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In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Politics, Social commentary on October 24, 2025 at 12:10 am
Donald Trump has never shown any interest in—let alone knowledge of—history. Yet he might well feel warmly towards an English king who took power 508 years before he did.
Henry VIII came to the throne in 1509 and ruled as a tyrant until his death in 1547.
Trump came to the Presidency in 2017 and ruled as a tyrant until his electoral ouster in 2021.
In his youth Henry was athletic, highly intelligent, and spoke French, Latin and Spanish. Highly religious, he immensely enjoyed hunting and tennis. His scholarly interests included writing books and music, and he was a lavish patron of the arts.
Henry VIII
Trump graduated from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania in 1968 with a B.S. in Economics. In 2015, his lawyer, Michael Cohen, threatened to sue Trump’s high school, colleges, and the College Board if they released Trump’s academic records.
At six-feet-two with a slim athletic build, fair complexion and prowess on the jousting and tennis courts, Henry was considered extremely handsome, and even referred to as an “Adonis.” But as he aged, he became obese and his health suffered.
As a young man, standing six-feet-three and with an athletic build, Trumpwas considered handsome and a ladies’ man. But he thought exercise a waste of energy, saying it depletes the body’s energy. By the time he ran for President in 2015-16, he was grotesquely overweight, with orange skin and stood with a pronounced forward tilt.
Henry married six times—resulting in two divorces (Catherine of Aragon and Anne of Cleves), two beheadings (Anne Boleyn and Katherine Howard) and one death after childbirth (Jane Seymour). His last wife, Catherine Parr, outlived him.
Trump has been married three times—to Ivana Trump, Marla Maples and Melania Trump. He cheated on Ivana (before divorcing her) with Marla, then cheated on Marla (before divorcing her) with Melania.
Parody of Donald Trump as Henry VIII
Both during and in-between marriages he bedded many other women—and boasted about it. His most infamous boast almost cost him the White House.
During a 2005 exchange with Billy Bush, then the host of Access Hollywood, Trump said: “You know I’m automatically attracted to beautiful—I just start kissing them. It’s like a magnet. Just kiss. I don’t even wait. And when you’re a star they let you do it. You can do anything. Grab them by the pussy. You can do anything.”
Henry VIII ruled England for 36 years, made radical changes to the English Constitution, and ushered in the theory of the divine right of kings in opposition to papal supremacy.
Donald Trump ruled the United States for four years, put radical Right-wing Justices on the Supreme Court, and boasted that it would be great if the country had—like China—a “President-for-Life.”
To make that a reality, he refused to accept electoral defeat in 2020 and incited a violent attack on Congress to stop the count of Electoral College votes proving that former Vice President Joseph Biden had won.
Trump inciting the January 6 attack on Congress
Henry was an intellectual, the first English king with a modern humanist education. He owned a large library, annotated many books and published one of his own.
Trump published 20 books under his name, but all were written by ghostwriters. This is confirmed by an analysis of his speech patterns—which puts him at a fourth-grade level, the lowest of the previous 15 Presidents.
Henry was ridiculed for his obesity and was subject to raging mood swings and paranoia.
Trump was ridiculed for his obesity, his slow reading of speeches and his obscene egotism: How smart he is, his wealth, his brilliance.
He spouted conspiracy theories:
- The “Deep State” was out to destroy him.
- News media was “the enemy of the people.”
- He lost the 2020 Presidential election because of a conspiracy involving Democrats and rigged voting machines.
It is estimated that Henry executed up to 57,000 people—members of the clergy, ordinary citizens and nobles who had taken part in uprisings and protests.
His victims fell into three categories: Heresy, Treason and Denial of his Royal Supremacy as Head of the English Church.
Among the most prominent: Sir Thomas More, his former chancellor, and Thomas Cromwell, his chief minister.
Trump never executed anyone, but he encouraged his legions of Right-wing supporters to attack those he considered enemies: The media, liberals, Hispanics, blacks, “uppity” women, Asians.
After he publicly invited the Proud Boys paramilitary group to “stand back and stand by,” its members conspired to kidnap and execute Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer, who had resisted Trump’s demand to “open” the state during the Coronavirus pandemic.
Henry VIII is largely remembered today for his six wives, massive appetite for food, his bloated appearance and his murderous tyranny.
Donald Trump will be remembered as the first President who tried to remain in office despite losing a Presidential election, his two impeachments, and, to date, his being the only former President to be convicted for 34 felonies.
Englishmen believed the country would collapse without a male heir to the throne. Americans believed the country would collapse if an ex-President stands trial for his crimes.
England survived. So will the United States.
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In Bureaucracy, Entertainment, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Politics, Social commentary on October 23, 2025 at 12:11 am
There is more in common between Donald Trump and King Henry VIII than at first might seem possible.
And the 1969 movie, “Anne of the Thousand Days,” brings it vividly to light.
Throughout much of the film, Henry (Richard Burton) lusts to romantically—and sexually—capture the beautiful Anne Boleyn (Geneviève Bujold). The fact that he’s married to Catherine of Aragon matters not at all.
Henry justifies his infidelity on the fact that Catherine has failed to give him a male heir.
He’s been having an affair with Anne’s younger sister, Mary, but is now bored with her. The fact that she’s now pregnant with his child matters not at all, either.
He first notices Anne, 18, at a court ball. She’s engaged to the son of the Earl of Northumberland, and they have received their parents’ permission to marry. But Henry is enraptured with Anne’s beauty and orders his Lord Chancellor, Cardinal Wolsey, to break the engagement.
Anne is furious, and blames both Henry and Wolsey for ruining her happiness. But as the King’s infatuation continues, she becomes intoxicated with the power it brings her.
Henry presses Anne to become his mistress. But she says she won’t bear an illegitimate child. Desperate to have a son, Henry decides to divorce Catherine and marry Anne.
For Anne, it’s the ultimate seduction, and she agrees. She’s ordained as Queen, but is popularly reviled by the supporters of Catherine.
Months later, Henry is dismayed when Anne gives birth to a daughter, Elizabeth—who will eventually become Queen after Henry’s death.
Henry turns his always-wandering eye to Jane Seymour, one of Anne’s maids. Anne banishes Jane from the court.
Henry VIII
Anne is furious that Sir Thomas More, the King’s Chancellor, opposes Henry’s divorce from Catherine. She refuses to sleep with Henry unless he executes More.
Anne gets her wish: More is beheaded. But her next child—a boy—is stillborn.
By now, Henry is convinced Anne will never be able to give him a male heir. He schemes to divorce her and marry Jane. He contrives with his new chief minister, Thomas Cromwell, to have Anne falsely charged with infidelity.
At her trial, Anne vigorously defends herself, proving that the witnesses against her are lying.
In a private meeting with her, Henry offers to free her if she’ll agree to annul their marriage. Since this will make Elizabeth illegitimate, Anne refuses—and goes courageously to her death
Throughout the movie, Englishmen from Henry on down are convinced that England will collapse if a woman ascends the throne.
And, of course, England not only survives but thrives under the 45-year reign of Queen Elizabeth.
Which brings us to Donald Trump.
Like Henry, Trump is a man of voracious appetites—for wealth, for fame, for sex. Like Henry, he is untroubled by scruples and will commit any crime to attain whatever he wants. Like Henry, he is a man of fierce temper—always eager to crush anyone he thinks has wronged him.
Donald Trump
Countless Englishmen who lived under Henry thought England would collapse if a woman took the throne.
Now countless Americans believed the United States would collapse if a former President was brought to trial.
On March 30, 2023, Trump was indicted by a New York grand jury. He thus became the first current or former President to face criminal charges.
On April 1, CNN reported/editorialized: “Former President Donald Trump’s indictment….has thrust the nation into uncharted political, legal and historical waters, and raised a slew of questions about how the criminal case will unfold.
“The Manhattan district attorney’s office has been investigating Trump in connection with his alleged role in a hush money payment scheme and cover-up involving adult film star Stormy Daniels that dates to the 2016 Presidential election.”
Trump attacked Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg as pursuing a leftist vendetta to prevent him from running for President in 2024.
“If they can do this to me,” he thundered in countless fund-raising appeals to his Right-wing followers, “they can do this to you.”
Which raised the question: “How many others have tried to illegally overturn a legitimate Presidential election and/or paid hush-money to a porn ‘actress’?”
Trump repeatedly tried to appear the victim of “a Democratic-led witch hunt.” But if politics tainted the dispensing of justice in Trump’s case, it was on his behalf.
As President, he had immunity from civil and criminal lawsuits. He couldn’t be tried at local, state and federal levels. And he had good reason to avoid facing trial at any level. Among the cases facing him while he held office:
- The Manhattan District Attorney’s criminal case against the Trump Organization for tax evasion.
- The New York Attorney General’s civil investigation into the Trump Organization for fraud.
- The E. Jean Carroll defamation lawsuit (he called her a liar after she claimed he raped her in the 1990s).
- The Mary Trump lawsuit: His niece was suing him for allegedly defrauding her out of millions of dollars.
- The Trump Tower lawsuit: Five people claimed that Keith Schiller, the Trump Organization’s then chief of security, hit one of them on the head when they were protesting outside of the company’s Manhattan headquarters in 2015.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Military, Politics, Social commentary on October 22, 2025 at 12:11 am
A dictator can die of illness or old age.
But there are other ways a tyrant can be forced to give up power—such as Gaius Caligula, Adolf Hitler and—possibly—Joseph Stalin.
Joseph Stalin ruled as absolute dictator of the Soviet Union from January 21, 1924, to March 5, 1953—29 years.
Joseph Stalin
Throughout his nearly 30-year reign over the Soviet Union, at least 20 million men, women and children died—from executions, deportations, imprisonment in Gulag camps, and a man-made famine through the forced collection of harvests.
Robert Payne, the acclaimed British historian, vividly portrayed the crimes of this murderous tyrant in his brilliant 1965 biography, The Rise and Fall of Stalin.
According to Payne, Stalin was planning yet another purge during the last weeks of his life. This would be “a holocaust greater than any he had planned before.
“This time there would be a chistka [purge] to end all chistkas, a purging of the entire body of the state from top to bottom. No one, not even the highest officials, was to be spared.”
Then, on March 4, 1953, Moscow Radio announced: “During the night of March 1-2, while in his Moscow apartment, Comrade Stalin suffered a cerebral hemorrhage affecting vital areas of the brain.”
Stalin died on March 5, 1953. He was 73 and in poor health from a lifetime of smoking, drinking and little exercise.
But he could have died of unnatural causes.
In the 2004 book, Stalin’s Last Crime, Vladimir P. Naumov, a Russian historian, and Jonathan Brent, a Yale University Soviet scholar, assert that he might have been poisoned.
If this happened, the occasion was during a final dinner with four members of the Politburo. Two of these were Lavrenti P. Beria, chief of the secret police, and Nikita S. Khrushchev, who eventually succeeded Stalin.
The authors believe that, if Stalin was poisoned, the most likely suspect was Beria. The method: Slipping warfarin, a tasteless and colorless blood thinner also used as a rat killer, into his glass of wine.
In Nikita Khrushchev’s 1970 memoirs, he quotes Beria as telling Vyacheslav M. Molotov, another Politburo member, two months after Stalin’s death: “I did him in! I saved all of you.”
It’s entirely possible that Donald Trump’s “Presidency-for-Life” may end by natural causes.
He’s 79, and despite his repeated boastings that he’s the healthiest President in United States history, clearly he isn’t.
He is grotesquely overweight, doesn’t exercise, falls asleep in public appearances and slurs his words. Much of his diet consists of greasy, artery-clogging fast food—such as from McDonald’s and KFC.
He stays up late at night, pouring out his hatred for countless real and imagined enemies on his website, Truth Social.
But that is not the only way his reign could disappear.
Since retaking office on January 20, Trump has ruled as de-facto dictator. Among his outrages.
- Turning Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) into his personal Gestapo. Nearly 150,000 people—both illegal aliens and American-born citizens—were arrested between January and late July 2025.
- Purging FBI agents who rightly investigated his illegally confiscating classified documents and inciting the January 6, 2021 attack on Congress.
- Attacking CBS and ABC for their news departments’ accurately covering his litany of mistakes and crimes.
- Ordering the Justice Department to indict former FBI director James Comey and New York Attorney General Letitia James for carrying out their legal responsibilities.
- Forcing ABC to (temporarily) cancel Jimmy Kimmel Live! because the comedian made jokes about him.
- Shutting down the Federal Government over Democrats’ refusal to back his gutting of Medicare and the Affordable Care Act (ACA) to give tax breaks to billionaires.
On June 14, more than five million Americans protested Trump’s rule with a “No Kings” march. And nearly seven million participated in the October 18 march. More are planned.
* * * * * * * * * *
Niccolo Machiavelli, the father of modern political science, offers a stern warning for Trump—a warning he has steadfastly ignored.
Niccolo Machiavelli
In his masterwork, The Discourses on Livy, Machiavelli notes how important it is for rulers to make themselves loved—or at least respected—by their fellow citizens:
“Note how much more praise those Emperors merited who, after Rome became an empire, conformed to her laws like good princes, than those who took the opposite course.
“Titus, Nerva, Trajan, Hadrian, Antoninus and Marcus Auelius did not require the Praetorians nor the multitudinous legions to defend them, because they were protected by their own good conduct, the good will of the people, and by the love of the Senate.
“On the other hand, neither the Eastern nor the Western armies saved Caligula, Nero, Vitellius and so many other wicked Emperors from the enemies which their bad conduct and evil lives had raised up against them.”
In his better-known work, The Prince, Machiavelli warns rulers who—like Donald Trump–are inclined to rule by fear:
“A prince should make himself feared in such a way that if he does not gain love, he at any rate avoids hatred: for fear and the absence of hatred may well go together.”
By Machiavelli’s standards, Trump has made himself the perfect target for a conspiracy:
“When a prince becomes universally hated, it is likely that he’s harmed some individuals—who thus seek revenge. This desire is increased by seeing that the prince is widely loathed.”
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In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Military, Politics, Social commentary on October 21, 2025 at 12:10 am
A dictator can die of illness or old age.
But there are other ways a tyrant can be forced to give up power—such as the following three.
First up: Gaius Caligula, the “Mad Emperor” of Imperial Rome.
Caligula’s reign spanned March 18, 37 A.D. to January 24, 41 A.D.—four years.
Gaius Caligula
Carole Raddato from FRANKFURT, Germany, CC BY-SA 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0>, via Wikimedia Commons
He became Emperor in 37 A.D. after succeeding the Emperor Tiberius, his uncle who had adopted him as a son after his father died.
Caligula’s reign began well—and popularly. He gave Tiberius a magnificent funeral—then recalled to Rome all those whom Tiberius had banished, and ignored all charges that Tiberius had leveled against them.
He gave bonuses to the military and allowed the magistrates unrestricted jurisdiction, without appeal to himself.
But in October 37 A.D. he fell seriously ill or perhaps was poisoned.
Caligula soon recovered but emerged a changed man. He began claiming to be a god, and killing or exiling anyone he saw as a threat. He ordered his victims tortured to death with many slight wounds: “Strike so that he may feel that he is dying.”
Among his litany of crimes, according to his biographer, Gaius Suetonius Tranquillus:
“He forced parents to attend the executions of their sons, sending a litter for one man who pleaded ill health, and inviting another to dinner immediately after witnessing the death, and trying to rouse him to gaiety and jesting by a great show of affability.”
For all his cruelty and egomania, the trait that finally destroyed Caligula was his joy in humiliating others.
His fatal mistake was to taunt 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.”
On January 22 41 A.D. Chaerea and several other bodyguards hacked Caligula to death with swords before other guards could save him.
Next up: Adolf Hitler, dictator of Nazi Germany from January 30, 1933, to April 30, 1945—12 years.
He was born on April 20, 1889, in Braunau am Inn in Austria-Hungary.
Adolf Hitler
He was appointed Chancellor—chief law enforcement officer—of Germany on January 30, 1933, by President Paul von Hindenburg. Upon Hindenburg’s death in 1934, Hitler assumed the Presidency and established himself as absolute dictator.
From 1933 to 1939 he presided over Germany’s rapid economic recovery from the Great Depression, the defiance of restrictions imposed on Germany after World War 1, and the annexation of Austria and Czechoslovakia, where millions of ethnic Germans lived.
These accomplishments won him widespread popular support.
But after absorbing Czechoslovakia in 1938, Hitler felt himself invincible. On September 1, 1939, his armies attacked Poland—and unintentionally ignited World War II.
After conquering Norway, Denmark, Holland, Belgium, France, Greece and Yugoslavia, he made his two greatest mistakes of the war: He invaded the far more powerful Soviet Union on June 22, 1941, and declared war on the equally more powerful United States on December 11.
Parallel to unleashing a war that slaughtered 50 million people, Hitler orchestrated the extermination of at least six million Jews during the Holocaust.
By April, 1945, Germany faced destruction from the advancing Russians on the East, and from the advancing Americans on the West.
On April 30, with Russian forces only blocks from his underground bunker, Hitler lifted a heavy 7.65mm Walther PPK pistol to his right temple, bit on a cyanide capsule, and pulled the trigger.
Just as Caligula’s mangled remains were hastily burned and buried in the Horti Lamiani gardens, Hitler’s body was hastily cremated in the Reich Chancellery garden.
Last up: Joseph Stalin, dictator of the Soviet Union from January 21, 1924, to March 5, 1953—29 years.
Born on December 18, 1878, in Georgia, Russia, he hated Czarist rule and in 1903 joined the Communist Bolsheviks party, led by Vladimir Lenin, to overthrow it.
Joseph Stalin
On November 7, 1917, Lenin overthrew the Provisional Government, which had taken power in February, after Czarist rule collapsed.
Stalin became a member of the new Soviet government, gradually working his way to the position of General Secretary. When Lenin died on January 21, 1924, Stalin outmaneuvered Leon Trotsky, his major rival for the succession, and became absolute dictator.
Starting in 1934, a series of massive purges followed—most notably between August, 1936, and March, 1938.
Throughout his nearly 30-year reign over the Soviet Union, at least 20 million men, women and children died—from executions, deportations, imprisonment in Gulag camps, and a man-made famine through the forced collection of harvests.
Robert Payne, the acclaimed British historian, vividly portrayed the crimes of this murderous tyrant in his brilliant 1965 biography, The Rise and Fall of Stalin.
According to Payne, Stalin was planning yet another purge during the last weeks of his life. This would be “a holocaust greater than any he had planned before.
“This time there would be a chistka [purge] to end all chistkas, a purging of the entire body of the state from top to bottom. No one, not even the highest officials, was to be spared.”
Yet Stalin did nothing to calm their fears. He often summoned his “comrades” to the Kremlin for late-night drinking bouts, where he freely humiliated them.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Military, Politics, Social commentary on October 20, 2025 at 12:10 am
Long before he took office for the first time on January 20, 2017, Donald Trump never intended to rule as an ordinary President.
Under the Constitution, a President can hold office for—at most—eight years. But a “President-for-Life” can rule until he dies.
That was—and remains—his ambition.
In a closed-door speech to Republican donors on March 3, 2018, Trump revealed his ultimate intention: To overthrow America’s constitutional government.
He praised China’s President, Xi Jinping, for recently assuming full dictatorial powers: “He’s now president for life. President for life. No, he’s great. And look, he was able to do that. I think it’s great. Maybe we’ll have to give that a shot some day.”
The statement was greeted with cheers and laughter by Republican donors.
Xi Jinping
Upon taking office as the Nation’s 45th President, Trump attacked or undermined one public or private institution after another.
Among these:
- American Intelligence: Even before taking office, Trump refused to accept the findings of the FBI, CIA and National Security Agency (NSA) that Russian Intelligence agents had intervened in the 2016 election to ensure his victory.
- “I think it’s ridiculous,” he told “Fox News Sunday.” “I think it’s just another excuse. I don’t believe it….No, I don’t believe it at all.”
- And when FBI Director James Comey dared to pursue a probe into “the Russia thing,” Trump fired him without warning.
- American law enforcement agencies: Trump repeatedly attacked his own Attorney General, Jeff Sessions, for not “protecting” him from agents pursuing the Russia investigation.
- On November 8, 2018, Trump abruptly fired him, following Democrats’ winning control of the House in the midterm elections.
- He threatened to fire Rod J. Rosenstein, the deputy attorney general, who oversaw Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russian subversion of the 2016 election.
- American military agencies: In 2018, Trump refused to visit an American cemetery near Paris and referred to U.S. Marines buried there as “losers” and “suckers.”
- Trump regularly abused military officials, calling Chairman of the Joint Chief of Staff Mark Milley a “dumbass” and former Secretary of Defense James Mattis “the world’s most overrated general.”
Seal of the Department of Defense
- The press: On February 17, 2017, Trump tweeted: “The FAKE NEWS media (failing @nytimes, @NBCNews, @ABC, @CBS, @CNN) is not my enemy, it is the enemy of the American People!”
- Appearing before the Conservative Political Action Conference on February 24, 2017, Trump said: “I want you all to know that we are fighting the fake news. It’s fake, phony, fake….I’m against the people that make up stories and make up sources. They shouldn’t be allowed to use sources unless they use somebody’s name. Let their name be put out there.”
- The judiciary: Trump repeatedly attacked Seattle US District Judge James Robart, who halted Trump’s first Muslim travel ban.
- In one tweet, Trump claimed: “Just cannot believe a judge would put our country in such peril. If something happens blame him and court system. People pouring in. Bad!”
- At Trump’s bidding, White House aide Stephen Miller attacked the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals: “We have a judiciary that has taken far too much power and become, in many cases, a supreme branch of government.”
Donald Trump
Even after leaving the White House in 2021, Trump continued his attacks on one cherished American institution after another:
- Facing 91 criminal counts in four cases, he discredited the judicial system, attacking judges, prosecutors, witnesses—and even their family members.
- He attacked Independent Counsel Jack Smith as “deranged” and accused him of trying to invalidate his candidacy for President in 2024.
- He attacked retired U.S. Army General Mark Milley for calling him “a wannabe dictator,” and said that Milley deserved execution as a traitor.
- Milley had successfully averted war with China by calling his Chinese military counterparts in the final weeks of Trump’s administration to assure them that Trump was not planning to attack China.
- He claimed voter fraud where none existed, casting doubt on the integrity of the electoral system.
- He claimed himself to be the victim of “the deep state” inside the federal bureaucracy.
- He attacked the integrity of the FBI—causing previously “law and order” Republicans to demand its defunding.
* * * * * * * * * *
Donald Trump isn’t crazy, as many of his critics charge. He knows exactly what he’s doing—and why.
He intends to strip every potential challenger to his authority—or his version of reality—of legitimacy with the public. If he succeeds, there will be:
- No independent press to reveal his failures and crimes.
- No independent law enforcement agencies to investigate his abuses of office.
- No independent judiciary to hold him accountable.
- No independent military to dissent as he recklessly hurtles toward a nuclear disaster.
- No candidate—Democrat or Republican—to challenge him for re-election in 2028—or any other year..
- No candidate—Democrat or Republican—to challenge his remaining in office as “President-for-Life.”
A dictator can die of illness or old age.
China’s Communist ruler, Mao Zedong died on September 9, 1976, at 82, from a series of heart attacks.
And Spain’s Fascist tyrant, Francisco Franco, died on November 20, 1975, at 82, of congestive heart failure.
But there are other ways a tyrant can be forced to give up power—such as the following three.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Politics, Social commentary on October 17, 2025 at 12:06 am
On September 2, 1964, the FBI launched a full-blown counterintelligence program against the Ku Klux Klan—COINTELPRO–WHITE HATE in FBI-speak.
Tim Weiner, author of Enemies: A History of the FBI, chronicles the methods used by the Bureau:
“WHITE-HATE intensified in the fall of 1964. It involved all the techniques in the FBI’s long-running attack on the Left. Once a week….FBI agents interrogated all known members of the White Knights of the KKK, blaming other Klansmen for being snitches and naming names, sowing deep suspicion among Klan members. Few knew who was an informer and who was not.
A Ku Klux Klan meeting
“The FBI dangled small fortunes before potential Klan informers, offered outright bribes to Klansmen who could serve as double agents inside state and local police forces, planted bugs and wiretaps in Klaverns, carried out black bag jobs to steal membership lists….”
Other tactics included:
- Contacting the news media to publicize arrests and identify Klan leaders;
- Informing the employers of known Klansmen of their employees’ criminal activity, resulting in the firing of untold numbers of them;
- Breaking up the marriages of Klansmen by circulating rumors of their infidelity among their wives.
“When the Klan reached 14,000 in the mid-sixties, I asked to take over the investigation of the Klan,” recalled William C. Sullivan, who headed the FBI’s Domestic Intelligence Division in the 1960s. “When I left the Bureau in 1971, the Klan was down to a completely disorganized 4,300. It was broken.”
William C. Sullivan
According to Neil J. Welch, the retired Special Agent in Charge (SAC) of the FBI’s Buffalo, New York office:
“A Klan Bureau of Investigation (KBI) was created to counter the FBI, and its members placed the wives and children of agents under surveillance, harassing them with taunts and anonymous phone calls,” wrote Welch in his memoir, Inside Hoover’s FBI.
“It was a serious miscalculation. The most dangerous members of the KBI were systematically identified and assigned to agents selected solely because they were comparatively dangerous. The agents had full discretion.
“During the next few months, a number of men previously involved in Klan violence around the state seemed, by remarkable coincidence, to experience misfortune. Some disappeared from the area. Some were forced to leave Mississippi for health reasons. A few took unplanned trips to places like Mexico and seemed to lose all interest in the Klan upon their return.”
Under a Democratic President, a similar effort, focusing on Right-wing terrorism, could include the following:
- The FBI’s designating Right-wing political and terrorist groups as the Nation’s #1 enemy.
- Reviving the FBI’s legendary COINTELPRO (“Counterintelligence Program”) that destroyed the Ku Klux Klan in the late 1960s. Among the methods that can be used:
- Turning the Bureau’s powerful arsenal—bugs, wiretaps, informants, SWAT teams—on them.
- Buying the cooperation of informants within Right-wing organizations.
- Conducting “black bag jobs” to steal membership lists of of Right-wing organizations.
- Breaking up the marriages of prominent Right-wingers by circulating rumors of their infidelity among their wives.
- Informing the employers of known Right-wing terrorists of their employees’ criminal activity, resulting in the firing of untold numbers of them.
- Contacting the news media to publicize the arrests of prominent Right-wing leaders.
- When Right-wing terrorists target Federal law enforcement agents and/or their families for harassment or worse, they can be targeted for similar intimidation or removal.
FBI SWAT member
A revised COINTELPRO could be supplemented by the following:
- Creating tip hotlines for reporting illegal Right-wing activities—and offering rewards for information that leads to arrests.
- Prosecuting militia groups for violating Federal firearms laws.
- Treating calls for the murder of members of Congress—as Georgia Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene has done-–as felonies punishable by lengthy imprisonment.
- Prosecuting Right-wing leaders involved in the treasonous assault on the United States Capitol Building.
- Prosecuting as “accessories to treason” all those Republican members of Congress who stoked Right-wing anger by lying that the 2020 Presidential election had been stolen from Donald Trump, although every objective news source proved he had lost.
- Directing the Treasury Department’s Terrorist Finance Tracking Program (TFTP) at fundamentalist Christian churches that finance Right-wing terrorism—just as it halts the financing of Islamic terrorist groups by Islamic organizations.
- Using drones, planes and/or helicopters to provide security against similar Right-wing terror demonstrations—especially in Washington, D.C.
- Using the Federal Communications Commission to ban Fox News—the Nation’s #1 Right-wing propaganda network—from representing itself as a legitimate news network, and requiring that its stories carry labels warning viewers: “This is Right-wing propaganda, NOT news.”
- Encouraging victims of Right-wing hate-speech to file libel/slander lawsuits against their abusers—such as the parents of murdered children at Sandy Hook Elementary School successfully did against Alex Jones.
- Using Federal anti-terrorist laws to arrest, prosecute and imprison Right-wingers who openly carry firearms and threaten violence, even if states allow such display of firearms.
- Seizing the assets of individuals and organizations found guilty of Right-wing terrorism offenses.
When you are constantly looking over your shoulder, your enemies are winning. When your enemies are constantly looking over their shoulder, you are winning.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Politics, Social commentary on October 16, 2025 at 12:10 am
In 2022, Donald Trump’s followers did what even the Mafia had never dared: Threaten the lives of FBI agents and openly challenge the authority of the Justice Department.
On August 8, 2022, the FBI, under a search warrant issued by the Justice Department, seized 11 sets of classified documents from the former President’s home at Mar-a-Lago. These included four sets that were classified as “top secret,” according to the unsealed search warrant.
Trump’s legions of fanatical Right-wing followers then vented their fury at a wide range of their self-declared enemies: President Jose[h Biden, Democrats, Attorney General Merrick Garland, the Justice Department—-and especially the FBI.
On August 12, 2022, the FBI and Department of Homeland Security [DHS] issued a joint Intelligence bulletin warning of the increased threats aimed at federal law enforcement agencies.
FBI seal
“Since 8 August 2022, the FBI and DHS have identified multiple articulated threats and calls for the targeted killing of judicial, law enforcement, and government officials associated with the Palm Beach search, including the federal judge who approved the Palm Beach search warrant.
“The FBI and DHS have also observed the personal identifying information of possible targets of violence, such as home addresses and identification of family members, disseminated online as additional targets.”
“These threats are occurring primarily online and across multiple platforms, including social media sites, web forums, video sharing platforms, and image boards. The FBI and DHS would like to ensure that law enforcement, court, and government personnel are aware of the range of threats and criminal and violent incidents.
“The FBI and DHS have observed an increase in violent threats posted on social media against federal officials and facilities, including a threat to place a so-called dirty bomb in front of FBI Headquarters and issuing general calls for ‘civil war’ and ‘armed rebellion.'”
Even the Mafia—with one or two exceptions—never threatened the lives of FBI agents. And when individual mobsters did, they found the consequences frightening.
In April, 1963, four New York mobsters knocked FBI agent John Foley to the ground, and then severely beat and kicked him. Foley had been conducting surveillance at the Brooklyn funeral of Carmine “The Doctor” Lombardozzi, a capo in the Gambino Mafia Family.
The FBI retaliated by launching an all-out war against the Gambinos. Agents leaned on the cartel’s boss, underboss, counselor and lieutenants. The Bureau also intensified the use of illegal electronic surveillance (wiretaps and hidden microphones) against the mobsters.
Map of Mafia families
Angelo Bruno, the boss of the Philadelphia crime syndicate, unwittingly informed a hidden microphone about how the FBI brutally drove home the message to “boss of all bosses” Carlo Gambino:
BRUNO: “They [the FBI] went to Carlo and named all his capos [lieutenants] to him. The FBI asked him: “Did you change the laws in your family, that you could hit FBI men, punch and kick them? Well, this is the test—that if you change the laws, and now you are going to hit FBI men, every time we pick up one of your people we are going to break their heads for them.’
“And, really, they picked up our guy, they almost killed him, the FBI. They don’t do that, you know. But they picked up one of his fellows and crippled him. They said, ‘This is an example. Now, the next time anyone lays a hand on an FBI man, that’s just a warning. There’s nothing else we have got to tell you.'”
Word traveled quickly through the nationwide organized crime network—and its leaders decreed there should be no further assaults on FBI agents.
Under a Democratic President, the FBI could be ordered to wage war on the radical Right. And it could be done the same way the FBI destroyed the Ku Klux Klan in the mid-1960s.
Klansmen had shot, lynched and bombed their way across the Deep South, especially in Alabama and Mississippi. Many Southern sheriffs and police chiefs were Klan sympathizers, if not outright members and accomplices.
On June 21, 1964, three civil rights workers disappeared in Philadelphia, Mississippi.
President Lyndon B. Johnson called J. Edgar Hoover, the legendary director of the FBI, and ordered an all-out investigation: “I want you to have the same kind of Intelligence [on the Klan] that you have on the communists.”
Poster for missing civil rights workers
For decades, Hoover had refused to tackle white hate groups. And, in truth, no President had been willing to give him the order to do so. But now a President had given him such an order.
In August, the FBI uncovered the bodies of the three missing civil rights activists—Michael Schwerner, Andrew Goodman and James Chaney.
On September 2, 1964, the Bureau launched a full-blown counterintelligence program against the Klan—COINTELPRO–WHITE HATE in FBI-speak.
Tim Weiner, author of Enemies: A History of the FBI, chronicles the methods used by the Bureau:
“WHITE-HATE intensified in the fall of 1964. It involved all the techniques in the FBI’s long-running attack on the Left. Once a week….FBI agents interrogated all known members of the White Knights of the KKK, blaming other Klansmen for being snitches and naming names, sowing deep suspicion among Klan members. Few knew who was an informer and who was not.”
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In Bureaucracy, Business, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Politics, Social commentary on October 15, 2025 at 12:06 am
It’s wonderful to believe that when you have a problem, you can write your local / state / federal representative and s/he will “give it my fullest attention.”
Unfortunately, that’s usually not what happens.
Two cases on the futility of expectations:
Case #1: On August 12, 2021, Mark (a pseudonym) wrote a letter to Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg. The subject: The disgraceful performance of San Francisco’s Municipal Railway (MUNI) bus lines during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Mark had previously complained to MUNI and his member of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors—without result. So now he decided to literally make it a Federal case:
“MUNI bus drivers are the highest-paid in the nation: The average MUNI driver makes $79,617, 51% above the national average bus driver salary of $52,730. This pay is 27% higher than the combined average salaries of drivers in Dallas, Boston and Atlanta.
“Yet for more than a year, many of these drivers have been ‘earning’ their pay by staying at home—or going on what amounts to an extended vacation at the expense of San Francisco voters and MUNI riders.”
Many bus routes, Mark wrote, had been eliminated. This forced riders to cram themselves aboard the first bus available—making it impossible to “maintain social distancing” as recorded messages aboard MUNI buses advised.
Other routes had been substantially altered, with passengers learning this only after they were deposited far from their expected drop-off point.
These changes were especially difficult for elderly and/or disabled riders.
Mark suggested that Buttigieg threaten MUNI with:
- The loss of the Federal monies it received through the Department of Transportation; and
- An Americans With Disabilities lawsuit on behalf of San Franciscans unable to receive the transit services they needed.
Mark never received even the courtesy of a reply, let alone a positive change in MUNI’s operations.
Pete Buttigieg
Case #2: Janet, a chef in Los Angeles, was fed up with getting Spam calls on her cell phone. Each time she got one, she blocked the number. Being on the national Do Not Call Registry, she believed she had an airtight case to take to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) which regulates the airways.
So she called the FCC and spoke with one of its representatives.
She said that she had saved to her phone the numbers of Spam callers—and she was prepared to turn these over to the FCC.
The FCC’s rep applauded Janet’s willingness to turn over this information.
“Then what happens?” asked Janet.
“We’ll put it into our files.”
In short: the FCC had no intention of acting on the Spam-caller numbers that Janet was prepared to turn over.
Janet didn’t hide her disappointment: “If someone went to the FBI and said, ‘I’m being shaken down by the Mafia,’ and the FBI said, ‘Well, we’ll put this into our files’ but wasn’t willing to do anything more, how many people do you think would be willing to report crimes to the FBI?”
The FCC rep admitted that this would greatly reduce the willingness of the public to report crimes to the FBI. But she made no effort to help Janet stop the harassing Spam calls.
Incidents like the ones above are a potent reason why so many people have lost their trust in government—at all levels.
Untold numbers of average citizens feel their elected officials—and the agencies they administer—don’t care about their problems. Even worse, they believe—accurately—that if they were wealthy contributors to the Democratic or Republican party, their complaints would be addressed promptly.
On April 24, 2016, CBS’ longtime documentary series, “60 Minutes,” aired a segment titled “Dialing for Dollars.”
It opened with the following: “The American public has a low opinion of Congress. Only 14 percent think it’s doing a good job. But Congress has excelled in one way. Raising money. Members of Congress raised more than a billion dollars for their 2014 election. And they never stop.
“Nearly every day, they spend hours on the phone asking supporters and even total strangers for campaign donations—hours spent away from the jobs they were elected to do. The pressure on candidates to raise money has ratcheted up since the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision in 2010. That allowed unlimited spending by corporations, unions and individuals in elections.”
In short: Members of Congress—the branch that writes the laws governing the lives of 328.2 million Americans—have essentially become telemarketers.
People who write to their members of Congress expect at least the courtesy of a reply addressing their concerns within a reasonable period of time. Many constituents will not receive even that.
Or the “reply” they receive arrives weeks or months later—and opens with: “Thank you for writing me to support my bill….”
Usually they haven’t even heard of the bill cited—and couldn’t care less about it. As they scan the letter—no doubt drafted by a low-level staffer—they search in vain for an offer of help, or at least empathy.
Millions of Americans will have no other contact with government officials than this. And it will convince them that if government isn’t their enemy, it’s certainly not their friend.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Law Enforcement, Politics, Social commentary on October 9, 2025 at 12:12 am
Republicans constantly revile the very government they lust to control.
But there are others—living or working in Washington, D.C.—who perform their jobs with quiet dedication.
One of these unsung heroes was Stephen Tyrone Johns, a security guard at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.
On June 10, 2009, Johns, 39, was shot and killed by James Wenneker von Brunn, a white supremist and Holocaust denier. Brunn was himself shot and wounded by two other security guards who returned fire.
United States Holocaust Museum
At 88, von Brunn died in jail awaiting trial.
Washington, D.C. ranks—with New York City—at the top of Al Qaeda’s list of targets.
Prior to 9/11, Americans assumed that visiting the White House was their birthright.
Today, if you want to tour the Executive Mansion, you quickly learn there are only two ways to get in:
- Through a special pass provided by your Congressman; or
- By someone connected with the incumbent administration.
Congressmen, however, have a limited number of passes to give out. And most of these go to people who have put serious money into the Congressman’s re-election campaigns.
And the odds that you’ll know someone who works in the White House—and who’s willing to offer you an invitation—are even smaller than those of knowing a Congressman.
But even then you’ll have to undergo a Secret Service background check. And that means submitting the following information in advance of your visit:
- Name
- Date of birth
- Birthplace
- Social Security Number
Secret Service agents protecting President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obma
You’ll have to leave many items at home. Among these:
- Cameras or video recorders
- Handbags, book bags, backpacks or purses
- Food or beverages
- Tobacco products
- Strollers
- Cell phones
- Knives
- Electric stun guns
- Mace
After showing a government-issued ID—such as a driver’s license—visitors enter the White House from the south side of East Executive Avenue.
After passing through the security screening room, they walk upstairs to the first door and through the East, Green, Blue, Red and State Dining rooms.
Secret Service agents quietly stand post in every room—unless they’re tasked with explaining the illustrious history of each section of the White House.
Like everyone else who lives/works there, the Secret Service fully appreciates the incredible sense of history that radiates throughout the building.
This is where
- Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation;
- Franklin Roosevelt directed the United States to victory in World War II;
- John F. Kennedy stared down the Soviets during the Cuban Missile Crisis.
The White House
But even the generally unsmiling Secret Service agents have their human side.
While touring the East Wing of the White House, I asked an agent: “Is the East Room where President Nixon gave his farewell speech?” on August 9, 1974.
“I haven’t been programmed for that information,” the agent joked, inviting me to ask a question he could answer.
Another guest asked the same agent if he enjoyed being a Secret Serviceman. The agent replied that this was simply what he did for a living. His real passion, he said, was counseling youths.
“If you love something,” he advised, “get a job where you can do it. And if you can’t get a job you’re passionate about, get a job so you can pursue your passion.”
A third visitor noted that none of the agents he saw were wearing their trademark sunglasses. An agent pulled out a pair and said, “That’s because we’re indoors.”
On December 22, 2018, President Donald J. Trump shut down the government. The reason: A Democratic House refused to fund his “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.
Trump’s fanatical base believed that a wall across the U.S.-Mexico border would stop all illegal immigration. Trump knew it wouldn’t. But he also knew that if he didn’t build it, they wouldn’t re-elect him.
Donald Trump
The effects of the shutdown quickly became evident:
- For weeks, hundreds of thousands of government workers missed paychecks.
- Increasing numbers of employees of the Transportation Safety Administration (TSA)—which provides security against airline terrorism—began refusing to come to work, claiming to be sick.
- At the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) many air traffic controllers called in “sick.” Those who showed up to work without pay grew increasingly frazzled as they feared being evicted for being unable to make rent or house payments.
- Many Federal employees—such as FBI agents—were forced to rely on soup kitchens to feed their families.
- Many workers tried to bring in money by babysitting or driving for Uber,
Trump told Congressional leaders the shutdown could last months or even years.
But by January 25, 2019, the 35th day of the shutdown, he caved and re-opened the government. The reason: Democratic Speaker of the House Nancy refused to open the House for his annual State of the Union message.
The men and women who work in Washington, D.C., aren’t faceless “bureaucrats,” as Right-wingers falsely claim.
They are husbands and wives, fathers and mothers. They have deadlines to meet and bills to pay, just like everyone else.
Many of them, such as agents of the FBI and Secret Service, have taken an oath to defend the United States Constitution—with their lives if necessary.
They deserve a better break—and the respect of their fellow Americans.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Politics, Social commentary on September 24, 2025 at 12:06 am
Legitimate similarities abound between the tactics—and often the goals—of 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 (October 9, 1907 – February 23, 1930).
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.”
Wessel 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 (Nazi) Party.
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>, via Wikimedia Commons
His unit had a reputation as “a band of thugs, a brutal squad.” One of his men described the way they fought against the Communists: “Horst made Adolf Hitler’s principle his own: Terror can be destroyed only by counterterror.”
In September 1929, Wessel met Erna Jänicke, a 23-year-old ex-prostitute, in a tavern. 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 appealed to Communist friends of her late husband to evict Jänicke, They agreed to beat Wessel up and evict him from Salm’s flat.
On February 23, 1930, Albrecht Höhler, an armed pimp and petty criminal, knocked at Wessel’s door. When Wessel opened it, Höhler shot him dead.
He was 22 when he died.
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 September 10, 2025—when the Republican Party got its own martyr: Charlie Kirk.
Kirk (October 14, 1993 – September 10, 2025) was an American Right-wing political activist, entrepreneur and media personality.
He co-founded the organization Turning Point USA (TPUSA) in 2012 and was its executive director. He published a range of books and hosted a talk radio program, The Charlie Kirk Show.
Charlie Kirk
Gage Skidmore, CC BY-SA 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons
Kirk opposed gun control, Diversity, Equity and Inclusion programs, the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and abortion. Asked if he would support abortion for his 10-year-old daughter if she were raped, he said: “The baby would be delivered.”
Kirk spread misinformation about the safety of COVID-19 vaccines, masks, lockdowns, and related public health measures during the pandemic. As a result, he was at least partially responsible for untold numbers of the 400,000 Americans who died of COVID during 2020, Trump’s final year in office.
He was a major promoter of the “Great Replacement” conspiracy theory—that white populations in Western countries are being systematically replaced by non-white immigrants, with the complicity of liberal governments.
Kirk accepted wholesale Trump’s lie that the 2020 election had been stolen from him by massive voter fraud. And he played a pivotal role in re-electing the 34-times convicted felon in 2024.
Donald Trump
On September 10, 2025, Kirk was shot by a sniper while speaking at a Turning Point USA public debate event on the Utah Valley University campus in Orem, Utah.
The Republican party responded with outrage comparable to that expressed by the Nazis upon the assassination of SS-Obergruppenfuhrer Reinhard Heydrich on May 27, 1042.
In an Oval Office address the same day as the shooting, Trump blamed the “radical Left,” even as the killer’s identity and motivation remained unknown. Totally ignored in his speech was his own role in fomenting politically motivated violence.
Trump’s high-ranking political appointees uttered similar threatening statements:
On September 15, his Attorney General, Pam Bondi, vowed to attack those who engaged in “hate speech” following Kirk’s assassination: “There’s free speech and then there’s hate speech, and there is no place—especially now, especially after what happened to Charlie—in our society.
“We will absolutely target you, go after you, if you are targeting anyone with hate speech, anything, and that is across the aisle.”
Pam Bondi
On September 15—five days after Kirk’s death–-Vice President J.D. Vance hosted Kirk’s podcast: “So, when you see someone celebrating Charlie’s murder, call them out and, hell, call their employer. We don’t believe in political violence, but we do believe in civility.”
White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller vowed to use law enforcement to go after Americans who mocked Kirk’s death, calling that domestic terrorism:
“We will not live in fear, but you will live in exile, because the power of law enforcement under President Trump’s leadership will be used to find you, will be used to take away your money, take away your power, and if you have broken the law to take away your freedom.”
Donald Trump is clearly seeking to turn Charlie Kirk’s murder into the equivalent of that of Horst Wessel.
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KING HENRY VIII MEETS WITH KING DONALD 1: PART TWO (END)
In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Politics, Social commentary on October 24, 2025 at 12:10 amDonald Trump has never shown any interest in—let alone knowledge of—history. Yet he might well feel warmly towards an English king who took power 508 years before he did.
Henry VIII came to the throne in 1509 and ruled as a tyrant until his death in 1547.
Trump came to the Presidency in 2017 and ruled as a tyrant until his electoral ouster in 2021.
In his youth Henry was athletic, highly intelligent, and spoke French, Latin and Spanish. Highly religious, he immensely enjoyed hunting and tennis. His scholarly interests included writing books and music, and he was a lavish patron of the arts.
Henry VIII
Trump graduated from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania in 1968 with a B.S. in Economics. In 2015, his lawyer, Michael Cohen, threatened to sue Trump’s high school, colleges, and the College Board if they released Trump’s academic records.
At six-feet-two with a slim athletic build, fair complexion and prowess on the jousting and tennis courts, Henry was considered extremely handsome, and even referred to as an “Adonis.” But as he aged, he became obese and his health suffered.
As a young man, standing six-feet-three and with an athletic build, Trumpwas considered handsome and a ladies’ man. But he thought exercise a waste of energy, saying it depletes the body’s energy. By the time he ran for President in 2015-16, he was grotesquely overweight, with orange skin and stood with a pronounced forward tilt.
Henry married six times—resulting in two divorces (Catherine of Aragon and Anne of Cleves), two beheadings (Anne Boleyn and Katherine Howard) and one death after childbirth (Jane Seymour). His last wife, Catherine Parr, outlived him.
Trump has been married three times—to Ivana Trump, Marla Maples and Melania Trump. He cheated on Ivana (before divorcing her) with Marla, then cheated on Marla (before divorcing her) with Melania.
Parody of Donald Trump as Henry VIII
Both during and in-between marriages he bedded many other women—and boasted about it. His most infamous boast almost cost him the White House.
During a 2005 exchange with Billy Bush, then the host of Access Hollywood, Trump said: “You know I’m automatically attracted to beautiful—I just start kissing them. It’s like a magnet. Just kiss. I don’t even wait. And when you’re a star they let you do it. You can do anything. Grab them by the pussy. You can do anything.”
Henry VIII ruled England for 36 years, made radical changes to the English Constitution, and ushered in the theory of the divine right of kings in opposition to papal supremacy.
Donald Trump ruled the United States for four years, put radical Right-wing Justices on the Supreme Court, and boasted that it would be great if the country had—like China—a “President-for-Life.”
To make that a reality, he refused to accept electoral defeat in 2020 and incited a violent attack on Congress to stop the count of Electoral College votes proving that former Vice President Joseph Biden had won.
Trump inciting the January 6 attack on Congress
Henry was an intellectual, the first English king with a modern humanist education. He owned a large library, annotated many books and published one of his own.
Trump published 20 books under his name, but all were written by ghostwriters. This is confirmed by an analysis of his speech patterns—which puts him at a fourth-grade level, the lowest of the previous 15 Presidents.
Henry was ridiculed for his obesity and was subject to raging mood swings and paranoia.
Trump was ridiculed for his obesity, his slow reading of speeches and his obscene egotism: How smart he is, his wealth, his brilliance.
He spouted conspiracy theories:
It is estimated that Henry executed up to 57,000 people—members of the clergy, ordinary citizens and nobles who had taken part in uprisings and protests.
His victims fell into three categories: Heresy, Treason and Denial of his Royal Supremacy as Head of the English Church.
Among the most prominent: Sir Thomas More, his former chancellor, and Thomas Cromwell, his chief minister.
Trump never executed anyone, but he encouraged his legions of Right-wing supporters to attack those he considered enemies: The media, liberals, Hispanics, blacks, “uppity” women, Asians.
After he publicly invited the Proud Boys paramilitary group to “stand back and stand by,” its members conspired to kidnap and execute Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer, who had resisted Trump’s demand to “open” the state during the Coronavirus pandemic.
Henry VIII is largely remembered today for his six wives, massive appetite for food, his bloated appearance and his murderous tyranny.
Donald Trump will be remembered as the first President who tried to remain in office despite losing a Presidential election, his two impeachments, and, to date, his being the only former President to be convicted for 34 felonies.
Englishmen believed the country would collapse without a male heir to the throne. Americans believed the country would collapse if an ex-President stands trial for his crimes.
England survived. So will the United States.
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