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Archive for the ‘Law’ Category

A DARK, UNSEEN ROOM

In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Politics, Social commentary on May 8, 2025 at 12:17 am

Adolf Hitler had a warning for the Indiana legislators who passed the Religious Freedom Restoration Act.

A warning they should have heeded—but didn’t.   

It all started on June 22, 1941.

On that date, Hitler ordered his powerful Wehrmacht to invade the Soviet Union.

Less than two years earlier, on August 23, 1939, he had signed a “non-aggression” pact with his longtime arch-enemy, Joseph Stalin, dictator of the Soviet Union.

Since then, his army had conquered Poland, Norway, Denmark, Holland, Belgium and France.

Adolf Hitler with his generals

Now, he believed, it was time to “settle accounts” with the Soviet Union.

Only there could Germany obtain the “living space” it “needed” for its expanding population.

So at 3 a.m. on June 22, 1941, Hitler once again launched an invasion.

At first, Hitler—no doubt like the Indiana legislators—felt giddy with excitement.

Turning to Alfred Jodl, his chief of operations for the Wehrmacht,  he said: “We have only to kick in the door and the whole rotten structure will come crashing down.”

German soldiers marching through Russia

But soon afterward—almost as if he had just looked into the future and seen that he had none—he told an aide: “At the beginning of each campaign, one pushes a door into a dark, unseen room. One can never know what is hiding inside.”

That certainly proved true for Hitler.

Within four years, he was dead and the Red Army occupied Berlin.

And now the law of unintended consequences may be coming true for Indiana.

On March 26, 2015, its then-governor, Mike Pence, signed into law the Religious Freedom Restoration Act.

This allows any individual or corporation to cite its religious beliefs as a defense when sued by a private party.

In short, a bakery that doesn’t want to make a cake to be used at a gay wedding or a restaurant that doesn’t want to serve lesbian patrons can legally refuse to do so.

Officially, its intent is to prevent the government from forcing business owners to act in ways contrary to strongly held religious beliefs.

Unofficially, its intent is to appease the hatred of gays and lesbians by the religious Right, a key constituency of the Republican party.

The bill was passed overwhelmingly by both chambers of the Republican-controlled state legislature.  And signed into law by a Republican governor.

Indiana Governor Mike Pence 

“Today I signed the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, because I support the freedom of religion for every Hoosier of every faith,” Mike Pence said in a statement on the day he signed the bill.

“The Constitution of the United States and the Indiana Constitution both provide strong recognition of the freedom of religion but today, many people of faith feel their religious liberty is under attack by government action.”

Bill-signing ceremonies are usually highly public events. Governors—and presidents—normally want their constituents to see them creating new legislation.

Yet for all his praise for the bill, Pence signed it in a ceremony closed to the public and the press. The media were asked to leave even the waiting area of the governor’s office.

It’s almost as if Pence sensed—like Hitler—that he was about to push open “a door into a dark, unseen room.”

And this may well be the case.

Through that door has marched the First Church of Cannabis. 

The day after Pence signed the Act, church founder Bill Levin announced on his Facebook page that he had filed paperwork with the office of the Indiana Secretary of State.

Its registration had been approved—and Levin was ecstatic: “Now we begin to accomplish our goals of Love, Understanding, and Good Health.

“Donate $100 or more and become a GREEN ANGEL.

“Donate $500 or more and become a GOLD ANGEL.

“Donate $1000 or more and become a CHURCH POOHBA.”

And Levin had a personal comment for the governor who had made it all possible:

“Dear Mikey Pence…

“DUDE!.. keep crapping all over the state.. and I will plant a seed of LOVE, UNDERSTANDING and COMPASSION in each pile you leave.. and it will grow into a big skunky cannabis tree. Crap away Mikey.. Crap Away…”   

According to Levin, the church was granted IRS tax-exempt status less than 30 days after he applied.

No doubt many Indiana legislators are furious that their effort to attack gays may have brought legal marijuana to their highly conservative state. 

But worse may yet come.

Since 9/11, Right-wingers such as Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity have warned that Muslims are trying to impose Sharia (Islamic law) on America.

And now Indiana’s legislators, in elevating religion above the law, may have pushed upon that door “into a dark, unseen room.” 

What will happen when Indiana Muslims

  • Claim their right—guaranteed in Islamic religious law—to have as many as four wives?  
  • Demand a taxpayer-funded “halal” non-pork food shelf at free food pantries for the poor? (Exactly this happened among Somali refugees in Minnesota in 2015.)
  • Demand that police departments cancel counter-terrorism courses by claiming that their materials are anti-Muslim? (Exactly this happened to several police departments in Illinois.)

And when they cite the Religious Freedom Restoration Act as the basis for their demands?  

Fasten your seatbelts.  It’s going to be a bumpy nightmare.

HITLER’S GERMANY HAD ITS RESISTENCE MOVEMENT–TRUMP’S AMERICA HAD NONE: PART THREE (END)

In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Military, Politics, Social commentary on May 7, 2025 at 12:11 am

“U.S. democracy wasn’t set up to deal with a president openly behaving like a James Bond villain while being protected by a political party behaving more like a mafia than a civic institution.” 

The Washington Monthly, March 9, 2020

During his 12-year reign, Adolf Hitler was the target of at least 42 assassination plots. The most famous of these was the one of July 20, 1944.    

From 2017 to 2021, Donald Trump was not the target of even one.   

In Hitler’s case, the plotters were officers of the German general staff—who believed the Fuhrer was leading Germany into a war it could not hope to win.

Adolf Hitler

In the case of President Donald Trump:

  • A non-violent method for removal existed in the Twenty-Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution. This allows the Vice President and a majority of the Cabinet to recommend the removal of the President when he is “unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office.” The Vice President then becomes President.
  • No Cabinet members had the courage to invoke this.
  • Within the Senate and House of Representatives, Republicans acted as a rubber stamp for his every infamy.
  • When he praised North Korea’s dictator Kim Jong-Un or attacked Vietnam POW John McCain, they stayed silent.
  • When he falsely charged massive voter fraud, Republicans stayed silent or loudly parroted his lies.
  • Their most notorious example of ambition-fueled cowardice occurred on February 5, 2020. That was when the Republican-dominated Senate—ignoring the overwhelming evidence against him—acquitted Trump on both impeachment articles: Obstruction of Congress and abuse of power.
  • At the Pentagon, American generals stood mute as Trump repeatedly sided with Russian dictator Vladimir Putin against the FBI, CIA and National Security Agency—and even gave classified CIA Intelligence to Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and Ambassador Sergey Kislyak.
  • And just as high-ranking field marshals in Hitler’s Wehrmacht held their tongues when he insulted them, so, too, did American generals when Trump belittled their intelligence and even patriotism. 
  • When Trump arbitrarily decided to remove American forces from Syria and Afghanistan, Secretary of Defense James Mattis resigned in protest in 2018. But then he was simply replaced by Mark Esper.
  • Despite the fact that many of these men regularly came into contact with Trump, not one of them apparently plotted his removal. 
  • Similarly, Trump repeatedly attacked the integrity of the men and women of the FBI—even firing its director, James Comey, for daring to investigate Russia’s subversion of the 2016 election.
  • If its agents—steeped in Federal criminal law—built a case for Trump’s indictment and prosecution, it has never come to light.
  • Neither did any of his Secret Service agents register the slightest protest, despite his arrogant behavior toward them. He forced them to work without pay during his 35-day government shutdown in 2018.
  • And he forced them to accompany him to COVID-infected states—both during the Presidential campaign and afterward. Many of them became stricken with this often fatal disease as a result.

Donald Trump   

* * * * *

On November 3, 2020, 81,255,933 Democratic voters elected former Vice President Joseph Biden the 46th President of the United States. Trump, running for a second term, got 74,196,153 votes.

Yet almost two months after the election, Trump refused to concede, insisting that he won—and repeatedly claiming falsely that he was the victim of massive vote fraud.

This toxic lie was feverishly embraced by millions of Right-wingers, and cast a shadow of illegitimacy over the Biden administration.

This refusal to acknowledge the outcome initially denied Biden access to the money, information-sharing and machinery traditionally accorded the President-elect. Trump himself was the beneficiary of such assistance in 2016, after his win over Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton.

Only on November 23, 2020 was Biden acknowledged as the winner by the General Services Administration, as the Trump administration finally began the formal transition process.

Meanwhile, the COVID-19 pandemic raged across the country. More than 400,000 Americans  died by the time Trump left office. Hospitals were filled to capacity, and millions faced starvation and/or eviction.

Yet Trump remained obsessed with his loss, and did nothing to coordinate the Federal response to the pandemic.

Trump’s refusal to accept reality posed an unprecedented danger to democracy: No presidential candidate had ever refused to concede defeat once all the votes were counted and legal challenges resolved.

By refusing to commit to a peaceful transfer of power, Trump took on the classic mantle of a dictator.

Right-wing Virginia State Senator Amanda Chase urged Trump to declare martial law and allow the military to “oversee” another election. So did disgraced ex-National Security Advisor Michael Flynn, whom Trump pardoned for lying to the FBI about private talks he had with a Russian official.

Reports have surfaced that Trump considered doing so. 

History has recorded an active German resistance movement against Adolf Hitler. And posterity has honored its members, many of whom died heroically for standing firm against a brutal tyrant.

To its eternal shame, the same cannot be said of America during the reign of Donald Trump.

Even more shameful: On November 5, 2024, having lived through four years of Trump’s lies, egomania and lawbreaking, 77 million Americans re-elected him as President.

HITLER’S GERMANY HAD ITS RESISTENCE MOVEMENT-–TRUMP’S AMERICA DID NOT: PART TWO (OF THREE)

In History, Law, Law Enforcement, Military, Politics, Social commentary on May 6, 2025 at 12:05 am

On July 20, 1944, Colonel Claus Schenk von Stuaffenberg tried to assassinate Adolf Hitler.    

He had served with the Wehrmacht in Poland (1939), France (1940) and the Soviet Union (1941).

While serving in Tunisa, he was seriously wounded on April 7, 1943, when Allied fighters strafed his vehicle. He lost his left eye, right hand and two fingers of his left hand after surgery.    

Colonel Claus Schenk von Stuaffenberg

Nevertheless, he now acted as the prime mover for the conspiracy among a growing number of German high command officers to arrest or assassinate Germany’s Fuehrer.

For most of these officers, the motive was craven: The “happy time” of German victories was over. Germany was losing the war it had unleashed on the world in 1939—and now they feared the worst. 

This was especially true now that the numerically superior forces of the Soviet Union had gone onto the offensive.

For Stauffenberg, there was another reason: His disgust at the horrors he had seen committed by his fellow Wehrmacht soldiers upon defenseless POW’s and civilians in Russia.

Thus, Stauffenberg—more than many Germans–knew firsthand the vengeance his country could expect if the “Thousand-Year Reich” fell.

Something must be done, he believed, to prove to the world that not all Germans—even members of the Wehrmacht—were criminals.

Most of the conspirators wanted to arrest Hitler and surrender to British and American forces—well before the much-feared Russians gained a toehold in Germany.

Stauffenberg didn’t want to arrest Hitler; he wanted to kill him. A live Hitler might eventually be rescued by his Nazi colleagues.

But Hitler was a closely-guarded target. He was surrounded by fanatical bodyguards who were expert marksmen. He often wore a bulletproof vest and a cap lined with three pounds of laminated steel. 

Adolf Hitler

Bundesarchiv, Bild 146-1990-048-29A / CC-BY-SA 3.0 [CC BY-SA 3.0 de (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/de/deed.en)%5D

But his single greatest protection—he claimed—was an instinct for danger. He would suddenly change his schedule—to drop in where he was least expected. Or suddenly depart an event where he was expected to stay a long time.

That instinct had repeatedly saved his life.

A series of assassination attempts had been made against Hitler. All of them involved time-bombs. And all of the would-be assassins were members of the German General Staff.

In one case, a bomb secretly stashed aboard Hitler’s plane failed to explode. In another, an officer who had a bomb strapped to himself unexpectedly found his scheduled meeting with Hitler called off. He had to rush into a bathroom to defuse the bomb before it exploded.

Stauffenberg intended to carry his bomb—hidden in a briefcase—into a “Hitler conference” room packed with military officers. Rigged with a time-fuse, it would be left there while he found an excuse to leave.

After the explosion, he would phone one of his fellow conspirators with the news. 

Stauffenberg intended to direct the new government that would replace that of the Nazis—and open peace talks with the British and Americans.

With Hitler dead, the coup—“Operation Valkyrie”—would be on.

Anti-Nazi conspirators would seize control of key posts of the government. The British and Americans would then be informed of Germany’s willingness to surrender. Provided, of course, that the vengeance-seeking Russians did not have a say in its postwar future.

The Wehrmacht and Schutzstaffel (SS) had killed millions of Russians. Many had died in combat. Others had been murdered as captives. Still more had been allowed to die by starvation and exposure to the notorious Russian winter.

So the Germans—both Nazi and anti-Nazi—knew what they could expect if soldiers of the Soviet Union reached German soil.

On July 20, 1944, Stauffenberg appeared at Hitler’s well-guarded military headquarters in East Prussia.  Like all his other outposts, Hitler had named it—appropriately enough—“Wolf’s Lair.” 

“Wolf’s Lair”

Stauffenberg entered the large, concrete building while the conference was in session. He placed his yellow briefcase next to Hitler—who was standing with his generals at a heavy oaken table. Then he excused himself to take an “urgent” phone call.

After Stauffenberg left the room, Colonel Heinz Brandt, standing next to Hitler, found the briefcase blocking his legs. So he moved it—to the other side of the heavy oaken support, partially shielding Hitler from the blast.. 

At 12:42 p.m. on July 20, 1944, Stauffenberg’s briefcase bomb erupted. 

Brandt died, as did two other officers and a stenographer.  

Hitler not only survived, but the plotters failed to seize the key broadcast facilities of the Reich.  

This allowed Hitler to make a late-night speech to the nation, revealing the failed plot and assuring Germans that he was still alive. And he swore to flush out the “traitorous swine” who had tried to kill him.

Mass arrests quickly followed.

Among the first victims discovered and executed was the conspiracy’s leader, Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg. Standing before a makeshift firing squad at midnight, he cried: “Long live our sacred Germany!”

At least 7,000 persons were arrested by the Gestapo. Of these, 4,980 were executed.

HITLER’S GERMANY HAD ITS RESISTENCE MOVEMENT–TRUMP’S AMERICA DID NOT: PART ONE (OF THREE)

In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Military, Politics, Social commentary on May 5, 2025 at 12:09 am

“When Fascism comes to America, it will be called anti-Fascism.”
–Huey Long, Louisiana Governor/Senator 

In the Twilight Zone episode, “No Time Like the Past,” Paul Driscoll (Dana Andrews), a scientist in early 1960s America, uses a time machine to visit Nazi Germany on the eve of World War II. 

He’s rented a motel room overlooking the balcony from where the Fuhrer, Adolf Hitler will soon make a speech. And he’s eager to watch that speech—through the lens of a telescopic-sighted rifle.  

Just as he’s about to pull the trigger, there’s a knock at his door—by the maid. Driscoll hustles her out as soon as possible, then once again picks up his rifle. He—and viewers—can once again see Hitler through the cross-hairs of his weapon.  

Paul Driscoll prepares to shoot Adolf Hitler

But instead of the anticipated shot, there’s another knock at his door—his time by the black-uniformed secret police, the SS. Driscoll knows the game is up, and disappears into the present just as the thugs break down his door.  

And the audience is left to ponder how different the world would have been if Driscoll—or someone in Nazi Germanyhad succeeded in assassinating the man whose wars would wipe out the lives of 50 million men, women and children around the globe.  

One 2016 Republican candidate for President dared to invoke the menace of Nazi Germany in warning of the dangers of a Donald Trump Presidency. And to argue that Americans could prevent that past from returning.  

In November, 2015, John Kasich, the governor of Ohio, was peddling a message of creating jobs, balancing the Federal budget and disdain for Washington, D.C.  

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John Kasich

But he remained far behind in the polls, dropping 50% in support in just one month—from September to October. Meanwhile, Trump, the New York billionaire developer, was being backed by 25% of Republican primary voters.  

So, with nothing to lose, Kasich decided to take off the gloves. He invoked the “N” word for Republicans: Nazi.  

He authorized the creation of a TV ad that opened with ominous music—and the face of a snarling Donald Trump.

“I would like anyone who is listening to consider some thoughts that I’ve paraphrased from the words of German pastor Martin Niemoeller.” 

The voice belonged to Tom Moe, a retired colonel in the U.S. Air Force—and a former Vietnam prisoner-of-war.

“You might not care if Donald Trump says Muslims must register with the government, because you’re not one,” continued Moe. 

“And you might not care if Donald Trump says he’s going to round up all the Hispanic immigrants, because you’re not one. 

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Donald Trump

“And you might not care if Donald Trump says it’s OK to rough up black protesters, because you’re not one. 

“And you might not care if Donald Trump wants to suppress journalists, because you’re not one.

“But think about this: 

“If he keeps going, and he actually becomes President, he might just get around to you. And you’d better hope that there’s someone left to help you.”  

Martin Niemoeller (1892–1984) was a prominent Protestant pastor who had commanded a U-boat during World War 1. He became a bitter public foe of Adolf Hitler.

A staunch anti-Communist, he had initially supported the Nazis as Germany’s only hope of salvation against the Soviet Union.

But when the Nazis made the church subordinate to State authority, Niemoeller created the Pastors’ Emergency League to defend religious freedom. 

For his opposition to the Third Reich,  Niemoeller spent seven years in concentration camps.

With the collapse of the Reich in 1945, he was freed—and elected President of the Protestant church in Hesse and Nassau in 1947. During the 1960s, he was president of the World Council of Churches.

He is best remembered for his powerful condemnation of the failure of Germans to protest the increasing oppression of the Nazis:

First they came for the Communists, but I was not a Communist, so I did not speak out.

Then they came for the Socialists, but I was not a Socialist, so I did not speak out.

Then they came for the trade unionists, but I was not a trade unionist, so I did not speak out.

Then they came for the Jews, but I was not a Jew, so I did not speak out.

And when they came for me, there was no one left to speak out for me.

Neither “Adolf Hitler” nor “Nazi Party” was mentioned during the one-minute Kasich video. But a furious Trump threatened to sue Kasich if he could find anything “not truthful” within the ad.

Apparently he couldn’t find anything “not truthful,” because he never sued.

So threatened the man who had called Mexican immigrants “rapists” and accused President Barack Obama of being a Muslim and an illegal alien.

The Kasich ad was the darkest attack made against Trump by any candidate–-Republican or Democrat. And it raised a disturbing question:

If Donald Trump proved to be America’s Adolf Hitler, would there be an American Claus von Stauffenberg

Colonel Claus Schenk von Stuaffenberg was the German army officer who, on July 20, 1944, tried to assassinate Adolf Hitler. 

DEMOCRACY’S SAVIOR, TRUMP’S TARGET: PART TWO (END)

In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Politics, Social commentary on April 29, 2025 at 12:14 am

As a result of the vast increase in election security, President Donald Trump failed to get the help he expected from Russian dictator Vladimir Putin.    

The result: He lost the 2020 Presidential election.

Thus, Joe Biden won the popular vote by 81,268,924 to 74,216,154 for Trump—and the Electoral College by 306 to 232. 

Two days later, Trump claimed: “And this is a case where they’re trying to steal an election, they’re trying to rig an election.”  

Chris Krebs was the director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) run by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). And the man most responsible for ensuring election security. 

WATCH: Ousted DHS official Christopher Krebs testifies about 2020 election security - YouTube

Chris Krebs

On November 12, to counter the growing chorus of lies from Trump and his Right-wing allies, he put out the following statement:

“The November 3rd election was the most secure in American history. There is no evidence that any voting system deleted or lost votes, changed votes, or was in any way compromised.” 

On November 17, Trump fired Chris Krebs.

Too cowardly to confront Krebs, Trump fired him by tweet—and accompanied the outrage with yet more lies:

“The recent statement by Chris Krebs on the security of the 2020 election was highly inaccurate, in that there were massive improprieties and fraud, including dead people voting, poll watchers not allowed into polling locations, glitches in the voting machines which changed votes from Trump to Biden, late voting, and many more.

“Therefore, effective immediately, Chris Krebs has been terminated as director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency.”

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Donald Trump

Asked by “60 Minutes'” Scott Pelley if he was surprised to be fired, Krebs replied: “I don’t know if I was necessarily surprised. It’s not how I wanted to go out. The thing that upsets me the most about that is I didn’t get a chance to say goodbye to my team.

“And I’d worked with them for three and a half years, in the trenches. Building an agency, putting CISA on the national stage. And I love that team. And I didn’t get a chance to say goodbye, so that’s what I’m most upset about.” 

Krebs was no dyed-in-the-wool Democrat but a lifelong Republican. He gave up a lucrative job as Microsoft’s head of cybersecurity policy to join the Trump administration. He wanted to serve his country by creating a dedicated cybersecurity agency for the first time.

Still, he had his reservations about taking the job. As he told the Financial Times: “The flaws of this man [Trump] were obvious to everybody that was willing to pay attention. [But] to do your job, you have to be able to compartmentalize. I was willing to do that.

“Over time, it eats away at you. It eats away at you, the other parts of the department that were doing stuff that just seemed so inhumane. I was never involved in any of those policy conversations.”

On April 9, 2025, re-elected President Donald Trump issued a “Memorandum For the Heads of Executive Departments and Agencies.” Its second paragraph read in part:

“Christopher Krebs, the former head of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), is a significant bad-faith actor who weaponized and abused his Government authority. Krebs’ misconduct involved the censorship of disfavored speech implicating the 2020 election and COVID-19 pandemic.”

In short: Krebs prevented Russia from interfering with the 2020 Presidential election and dared warn Americans about the dangers of COVID-19. 

Trump had counted on Russian interference and repeatedly lied about the dangers of COVID while promoting quack “cures” such as shining UV light up a patient’s anus.

Trump’s accusing lies continued in the Memorandum: 

“Krebs, through CISA, promoted the censorship of election information, including known risks associated with certain voting practices.

“Similarly, Krebs, through CISA, falsely and baselessly denied that the 2020 election was rigged and stolen, including by inappropriately and categorically dismissing widespread election malfeasance and serious vulnerabilities with voting machines.”

Trump then ordered:

  • “I hereby direct the heads of executive department and agencies (agencies) to immediately take steps consistent with existing law to revoke any active security clearance held by Christopher Krebs. 
  • “I further direct the Attorney General, the Director of National Intelligence, and all other relevant agencies to immediately take all action as necessary and consistent with existing law to suspend any active security clearances held by individuals at entities associated with Krebs.
  • “I further direct the Attorney General and the Secretary of Homeland Security, in consultation with any other agency head, to take all appropriate action to review Krebs’ activities as a Government employee, including his leadership of CISA.” 

Clearly, Trump seeks to find any plausibly legal excuse to destroy the man who dared come between him and his Russian backers in 2020—and who contradicted his lies about COVID and the election.

Two key goals of Project 2025-–which Trump supported, while claiming he didn’t–were:  

  • The DOJ must be thoroughly “reformed” and tightly overseen by the White House; and
  • The director of the FBI must be personally accountable to the President—just as the head of the KGB is personally accountable to Vladimir Putin.  

Americans are about to discover what it meant to live in Joseph Stalin’s Russia—where truth was punished and lies were rewarded.

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

In Bureaucracy, Business, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Politics, Social commentary on April 25, 2025 at 12:19 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 April 24, 2025 at 12:06 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 why Werner Willikens?  

British historian and author Ian Kershaw has unearthed the reason.

He 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….

Werner Willikens – Wikipedia

Werner Willikens 

“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…. illustrate[d] 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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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 80 years later–to January 20, 2025.

Donald J. Trump, upon resuming the office of President, has declared all-out war on illegal aliens within the United States. He has given Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) full powers to seize and deport anyone fitting that description.

Even if that person is a legal resident who has lived in the United States legally with a work permit since 2011 and is protected from deportation by a 2019 court order.

Such was the case with Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a Salvadoran citizen living in Maryland. He illegally entered the United States at age 18 to escape being drafted into the 18th Street Gang. 

In 2019 he was arrested in Maryland and detained by federal immigration authorities. An immigration judge granted Garcia protection from deportation because he might risk violence from local gangs in El Salvador.

On March 12, 2025, Garcia was stopped and detained by immigration agents and questioned about his alleged affiliation with the MS-13 gang. MS-13 was originally formed by Salvadoran immigrants fleeing civil war in their homeland and is now involved in myriad illegal enterprises,

ICE deported him to El Salvador, alongside hundreds of other men accused of being gang members.

There was just one problem: Garcia was deported due to a clerical error. 

U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis ordered that Garcia be returned to Maryland: “His detention appears wholly lawless.” 

In turn, the Justice Department claimed that it could not return him from a sovereign nation. 

United States Department of Justice - Wikipedia

On April 5, Erez Reuveni, the acting deputy director of the department’s immigration litigation division, struggled to answer questions from the judge about the circumstances of Garcia’s deportation.

Asked why the U.S. couldn’t ask for his return, Reuveni said: “The first thing I did when I got this case on my desk is ask my clients the same question. Our only arguments are jurisdictional. He should not have been sent to El Salvador.

“My answer to a lot of these questions is going to be frustrating, and I am frustrated. The government made a choice here to produce no evidence.”

Attorney General Pam Bondi took issue with how Reuveni handled the case in court. The next day, she ordered him put on administrative leave by Deputy U.S. Attorney Todd Blanche. He is no longer working on the Abrego Garcia case or in the Justice Department in general.

August Flentje, Reuveni’s supervisor, was also placed on administrative leave. Flentje was told he had failed to supervise a subordinate. 

In a statement to CNN, Bondi said: “At my direction, every Department of Justice attorney is required to zealously advocate on behalf of the United States. Any attorney who fails to abide by this direction will face consequences.”

Reuveni had been praised as a “top-notched” prosecutor by his superiors in an email announcing his promotion two weeks ago. His crime lay in his failure to “work toward the Fuhrer.

THE FALSE REALITY OF REAL ID

In Bureaucracy, Business, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Military, Politics, Social commentary on April 23, 2025 at 12:08 am

In 2005—four years after 9/11—Congress passed the Real ID Act as a counter-terrorism measure. Its goal was to set security standards for government-issued IDs.

The Act started to be introduced in late 2013. But then its enforcers decided that some states hadn’t complied with all of its requirements.

As a result, driver’s licenses from those states will no longer suffice to pass through airport security. And that includes domestic flights as well as international ones.

The reason: Licenses issued by those states don’t contain enough identifying information to pass muster with the Transportation Security Administration (TSA). 

The new IDs will contain one of five small stickers in the upper right corner to comply.  

Spotlight: TSA | Government Solutions

But the final date for compliance with Real ID has been repeatedly postponed—especially during the COVID-19 pandemic. Its current deadline is May 7, 2025.

After that, only those who have a REAL ID will be allowed to board domestic flights at TSA security checkpoints and enter certain federal buildings and properties.

So what is the easiest way to get a REAL ID? The Federal Government is advising people to get a passport.

But, as one New York traveler outlined: “To get a passport I’ll first need to get a certified copy of my birth certificate.

“And to get a copy of my birth certificate I need only to submit a copy of my driver’s license. A copy, no face-to-face, is-that-really you?

“So a New York driver’s license isn’t good enough for flying but it is good enough to get a birth certificate, which gets me a passport, which allows me to fly.” 

In California, the following documents are among those accepted as proof of identity:

  • Valid U.S. passport
  • Social Security card
  • Original or certified copy of U.S. birth certificate
  • Valid Permanent Resident card
  • Utility bills (at least two from different companies) 

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Sample state ID card that’s acceptable under the Real ID Act

So much of what passes for security is actually security theater. It doesn’t actually make us safer, but it makes us feel safer. 

And it makes us feel the government is keeping us safe, even when it isn’t. 

Consider this: A friend of mine—whom I’ll call Jack—recently applied for a Real ID card as issued by the California Department of Motor Vehicles. He brought a certified copy of his birth certificate, bills from AT&T and Pacific Gas and Electric.

The birth certificate easily passed muster. But for a moment there was a problem with the bills from the utility companies: Jack had been getting his mail through a P.O. box, rather than at the apartment building where he lived.

And the “examiner” wanted to see a document with his home address on it.

Fortunately, Jack was able to fish out another bill with that on it. The “examiner” was satisfied, and Jack left the DMV assured that he would soon receive his TSA-approved Real ID card. 

So: How does showing a utility bill document prove your integrity? 

No doubt Mohammed Atta—the ringleader of the September 11, 2001 attacks—faithfully paid his utility bills—right up to the day when he highjacked American Airlines Flight 11 and crashed the plane into the North Tower of the World Trade Center. 

And, yes, a birth certificate proves you were born in the United States—but so was Timothy McVeigh, who, in 1995, blew up the Oklahoma City Federal Building, killing 168 people.

Nor does a “school document”—which can get you a Real ID card—reveal anything about the character of the person.

Theodore Bundy attended the University of Puget Sound and the University of Washington—before embarking on his career as a burglar, kidnapper, rapist and serial killer.

Another form of security theater includes checking photo IDs to enter State and Federal office buildings. 

Knowing a person’s identity is useful—if you have a reliable database system to match it against, such as the FBI’s National Crime Information Center (NCIC). 

National Crime Information Center | Earth: Final Conflict Wiki | Fandom

But if you lack this, forcing people to “show me your ID” is pointless. And that’s assuming the ID isn’t fraudulent.

But people watching the guard performing this security theater ritual assume: “The guard must know what he’s looking for. So we have to be safer for his checking those IDs.”

In fact, most security guards have little training and even less experience. Many of them don’t carry firearms and lack self-defense skills.

According to Salary.com: The median annual salary for an unarmed security guard is $47,480, with a range usually between $42,566 and $52,989

Not exactly a salary geared to attract “the best and the brightest,” is it?

Making all of this even more infuriating: In August, 2021, at least 76,000 unvetted Afghans were admitted into the United States.

The reason: They were too cowardly to fight the Taliban.

Americans had spent 20 years training them to do just that. And as soon as the Taliban launched a major offensive, they fled to Kabul Airport—leaving their wives, girlfriends, mothers and sisters behind to face slavery and brutality.

So while cowardly Afghans—many of whom no doubt had terrorist backgrounds—didn’t have to prove themselves trustworthy, lifelong and law-abiding Americans must.

UNTERS, AWAY!–PART FOUR (END)

In Bureaucracy, Business, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Medical, Politics, Social commentary on April 22, 2025 at 12:06 am

California has a population of nearly 40 million people—and has nearly one-third of the nation’s homeless population: 187,084.                    

The majority of that population consists of DDMBs—Druggies, Drunks, Mentals and Bums.   

Drunk guy passed out on the sidewalk - YouTube

In a June 1, 2022 interview with The Spectator World, Michael Shellenberger, author of San Fransicko: Why Progressives Ruin Cities, blamed liberal ideology for this epidemic:

“The first thing is that they don’t enforce laws. They don’t enforce laws against people that they consider victims, which includes addicts and the mentally ill. And if you don’t enforce laws it turns out people don’t follow them and you don’t have functioning civilization.

Michael Shellenberger.jpg

Michael Shellenberger

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

“The second is that they have pursued a radical de-incarceration, de-policing and decriminalization agenda, which has removed penalties for many laws, including shoplifting $950 worth of goods, or possessing three grams of fentanyl and meth, enough to produce paranoid psychosis. And they’ve pursued a so-called housing first anti-shelter policy.

“So they’ve defunded the shelters. The governor himself has established that housing should be a right. That anybody who comes to San Francisco or Los Angeles should have their own apartment unit in those cities. That is the state policy. It is so ridiculous. It is shocking to even say that that is what the policy is, but that is what it is.

“What we need is pretty straightforward. We need to enforce laws. We need a shelter-first housing-earned policy and you need statewide psychiatric and addiction care like they have in every civilized country.

“We’re reviving people from overdose six, nine, twelve times and then sending them right back onto the streets to smoke more fentanyl. It’s bonkers.

“Fifty percent to 75% of all fires put out by the San Francisco and Los Angeles fire departments are in homeless encampments. My own research, and the research of others, shows that most of these are arson fires, people just getting back at each other.”

Some cities are fighting back.

  • In 2021, the Los Angeles City Council prohibited people from sleeping in public spaces.
  • The city of Riverside quickly followed suit.
  • Los Angeles banned camping near schools and daycares. 
  • Sacramento has banned camping along sidewalks and along the scenic river trail. 

Yet San Francisco refuses to confront reality in a suitably aggressive way.

In 2024, the DDMB population in San Francisco was officially estimated to be 8,323.

The latest wrinkle in San Francisco’s “be kind to Untermenschen“—subhumans—campaign is the creation of “Navigation Centers.” These are essentially holding pens for DDMBs until they can be “navigated” to permanent housing. 

But housing is in short supply in San Francisco, and there is no telling how long many of these will stay in them. Or what harm they will wreak on the neighborhoods warehousing them.

And when “homeless” people are placed in subsidized housing, their mental illness, irresponsible addiction to drugs and/or alcohol and/or generally sloth-like habits usually trash those premises.

Since 2015, eight Navigation Centers have been opened throughout San Francisco; six are in operation.

Among the “amenities” they provide:

  • Meals
  • Privacy
  • Space for pets
  • Space separate from sleeping areas
  • Laundry
  • Access to benefits
  • Wi-Fi

Hundreds—if not thousands—of their occupants are meth or heroin addicts. Such people will commit virtually any crime to support their habit. And their crimes of choice are burglary and robbery. 

Little Falls Police Warning Public After Suspected Heroin Overdoses - YouTube

Thus, pouring large numbers of them into San Francisco neighborhoods via “Navigation Centers” guarantees that countless decent citizens will become targets for desperate criminals.

“Navigation Centers” boast that they ban drug-abuse or drug-dealing on their own premises. But they allow DDMBs to come and go at will. Which means they are free to engage in drug-abuse and/or drug-dealing in the neighborhoods where these centers exist. 

Huge areas of the city are covered in feces, urine, trash and used hypodermic needles. Hospitals overflow with patients that have fallen ill due to the contamination.

The city budgeted $677 million for 2024–2026 fiscal years on DDMBs. Dividing that amount by about 8,323 DDMBs provides the figure of about $81,340 per DDMB per year.  

And what is the legacy of allowing San Francisco to become a Roach Motel for undesirables? 

  • Sidewalks are littered with tents, sleeping bags, human feces and urine, used hypodermic needles and empty cans or bottles of alcoholic beverages.
  • Elevators in the Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) system are often unusable because “homeless” people urinate and/or defecate in them.
  • Restaurants have been forced to close because they’ve become havens for DDMBs. A Burger King at Civic Center Plaza suffered this fate. So did a McDonald’s in the Haight Ashbury district. 
  • Tourists—and residents—are daily forced to sit next to filth-encrusted men and women who reek of urine and/or feces in restaurants and movie theaters, as well as on buses.

It is a recipe for guaranteed disaster.   

Any pest control expert will tell you: If you have a roach problem, putting out sugar for them will only bring more roaches. 

It remains to be seen whether public officials in San Francisco—and other Untermenschen-infested cities—are willing to apply the new weapon made available by the Supreme Court.

UNTERS, AWAY!–PART THREE (OF FOUR)

In Bureaucracy, Business, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Medical, Politics, Social commentary on April 21, 2025 at 12:06 am

Run by the San Francisco Department of Public Health (DPH), the COVID-19 Alternative Housing Program provides a host of amenities to drug addicts, alcoholics, the mentally ill and parasitic thieves and scammers.         

Otherwise known as Untermenschen, the German word for “subhumans.”     

Or Unters, for short.        

It works in two stages:    

Stage 1: Move the “homeless” into the city’s hotels—at city expense.

Stage 2: Provide them with not only free food and shelter but free alcohol, cannabis, and cigarettes. 

“Managed alcohol and tobacco use makes it possible to increase the number of guests who stay in isolation and quarantine and, notably, protects the health of people who might otherwise need hospital care for life-threatening alcohol withdrawal,” says DPH spokeswoman Jenna Lane.

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A typical cockroach scene

Notice the word “guests.” As if San Francisco—or any city—should welcome hordes of drug addicts, alcoholics, mentally ill and outright bums as assets to its community. 

“Many isolation and quarantine guests tell us they use these substances daily,” says Lane, “and this period in our care has allowed some people to connect for the first time with addiction treatment and harm reduction therapy.”

DPH said in a statement that these “guests” are screened for substance addictions and asked if they’d like to stop or have support to reduce their use.

If they say they want to remain alcoholics and/or drug addicts, they’re provided with their substance of choice.

The department also provides methadone for “guests” who are addicted to opioids.

DPH staffers have helped people buy “medical marijuana,” the agency told local affiliate ABC7.

But the agency doesn’t “facilitate purchases of recreational cannabis,” according to the San Francisco Chronicle’s website, SFGate.

Unequal Scenes - San Francisco / Los Angeles

A typical San Francisco scene: Unters’ tents in front of City Hall

When they’re not swallowing alcohol or injecting, swallowing or sniffing drugs, many of San Francisco’s “guests” spend a lot of their time ripping off retail stores.

Walgreens drug stores have proven a particular target for these DDMBs—Druggies, Drunks, Mentals and Bumsthe four groups that make up 90% of the “homeless” population.

“I feel sorry for the clerks, they are regularly being verbally assaulted,” a regular customer, Sebastian Luke, told the San Francisco Chronicle.

“The clerks say there is nothing they can do. They say Walgreens’ policy is to not get involved. They don’t want anyone getting injured or getting sued, so the guys just keep coming in and taking whatever they want.”

“Retail theft across our San Francisco stores has continued to increase in the past few months to five times our chain average,” Walgreens spokesman Phil Caruso told the Chronicle.

“During this time to help combat this issue, we increased our investments in security measures in stores across the city to 46 times our chain average in an effort to provide a safe environment.” 

As a result, Walgreens has closed at least 22 stores in San Francisco since 2019

One store in the San Francisco area reportedly lost $1,000 a day to theft. 

CVS Pharmacy has instructed its employees to not intervene because the thieves so often attack them.

Many shoplifters then sell their stolen goods on the street—often near the store where they stole them.

Until December, 2024, theft under $950 was considered a misdemeanor. Many prosecutors chose to free those charged rather than holding them in jail. The maximum sentence they could get: Six months. 

In November, 2024, voters overwhelmingly approved Proposition 36, which stiffened penalties for shoplifting. Thieves can now get up to three years in jail or prison if they’ve been twice convicted for certain theft offenses.

Low-income and disabled seniors who depend on these disappearing drug stores for prescriptions are especially at risk. 

Some stores in the city are refusing to let themselves be ripped off.

Target’s largest store, at Geary and Masonic, is guarded by armed security from IPS. Its officers wear dark green uniforms resembling those of sheriff’s deputies and carry .40 caliber automatics.

They are unfailingly courteous—but don’t hesitate to restrain anyone who poses a threat to customers or is apparently stealing merchandise.

Of course, corporations aren’t in business to lose money. So costs for such security are passed on to customers.

A red bullseye with one ring.

Many DDMBs refuse to enter the city’s available shelters. Some claim these places are dangerous—understandably so, since they’re peopled with drug addicts, alcoholics, mentally ill and outright bums. 

But another reason why many of these shelters go unused is: They don’t allow their “guests” to drink up or drug up.

The city makes no effort to force DDMBs to shut down their tent encampments that block sidewalks and pose a threat to public health through their accompanying feces, urine and used hypodermic needles.

If a citizen complains about a DDMB blocking a sidewalk, police may ask him to enter a shelter. But if he refuses, he’s simply left where he is. Thus, the “rights” of DDMBs take precedence over the rights of tax-paying San Franciscans.

The latest wrinkle in San Francisco’s “be kind to Untermenschen campaign is the creation of “Navigation Centers.” These are essentially holding pens for DDMBs until they can be “navigated” to permanent housing.