Trump is increasingly unhinged and unstable, and in a second term, people like John Kelly [Trump’s former chief of staff] would not be there to be the guardrails against his propensities and his actions….

“He wants a military who will be loyal to him, personally, one that will obey his orders, even when he tells them to break the law or abandon their oath to the Constitution of the United States.” 

Reputable media warned that he intended to turn the FBI into his private Gestapo and use the Justice Department to attack his political rivals.

Harris, formally dressed up and made up, smiles for her portrait.

Kamala Harris

But Americans didn’t care.

Instead, 76.9 million voters chose to overturn the democratic traditions that had guided American life since 1788, when the United States Constitution was ratified.

Appeals to their hatred, racism and greed proved far more seductive.

Throughout Trump’s Presidency—2017 to 2021—those who opposed his agenda took solace in a series of expected saviors.

  • On May 9, 2017, Trump fired FBI Director James Comey for daring to investigate his proven ties to Russian dictator Vladimir Putin. Assistant Attorney General Rod Rosenstein then appointed Robert Meuller as special counsel to investigate that firing—and Trump’s ties to Russia.

Mueller had a sterling reputation for integrity as a former prosecutor and FBI director. But he allowed himself to be intimidated by the Presidential aura—and refused to directly interview Trump.

His subsequent official report contained no impeachment-worthy evidence.

  • On July 25, 2019, Trump threatened to withhold almost $400 million in promised military aid for Ukraine—which faced increasing aggression from Russia—unless its president, Volodymyr Zelensky, did him “a favor”: Investigate 2020 Democratic Presidential Candidate Joe Biden and his son, Hunter, who had had business dealings in Ukraine. 

The reason for such an investigation: To find embarrassing “dirt” on Biden. Unless Zelensky found this, the promised aid would be withheld.

The House of Representatives tried Trump for abuse of power and obstruction of Congress. The evidence against him was overwhelming—including a transcript of the extortionate phone call.

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Donald Trump

But the Republican Senate refused to convict.

Had this happened, Trump would have been legally barred from running again for President.

  • On January 6, 2021, Trump incited a violent attack on the United States Capitol to stop the counting of Electoral College votes—which would prove that he had lost the 2020 Presidential election to former Vice President Joseph Biden.

As a result, five people died and 174 police officers were injured. The Capitol Building—the symbol of American democracy—suffered about $2.7 billion in damages.

Evidence of Trump’s guilt was overwhelming—including video of his incitement.

But, once again, the Republican-dominated Senate refused to convict.

File:2021 storming of the United States Capitol 2021 storming of the United States Capitol DSC09363-2 (50820534723).jpg - Wikimedia Commons

Stormtrumpers attacking the Capitol Building

Tyler Merbler from USA, CC BY 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0&gt;, via Wikimedia Commons

Trump’s opponents had placed their hopes in Special Counsel Robert Mueller and (twice) the United States Congress to address the brazen criminality of Donald Trump.

The results: Anger and disappointment.

Yet one last hope remained:

That the 2024 Presidential election would send Joseph Biden, and then, after he dropped out of the race, Vice President Kamala Harris—to the White House.

Harris waged what was widely descripted as “a campaign of joy,” promising to be “the President of all Americans,” including those who voted against her. Repeatedly, she warned that, if re-elected, Trump would pursue a vengeance-fueled agenda against anyone who had dared cross him.

Trump ran a campaign based on hatred—of Hispanics, of liberals, of those who had served in his administration and now disowned him. During his single debate with Harris, he falsely claimed that Haitian immigrants in Ohio were “eating the dogs….they’re eating the cats” of local citizens. 

On one occasion, he appeared to emulate performing a ‘sex act’ on a microphone stand during a rally after experiencing technical difficulties.

Most ominously, credible news reports circulated that, if Trump were re-elected, he would implement a radical, Right-wing plan—Project 2025—to completely reshape the federal government.

At its heart: The mass firings of politically neutral civil service officials and their replacement with thousands of political hacks.

This would arm Republicans with the power to establish an absolute dictatorship under the next Republican president.

Yet, in the end, none of this mattered.

Funeral for Democracy: If We Had Only Acted Sooner!" - Open Democracy Action

His supporters included:

  • Hispanics: 54%—despite being repeatedly vilified by Trump and slated for mass deportation;
  • White women: 52%—despite his destroying abortion rights and being convicted for raping columnist E. Jean Carroll;
  • Blacks: 21%—giving Harris fewer votes than they gave Biden in 2020.

On January 30, 1933, Adolf Hitler rose to dictatorial power through backroom intrigues and appointment as Chancellor by President Paul von Hindenburg.

On November 5, 2024, Trump rose to dictatorial power when Americans voted to ignore his past crimes and the ones he boasted he intended to commit.

John Adams predicted this long ago: “Democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There never was a democracy yet that did not commit suicide.”

AMERICA’S “SUPREME JUDGE” VS. “ROCKET MAN”: PART TWO (END)

In Bureaucracy, Business, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Politics, Social commentary on November 27, 2024 at 12:11 am

Elon Musk is currently riding high.

He is—famously—the world’s richest man, with an estimated net worth of $314 billion as of November 2024, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. He owns Tesla, Inc. X (formerly Twitter), Space X and xAI, an artificial intelligence startup that he founded in 2023.

And he’s used to getting his way: In a notorious video exchange with Donald Trump, the two men discussed firing striking workers.   

Portrait of Elon Musk, a white, middle-age man with short, dark hair, wearing a morning coat

Elon Musk

The Royal Society, CC BY-SA 3.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0&gt;, via Wikimedia Commons

Trump praised Musk for firing workers who went on strike. “You’re the greatest cutter. I look at what you do. You walk in and say, ‘You want to quit?’ I won’t mention the name of the company but they go on strike and you say, ’That’s OK. You’re all gone.’”

Musk said, “Yeah,” and laughed while Trump was talking.

In 2021, the National Labor Relations Board ruled that Musk, in a 2018 Twitter tweet, had unlawfully threatened Tesla employees with the loss of stock options if they voted to unionize.

But in October, 2024, the full 5th Circuit later threw out that decision and voted to hear the matter again.

Tesla headquarters

Larry D. Moore, CC BY 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0&gt;, via Wikimedia Commons

And now, having successfully backed Trump for the Presidency against Vice President Kamala Harris, Musk feels he has achieved the ultimate in success—in business and politics.

But NBC News delivered a warning on November 13: “Elon Musk may already be overstaying his welcome in Trump’s orbit.”

Two sources involved with the Trump transition team said that Musk has been a near-constant presence at Mar-a-Lago in the week since Election Day.

And he’s begun to annoy people in Trump’s inner circle who believe he’s overstepping his role in the transition.

“‘He’s behaving as if he’s a co-president and making sure everyone knows it,” one source said. “And he’s sure taking lots of credit for the President’s victory. Bragging about America PAC and X to anyone who will listen. He’s trying to make President Trump feel indebted to him. And the President is indebted to no one.”

Donald Trump

Yet another source said: “He wants to be seen as having a say in everything (even if he doesn’t).”

The second source said Musk appeared to be pushing his own agenda, instead of focusing on Trump’s: “Appointing people because they are loyal to Elon doesn’t work.”

Trump is an alpha male who enjoys dominating others. Musk operates his companies in a similar way, Dan McAdams, a psychology professor at Northwestern University, told Newsweek

“Two alphas can probably get along well enough as long as they don’t interfere with each other’s respective domain. 

“The big thing that might come between them would be if Musk threatens Trump’s monopoly on American attention. Trump needs to be the center of everybody’s consciousness—and he has pretty much succeeded in accomplishing that extraordinary feat over the past eight years.

“Musk is certainly a narcissist but his self-worth is caught up in what he achieves. He really cares about building electric cars, sending people into space, and so on.

“Trump does not care about anything except himself. His entire self worth depends on others adoring him and fearing him,” McAdams said.

In an October 23 meeting with House Republicans, Trump praised Musk for his time and dedication to the campaign. Trump said Musk set aside his own business interests for the campaign and didn’t ask for anything in return. 

Then, in what could have ominous implications for the future, Trump said: “Elon won’t go home. I can’t get rid of him. Until I don’t like him.”

The lawmaker sources insisted that Trump was joking.

So “Rocket Man” Musk, now basking in his “co-President” relationship with Trump, no doubt believes he has every reason to feel confident.

But Trump’s choice for Attorney General—Matt Gaetz—should have sent off alarm bells to Musk.

Gaetz made it clear he would do absolutely anything Trump wants. As Attorney General, he would have had the power to investigate and indict anyone Trump dislikes.

Then Gaetz withdrew his name from nomination following increased scrutiny over allegations of sexual misconduct.

And Pam Bondi, Trump’s replacement for Attorney General after Gaetz withdrew, has proven her own reliability. As Florida Attorney General, she solicited a political contribution from Donald Trump while her office deliberated investigating alleged fraud at Trump University and its affiliates.

After Bondi dropped the Trump University case, Trump wrote her a check $25,000 for her re-election campaign. The money came from the Donald J. Trump Foundation.

Musk has received billions of dollars in Federal contracts—among them $733.5 million for the Space Development Agency (SDA) and two for the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO).

Any of these is vulnerable to an accusation of corruption—warranted or unwarranted. At the very least, many—if not all—of those contracts could be cancelled. At the worst, Musk could find himself locked in combat with Federal prosecutors for the length of Trump’s term.

Ernst Rohm felt invulnerable at the start of 1934. As January 20, 2025, rapidly approaches, so does Elon Musk.

Like Rohm, Musk may live to regret the devotion he’s lavished on his choice for Fuhrer.

AMERICA’S “SUPREME JUDGE” VS. “ROCKET MAN”: PART ONE (OF TWO)

In Bureaucracy, Business, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Politics, Social commentary on November 26, 2024 at 12:33 am

On June 30, 1934, German Chancellor Adolf Hitler ordered a massive purge of his private army, the S.A., (Sturmabteilungor). It was carried out by Hitler’s elite army-within-an-army, the Schutzstaffel, or Protective Squads, better known as the SS.      

The Brownshirts (also known as “Storm Troopers”) had been instrumental in securing Hitler’s rise to Chancellor of Germany on January 30, 1933. They had violently intimidated political opponents (especially Communists) and organized mass rallies for the Nazi Party.

But after Hitler reached the pinnacle of power, they became a liability.

Ernst Rohm, their commander, had served as a tough army officer during World War 1. He was one of the few men allowed to use “du,” the personal form of “you” in German, when addressing Hitler.

Rohm urged Hitler to disband the regular German army, the Reichswehr, and replace it with his own undisciplined paramilitary legions as the nation’s defense force.

By 1934, the Storm Troopers numbered approximately three million. By contrast, about 100,000 soldiers served in the Reichswehr, owing to restrictions imposed by the 1919 Versailles Treaty which ended World War 1.

Ernst Rohm

Frightened by Rohm’s ambitions, the generals of the Reichswehr gave Hitler an ultimatum: Get rid of Rohm—or they would get rid of him.

Hitler didn’t hesitate. Backed by armed thugs, he stormed into Rohm’s apartment, catching him in bed with a young S.A. Storm Trooper.

Accusing his onetime friend of treasonously plotting to overthrow him, Hitler screamed: “You’re going to be shot!”

Rohm was not plotting a coup. But the generals had the whip hand—and, for Hitler, that was enough to literally sign Rohm’s death warrant.

Hours later, sitting in a prison cell, Rohm was offered a pistol with a single bullet.

“Adolf himself should do the dirty work,” said Rohm, adding: “All revolutions devour their own children.”

One hour later, Rohm died in a hail of SS bullets.

Earlier throughout that day, so had several hundred of his longtime S.A. cronies. Many of them yelled “Heil Hitler!” as they stood against barracks walls waiting to be shot.

Nazi Germany, Nazi Ss Troops Marching Canvas Print by Everett - Fine Art  America

SS troops on parade

Thirteen days later, addressing the Reichstag, Germany’s parliament, Hitler justified his purge in a nationally broadcast speech:

“If anyone reproaches me and asks why I did not  resort  to the  regular courts of justice, then all  I can say is this: In this hour I was responsible for the fate of the German people, and thereby I became the Supreme Judge of the German people! 

“I gave the order to shoot the ringleaders in this treason, and I further gave the order to cauterize down to the raw flesh the ulcers of this poisoning of the wells in our domestic life.

“Let the nation know that its existence—which depends on its internal order and security—cannot be threatened with impunity by anyone! And let it be known for all time to come that if anyone raises his hand to strike the State, then certain death is his lot.”

1 September 1939 Reichstag speech - Wikipedia

Adolf Hitler addressing parliament

Ninety-one years after Adolf Hitler declared himself “the Supreme Judge of the German people,” the United States faces the same fate under re-elected President Donald J. Trump.

And his Number One victim may turn out to be Elon Musk, the man who played a pivotal role in sending him to the White House. 

Musk, the leader of Space X Tesla and X (formerly Twitter), has donated tens of millions of dollars to pro-Trump super PACs, jumped around the stage behind Trump during campaign rallies, and turned X into a Right-wing cheering squad for Trump.

Trump has said he will make Musk the head of a new “government efficiency commission” aimed at eliminating inefficiency and waste within the federal bureaucracy.

But some—like former Trump lawyer Michael Cohen—have a warning for Musk: “Donald Trump is loyal to one person and one person only…himself. 

“The moment Elon steps an inch out of Trump’s line, despite all he might have done for him, Donald will cut him off, disparage and denigrate him. Elon is no different than me or anyone else similarly situated. It’s just a matter of when.”

Cohen speaks from bitter personal experience. 

A longtime executive of the Trump Organization, Cohen told ABC news in 2011: “If somebody does something Mr. Trump doesn’t like, I do everything in my power to resolve it to Mr. Trump’s benefit.”

In April 2018, the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York began investigating Cohen. Charges reportedly included bank fraud, wire fraud and violations of campaign finance law.

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Michael Cohen

By IowaPolitics.com (Trump executive Michael Cohen 012) [CC BY-SA 2.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0)%5D, via Wikimedia Commons

On April 9, 2018, the FBI, executing a federal search warrant, raided Cohen’s office at the law firm of Squire Patton Boggs, as well as at his home and his hotel room in the Loews Regency Hotel in New York City.

Agents seized emails, tax and business records and recordings of phone conversations that Cohen had made.

Trump’s response: “Michael Cohen only handled a tiny, tiny fraction of my legal work.”  

Thus Trump undermined the argument of Cohen’s lawyers that he was the President’s personal attorney—and therefore everything Cohen did was protected by attorney-client privilege. 

THE COMING PURGE

In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Military, Politics, Social commentary on November 19, 2024 at 12:14 am

“At what point then is the approach of danger to be expected? I answer, if it ever reach us, it must spring up amongst us. It cannot come from abroad. If destruction be our lot, we must ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of freemen, we must live through all time, or die by suicide.”

So warned Abraham Lincoln in a speech in January 1838.

On November 5, 2024, Americans chose to die by suicide.

They re-elected Donald Trump President by 76,429,164 votes over 73,736,923 votes for Vice President Kamala Harris.

A bearded Abraham Lincoln showing his head and shoulders

Abraham Lincoln

The two issues securing his victory were hatred of illegal immigrants and inflationary prices.

Harris had repeatedly cited Trump as a threat to democracy. In her “closing argument” to voters on October 29. She warned that Trump was “unstable, obsessed with revenge, consumed with grievance and out for unchecked power.” 

Trump “would walk into [the Oval] Office with an enemies list when elected.” 

It hasn’t taken long to prove Harris’ warning correct. On November 16, the NBC News website carried the following story:

“The Trump transition team is compiling a list of senior current and former U.S. military officers who were directly involved in the withdrawal from Afghanistan and exploring whether they could be court-martialed for their involvement, according to a U.S. official and a person familiar with the plan. 

“Officials working on the transition are considering creating a commission to investigate the 2021 withdrawal from Afghanistan, including gathering information about who was directly involved in the decision-making for the military, how it was carried out, and whether the military leaders could be eligible for charges as serious as treason.” 

Pentagon History: 7 Big Things to Know > U.S. Department of Defense > Story

The Pentagon

The article stated that Trump had condemned the withdrawal as a “humiliation” and “the most embarrassing day in the history of our country.” 

Ignored in all of this:

  • The military officers were following the lawful orders of President Joe Biden to withdraw all U.S. forces from Afghanistan. 
  • Trump first reached an agreement with the Taliban in 2020 to withdraw all U.S. forces from Afghanistan, roughly 13,000 troops, and release 5,000 Taliban fighters from prison.
  • The Biden administration then completed the withdrawal and badly overestimated the ability of Afghan government forces to fight the Taliban on their own.   

Trump’s choice for secretary of defense, Fox News personality Pete Hegseth, has criticized the withdrawal, saying the U.S. lost the war and wasted billions of dollars. 

In his 2024 book The War on Warriors, Hegseth wrote, “The next president of the United States needs to radically overhaul Pentagon senior leadership to make us ready to defend our nation and defeat our enemies. Lots of people need to be fired. The debacle in Afghanistan, of course, is the most glaring example.”

This despite the blunt reality that the United States had been fighting in Afghanistan since 2001.

The war began as a “find and destroy” mission against Osama bin Laden, the mastermind of 9/11. He was then living in Afghanistan under the protection of its ruling thugocracy, the Taliban. 

Osama bin Laden

The administration of President George W. Bush demanded his immediate surrender to American justice.

The Taliban refused.

So, on October 7, 2001—less than one month from the 9/11 attacks—American bombers began pounding Taliban positions.

The whole point of the campaign was to pressure the Taliban to surrender Bin Laden.

But the Taliban refused. Bin Laden holed up in the mountains of Tora Bora, and then ultimately escaped into Pakistan.

After December, 2001, American Intelligence completely lost track of Bin Laden. CIA officials repeatedly said he was likely living in the “no-man’s-land” between Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Still, the United States continued to commit forces to Afghanistan—to turn a primitive, warlord-ruled country into a modern-day democracy.

There was, admittedly, a great deal to detest about the Taliban:

  • When the Taliban ruled Afghanistan, they turned soccer stadiums into execution plazas for mass beheadings or shootings.
  • Taliban “fighters” proved their “courage” by throwing acid into the faces of women who dared to attend school.

Taliban religious police beating a woman

  • On August 8, 1989, the Taliban attacked Mazar-i-Sharif. Talibanists began shooting people in the street, then moved on to mass rapes of women. Thousands of people were locked in containers and left to suffocate.
  • The Taliban forbade women to leave their homes unless accompanied by a male relative and wearing the burqa—a traditional dress covering the entire body. Those who disobeyed were publicly beaten.

Yet, as horrific as such atrocities were, these did not obligate the United States to spend eternity trying to bring civilization to this barbaric country.

On July 8, 2021, President Joseph Biden said that America would withdraw its armed forces from Afghanistan by August 31, thus ending the nearly 20-year war.

“How many more, how many more thousands of American daughters and sons are you willing to risk?” Biden said to those calling for the United States to extend the military operation. 

Biden thus became the first President since 2001 to recognize the futility of sacrificing American lives to turn a hopelessly barbaric pseudo-country into a modern nation.

He gave lawful orders for such a withdrawal.

Now those officers who followed those lawful orders risk being court-martialed and imprisoned—or even executed.

HITLER AND TRUMP: YOU OWE ME LOYALTY; I OWE YOU NOTHING

In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Military, Politics, Social commentary on November 18, 2024 at 12:10 am

On January 27, 1944, Adolf Hitler convened a meeting of 100 of his military chiefs, including all the army group commanders of the Eastern front.    

The war against the Soviet Union was going badly while the Americans and British were preparing to invade France. And Hitler believed he had the recipe for assuring victory: The Wehrmacht needed to be inoculated with the spirit of National Socialism.  

At the end of his long-winded speech, he addressed this challenge to his generals:

“If the worse ever comes to the worst, and I am ever abandoned as Supreme Commander by my own people, I must still expect my entire officer corps to muster around me with daggers drawn—just as every field marshal or the commander of an army corps, division or regiment expects his subordinates to stand by him in the hour of crisis.”

Adolf Hitler

Sitting in the front row was Field Marshal Erich von Manstein, perhaps the most brilliant member of the German General Staff. It was Manstein who had designed the “Sickle Cut” attack on France in May, 1940.

Bypassing the much-vaunted Maginot Line, the Wehrmacht struck through Belgium, taking the French completely by surprise. As a result, it defeated France in six weeks—something Germany had been unable to do during the four years of World War 1.

Now, in a loud voice, Manstein proclaimed: “And so it will be, Mein Fuhrer!” 

Hitler froze; it had been more than a decade since anyone had dared interrupt him. Then, trying to make the best of a bad moment, he continued: “Very well. If this is the case, it will be impossible for us to lose this war.” 

Hitler hoped that Manstein had intended to reassure him of his loyalty. But Martin Bormann, his all-powerful secretary, told him that the generals had interpreted the outburst differently: That the worse would indeed come to the worst.

Erich von Manstein

And, which, in fact, happened.

As the Russian army closed in on his underground bunker in April, 1945, Hitler revealed his utter contempt for the Germans who had so blindly served him for 12 years.  

“If the war is lost,” Hitler told his former architect and now Minister of Armaments, Albert Speer, “the nation will also perish. This fate is inevitable.

“There is no necessity to take into consideration the basis which the people will need to continue even a most primitive existence.

“On the contrary, it will be better to destroy these things ourselves, because this nation will have proved to be the weaker one and the future will belong solely to the stronger eastern nation.”

Just as Hitler demanded loyalty from his accomplices to infamy, so does Donald Trump. 

Former FBI Director James Comey has had firsthand experience in attacking organized crime—and in spotting its leaders.

In his bestselling memoir, A Higher Loyalty, he writes:

“As I found myself thrust into the Trump orbit, I once again was having flashbacks to my earlier career as a prosecutor against the mob. The silent circle of assent. The boss in complete control. The loyalty oaths. The us-versus-them worldview. The lying about all things, large and small, in service to some code of loyalty that put the organization above morality and the truth.” 

James Comey official portrait.jpg

James Comey

When Comey refused to overlook Trump’s treasonous contacts with Russian dictator Vladimir Putin, Trump fired him.

On October 9, 2019, The Week published an article: “Note to Republicans: Trump will betray you just like he betrayed the Kurds. The one constant in the president’s life is betrayal.”  Specifically:

“Trump’s forte is con artistry. He sells books he doesn’t write to people who don’t read. He failed as a businessman but succeeded as a fake businessman on TV. The supreme irony of his life is that he poses as a dealmaker when he is the opposite. Trump doesn’t make deals. He breaks them….

“If there’s a constant in Trump’s life, it’s betrayal. He has betrayed his business partners, his customers, his employees, his friends, his wives, and his voters. A man who is willing to betray those closest to him will not hesitate to turn his back on foreigners thousands of miles away.”

To enrich himself at the expense of his followers, Trump has peddled a variety of expensive products. Among these:

  • “Never Surrender” sneakers;
  • Mugshot T-shirts, mugs and posters;
  • Bibles made in China (as he rails against a trade deficit between China and the United States.

On the international level, Trump has withdrawn the United States from a host of international agreements. Among these:

  • The Trans-Pacific Partnership;
  • The Paris Agreement to combat global warming;
  • The Iran nuclear deal.

As a result, the world no longer trusts the United States to honor its commitments.

A 2018 Pew Research Center survey found that 82 percent of Europeans didn’t trust Trump’s handling of international issues. Seventy-five percent of Canadians and 91 percent of Mexicans didn’t trust him to do the right thing regarding world affairs. 

For Trump, as for Hitler, loyalty goes only one way—from others to him. No one who served either man—no matter how loyally or how long—could be certain when he would be deemed disposable.

WHY REPUBLICANS WON IN 2024: PART THREE (END)

In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Medical, Politics, Social commentary on November 13, 2024 at 12:17 am

There are many reasons why Democrats lose elections. Seven have already been offered. Here are two more.     

Reason #7: Republicans learned long ago that most voters aren’t moved by appeals to their rationality. Instead, what counts with them is emotions—such as fear.

From the end of World War II in 1945 to the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, the Enemy of Choice for Republicans was the Communists.

Millions of Americans were so pathologically frightened by “The Red Menace” that any Democratic politician libeled as a “Communist,” “Comsymp,”  “fellow traveler” was considered as at least a potential traitor, if not an actual one.

Red Scare Creator Liam Francis Walsh ...

Among the Republican politicians who rode to victory on a wave of Red hysteria: Richard Nixon and Joseph McCarthy 

Even as late as 1992, President George H.W. Bush and the Republican establishment charged that Arkansas Governor Bill Clinton might be a KGB plant. Their evidence: During his tenure at Oxford University in 1969-70, Clinton had briefly visited Moscow—and thus might have been turned into a “Manchurian Candidate.”

After the collapse of the Soviet Union, Right-wingers had to settle for attacking their opponents as “liberals” and “soft on crime.” But these charges didn’t carry the same weight as “Communists” and “traitors.”

Then, on September 11, 2001, Republicans—and their Right-wing supporters—at last found a suitable replacement for the Red Menace: The Maniacal Muslim.

The World Trade Center on September 11, 2001

Led by President George W. Bush, Republicans used fear of Muslims to con and bully the nation into a needless, bloody, budget-busting war on Iraq. 

Democratic are generally unwilling to fight fire with fire. Thus, Michelle Obama in 2016: “When they go low, we go high.”

Reason #8: Republicans consistently bring brass knuckles to a prizefight.

Example 1: Republicans organized a nationwide effort to suppress voter turnout among blacks and liberals.

Yet Democrats didn’t make a similar effort to suppress Right-wing turnout. Nor did the Biden Justice Department indict those Republicans responsible for their anti-democratic efforts.

Example 2: On January 6, 2021, President Donald Trump—supported by at least 147 Republicans in the House and Senate—incited a treasonous coup to remain in office. This despite the overwhelming evidence that he had lost the 2020 election to Joseph Biden.

With the end of the Biden administration little more than two months  away, not one Republican House or Senate member supporting such treason had been indicted for that infamy. Let alone tried, convicted and imprisoned. 

Had this occurred, the Biden administration’s agenda would have been far more advanced than it is. Republicans who were raising funds for re-election campaigns would have been forced to raise them to pay huge legal bills.

They would have had far less time to plot to overthrow democracy. Instead, their attention would have been increasingly focused on their upcoming trials for treason.

Reason #9: Since 2021, the Biden administration tolerated Donald Trump’s campaign of lies.

Trump continues to spread The Big Lie that he was robbed by a vast conspiracy—although not one of the more than 60 cases his lawyers brought before Federal judges proved this true.

Moreover, he has openly and repeatedly threatened to seek “vengeance” on Democrats who have opposed him—starting with President Biden and his family.

A major goal of “Project 2025,” designed by the Right-wing Heritage Foundation, is to make the director of the FBI personally accountable to a Right-wing President—just as the head of the KGB is personally accountable to Vladimir Putin.   

There can be no doubt that after Trump’s win in 2024, American democracy as it has existed for 248 years will vanish.

Trump should have been indicted for treason by no later than mid-2021. Even then, the evidence was overwhelming that he had instigated the coup attempt.

Um... Little Words Can Signal Big Lies... You Know | Psychology Today Singapore

Yet it wasn’t until November 18, 2022, that Jack Smith was appointed Special Counsel to oversee the criminal investigations into Trump’s role in the January 6 Capitol attack and his illegal storage of classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago estate. 

And Smith allowed Trump-appointed Florida Judge Aileen Cannon to indefinitely postpone the stolen documents trial. 

Meanwhile, Trump won repeated delays in his trial for inciting a violent attack on the Capitol. His victory on November 5 guarantees he will not be prosecuted for any of his crimes.

United States Department of Justice - Wikipedia

To bring down Mafia “boss of all bosses” John Gotti, the FBI waged a seven-year, $75 million campaign—which included the use of electronic bugs and recruitment of informants.

To date, there is no evidence that the Bureau applied such an effort against Trump—although he, unlike Gotti, threatens the very foundations of American democracy.

For this, blame must fall squarely on Attorney General Merrick Garland, who has been notably derelict in pursuing Right-wing treason.

America now stands at the point where the German Weimar Republic stood in 1932: With an aged President (Paul von Hindenburg) unable—or unwilling—to cope with a surging Fascistic movement (led by Adolf Hitler). 

The results of that collective failure destroyed Germany and left 60 million dead around the world.

The United States—and especially Democrats—has allowed itself to make that same fatal mistake.

WHY REPUBLICANS WON IN 2024: PART TWO (OF THREE)

In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Medical, Politics, Social commentary on November 12, 2024 at 12:05 am

There are many reasons why Democrats consistently lose elections.        

Democrats expect people to rise above their worst selves and embrace a higher, altruistic cause—civil rights, abortion rights, healthcare for all.

Reason #3: Republicans look for those who are comfortable in their racism, their greed, their hatred for women. They don’t try to reform them—they encourage them in their racism, greed and misogyny. 

This began long before Donald Trump became a Presidential candidate in 2016.

When Richard Nixon announced his candidacy for President in 1968, he pursued what was euphemistically termed “a Southern strategy.”

In reality, this was aimed to exploit whites’ fear and hatred of blacks. 

In a now-infamous 1981 interview, Right-wing political consultant Lee Atwater explained how this worked.

Lee Atwater

“You start out in 1954 by saying, ‘Nigger, nigger, nigger.’ By 1968 you can’t say ‘nigger’—that hurts you, backfires. 

“So you say stuff like, uh, forced busing, states’ rights, and all that stuff, and you’re getting so abstract.

“Now, you’re talking about cutting taxes, and all these things you’re talking about are totally economic things and a byproduct of them is, blacks get hurt worse than whites….

“‘We want to cut this,’ is much more abstract than even the busing thing, uh, and a hell of a lot more abstract than ‘Nigger, nigger.’ 

“So anyway you look at it, race is coming on the back burner.”

But blacks have by no means been the only targets—and victims—of Republican hate campaigns. A partial list of these would include:

  • Liberals
  • Women
  • Socialists
  • Secularists
  • Disabled
  • Environmentalists
  • Hispanics
  • Gays
  • Lesbians

And now transgenders.

Reason #4: Republicans are experts at inciting hatred—and reaping huge gains in power as a result.  

There can be no better example of a politician who has played successfully on the hatred of American voters than Donald Trump. If Barack Obama was the 2008 candidate of “Hope and Change,” then Trump was the 2016 candidate of “Hate and Fear.” 

From June 15, 2015, when he launched his Presidential campaign, until October 24, 2016, Trump fired almost 4,000 angry, insulting tweets at 281 people and institutions that had somehow offended him. 

Donald Trump

The New York Times needed two full pages of its print edition to showcase them. 

Among his targets:

  • Hillary Clinton
  • The New York Times 
  • President Barack Obama
  • CNN
  • Actress Meryl Streep
  • The Washington Post
  • Singer Neil Young
  • Democrats
  • Actor Arnold Schwarzenegger
  • Republicans
  • Comedian John Oliver
  • The State of New Jersey
  • Beauty pageant contestants

Others he clearly delighted in insulting during the campaign included:

  • Women
  • Blacks
  • Hispanics
  • Asians
  • Muslims
  • The disabled
  • Prisoners-of-war

Democrats want to believe a day will come when all races, colors and creeds will live together in harmony. Their policies aim at creating that sort of society.

Reason #5: Republicans know that most people instinctively feel comfortable with those who most resemble themselves. And they don’t seek out those who differ from themselves.

That’s why—in schools and prisons—whites sit mostly with whites, blacks sit mostly with blacks, and Hispanics sit mostly with Hispanics.

Reason #6: Republicans know that if most Americans feel uncomfortable with fellow Americans who don’t resemble themselves, they feel even less comfortable with foreigners who don’t.

This is especially true when inflation is high, jobs and housing are scarce, and local schools and hospitals are crammed with illegal aliens—who, by law, shouldn’t even be in the country.

For these Americans, the Democrats’ “Kumbaya” message of love and tolerance is wasted. By contrast, Republicans’ cries of “Get rid of the illegal aliens!” ring loud and clear.

Related image

Illegal aliens crossing into the United States

Moreover, the “illegal alien” tagline often allows Republicans to sidestep criticism on even the most outrageous of their actions. 

Example: The case of a 10-year-old Ohio girl who was raped—and had to travel to Indiana to obtain an abortion after the Supreme Court overturned Roe. v. Wade.

Ohio has a “heartbeat” law making abortion a crime after a fetal heartbeat is determined—usually within the first six weeks.

Davidson County Commissioners approve "heartbeat" resolution on abortions

For Ohio’s Republican legislators and governor, the “rights” of a fetus far outweigh those of an actual human being—even if she is a child.

Ari Fleischer, former press secretary for President George W. Bush, said on Fox News that the girl’s illegal alien rapist from Guatemala was the villain, not the fetal heartbeat law.

“The agenda is to allow people to come into America without having to come here legally. If you start pointing things out like this, it makes it a moral question. And that’s why the press doesn’t want to face up to the fact it’s a moral issue that people should not be allowed in America unless they come here legally.”   

Democrats believe that voters are creatures of rationality. 

Reason #7: Republicans learned long ago that what counts with most voters is emotions—such as fear.

From the end of World War II in 1945 to the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, the Enemy of Choice for Republicans was the Communists.

Millions of Americans were so pathologically frightened by “The Red Menace” that any Democratic politician libeled as a “Communist,” “Comsymp,” “fellow traveler” was considered at least a potential traitor, if not an actual one.