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REPUBLICANS: STILL AWITING THEIR “ALBERT SPEER MOMENT”: PART TWO (OF THREE)

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

Since Donald Trump retook the office of President on January 20, 2025, Republicans have lustily supported or remained silent about his litany of criminal, if not treasonous, actions:      

  • Trump fired the inspectors general—who are charged with protecting the government from waste and corruption—from more than a dozen federal agencies.
  • Several career lawyers who worked on the criminal investigations into Trump during the Biden administration were fired by Acting Attorney General James McHenry because he “do[es] not believe that the leadership of the Department can trust you to assist in implementing the President’s agenda faithfully.”
  • Trump ordered a purge of about a half-dozen executive assistant directors at the FBI. These were some of the bureau’s top managers overseeing criminal, national security and cyber investigations.
  • Their “crime”: Trump blamed them for investigating his inciting the January 6, 2021 coup attempt and his illegal holding of highly sensitive national security documents after leaving office.

Symbols of the Federal Bureau of Investigation - Wikipedia

  • Without explanation, Trump fired Rohit Chopra, the director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which protects consumers from unfair, deceptive and fraudulent business practices.
  • Following Trump’s executive orders, federal agencies deleted multiple federal web pages and data. Among the agencies: The Pentagon, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Census Bureau. The changes affected content related to diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI), gender identity, public health research, environmental policy and social programs.
  • Following Trump’s anti-DEI executive order, the United States Department of Defense (DOD) deleted content that included the achievements of nonwhite groups, such as Navajo code talkers, black Tuskegee Airmen, Medal of Honor winners and women veterans. As in Joseph Stalin’s Soviet Union, those that Trump hates are made to disappear from history.

File:Seal of the United States Department of Defense (blue).svg - Wikimedia Commons

  • Trump fired the board members at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts and appointed himself as chairman—just as Joseph Stalin made himself arbiter of what was permissible for artists in the Soviet Union.
  • Trump held what amounted to an ambush meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky at the White House. Siding with Russian dictator Vladimir Putin, Trump blamed Zelensky for Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine.
  • Trump demanded that Zelensky sign over mineral rights to the United States without America’s providing a security guarantee for Ukraine. Zelensky left without signing such an agreement.
  • The Trump-authorized and illegitimate Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) led by billionaire Elon Musk, dismantled multiple agencies, invaded the privacy of untold millions by accessing sensitive data systems and fired tens of thousands of federal workers.
  • Trump filed frivolous and extortionate lawsuits against major news networks CBS and ABC.
  • Against CBS: Trump  claimed that its news magazine, “60 Minutes” deceptively edited an interview with Kamala Harris to damage his presidential campaign and influence the election.  He initially sought $10 billion in damages, then increased it to $20 billion. Paramount, the owner of CBS, agreed to pay $16 million in legal fees and a contribution to the future Trump Library.

The phrase "60 MINUTES" in Square 721 extended typeface above a stopwatch showing a hand pointing to the number 60.

  • Against ABC: He claimed that its commentator, George Stephanopoulos, falsely stated he was found liable for “rape” in the case brought by columnist E. Jean Carroll. The jury found Trump liable for sexual abuse and defamation, but not rape. The judge later clarified that what the jury found Trump did was in fact rape, as commonly understood.
  • Nevertheless, in December 2024, ABC News agreed to pay $15 million to a foundation for Trump’s presidential library and $1 million in legal fees to settle the lawsuit.
  • Trump solicited and received a $400 million luxury jet from Qatar for use as Air Force One, in direct violation of the Emoluments Clause of the United States Constitution, which prohibits federal officials from accepting gifts from foreign countries.
  • The jet will cost taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars to bring it up to presidential standards, including a security sweep of the entire aircraft and costly upgrades to ensure classified communications. After Trump leaves office, it will be transferred to his Presidential library.

Qatar’s donated plane

John Taggart from Claydon Banbury, Oxfordshire, CC BY-SA 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0&gt;, via Wikimedia Commons

  • On February 28, 2026, Trump—in concert with Israel—launched an unprovoked series of devastating airstrikes against Iran.
  • On March 11, Trump told a reporter: “You know, you never like to say too early you won. We won. We won the, in the first hour, it was over.” 
  • But then—to Trump’s surprise and fury—Iran closed the narrow Strait of Hormuz, through which about 20%-25% of the world’s total liquid petroleum consumption (about 20–21 million barrels per day) flows.
  • Overnight, gas prices rose. By late April, the national average for a gallon of regular gas reached $4.02 to $4.04, compared to roughly $2.98 before military operations began.
  • On April 5—Easter Sunday, no less—Trump posted on his website, Truth Social: “Tuesday will be Power Plant Day, and Bridge Day, all wrapped up in one, in Iran. There will be nothing like it!!! Open up the Fuckin’ Strait, you crazy bastards, or you’ll be living in Hell – JUST WATCH! Praise be to Allah. President DONALD J. TRUMP” 
  • This was followed on April 7 by another post: “A whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again. I don’t want that to happen, but it probably will.” 
  • Legal experts and international organizations such as Amnesty International warned that attacking civilian infrastructure would constitute war crimes under international law.

REPUBLICANS: STILL AWITING THEIR “ALBERT SPEER MOMENT”: PART ONE (OF THREE)

In Bureaucracy, Business, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Military, Politics, Social commentary on April 28, 2026 at 12:10 am

Albert Speer, Minister of Armaments for the Third Reich, was appalled. 

His Fuhrer, Adolf Hitler—the man he had idolized for 14 years—had just passed a death sentence on Germany, the nation he claimed to love above all others.    

On September 1, 1939, Hitler had triggered World War II with the invasion of Poland. This led to a series of quick, spectacular victories—over Poland, Norway, Denmark and France.

Then, on June 22, 1941, Hitler turned on his ally, the Soviet Union, with which he had signed a non-aggression pact in August, 1939.

It had taken the Wehrmacht six weeks to conquer France. Hitler believed that was how long it would take to defeat the Soviet Union.  

German troops in Russia, 1941 : ww2

German soldiers invading the Soviet Union

Again, a series of spectacular battlefield victories followed—before the Wehrmacht was halted at the gates of Moscow. A year later, still enmeshed in Russia, the turning point came at Stalingrad, with the loss of the elite Sixth Army and 800,000 soldiers.

Starting in 1943, the Red Army slowly but steadily regained ground it had lost—the western half of Russia—and began pushing back the Germans. By March, 1945, it was fighting inside Germany—and heading straight for its capital: Berlin.

And by March, 1945, so were American and British forces. After landing in Normandy on June 6, 1944, they had steadily pushed their way across Europe and into Germany.

On March 19, 1945, facing certain defeat, Hitler ordered a massive “scorched-earth” campaign throughout Germany.

All German agriculture, industry, ships, communications, roads, food stuffs, mines, bridges, stores and utility plants were to be destroyed.

If implemented, it would deprive the entire German population of even the barest necessities after the war. And he entrusted the campaign to Albert Speer, his favorite architect-turned-Minister-of-Armaments.

Albert Speer and Adolf Hitler pouring over architectural plans

Now living in a bunker 50 feet below bomb-shattered Berlin, Hitler gave full vent to his most destructive impulses.

“If the war is lost,” Hitler told Speer, “the nation will also perish. This fate is inevitable. There is no necessity to take into consideration the basis which the people will need to continue even a most primitive existence.

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

“Besides, those who will remain after the battle are only the inferior ones, for the good ones have all been killed.”

* * * * *

During the 2024 Presidential campaign, Americans were repeatedly warned that Donald Trump intended to embrace Project 2025, a collection of policy proposals to fundamentally reshape the U.S. federal government.

Among these: 

  • The Department of Justice must be thoroughly “reformed” and tightly overseen by the White House.
  • 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.   

United States Department of Justice - Wikipedia

Seal of the Justice Department

  • Federal employees could be instantly fired for not obeying illegal orders, or on mere whim—including the whim of the President.
  • The Environmental Protection Agency would be stripped of its authority to protect the air, water and soil.
  • The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) which the project calls “one of the main drivers of the climate change alarm industry” would be abolished.
  • Fossil fuels—the leading cause of global warming—would be favored and environmental regulations to combat climate change abolished. 
  • Federal funding for all public transit systems across the country would be eliminated.
  • Traditionally independent federal agencies such as the Department of Justice, Federal Communications Commission and the Federal Trade Commission would be placed under Presidential control.
  • The wealthiest 1% would receive massive tax cuts at the expense of the poor and middle class.
  • Conception would be designated as the point where life begins.
  • Abortion would be outlawed.
  • Access to birth control would be sharply restricted, if not banned.

All of these have since been vigorously implemented by the Trump administration. Yet almost no Republican members of Congress have dared to oppose this wholesale rejection of almost 250 years of American democracy.

Since Trump retook office on January 20, 2025, Republicans have lustily supported or remained silent about his following acts of criminality, if not treason: 

  • On January 20, 2025—his first day as re-elected President—Trump granted clemency to more than 1,500 people convicted of offenses related to the January 6, 2021 United States Capitol attack. This sends a clear message that his supporters can commit virtually any crime against his opponents with impunity.

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 Donald Trump

  • Trump revoked the security clearances of 51 former Intelligence officials. Their “crime”: Signing a letter in 2020 stating that reports about a laptop allegedly belonging to Hunter Biden, son of then-presidential candidate Joe Biden, had “classic earmarks of a Russian information operation.”
  • During a press conference in North Carolina, Trump reaffirmed his stance that Canada should become the 51st state. Rejecting the longtime friendship between the two countries, Trump took an increasingly aggressive stance toward Canada, imposing steep tariffs and even threatening military intervention. 

CALIGULA-IN-CHIEF: PART TWO (END)

In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Politics, Social commentary on April 27, 2026 at 12:10 am

The first six months of Gaius Caligula’s reign as Emperor of Rome were successful and popular.   

After that, wrote his biographer, Gaius Suetonius Tranquillus: “So much for Caligula as emperor; we must now tell of his career as a monster.”   

The same could now be written about Donald Trump.       

Gaius Caligula

Among his litany of crimes, according to Suetonius:

“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.

“He had the manager of his gladiatorial shows beaten with chains in his presence for several successive days, and would not kill him until he was disgusted at the stench of his putrefied brain.” 

Donald Trump has never been charged with murder. But among his first acts as reelected President was to issue pardons to his 1,500-plus supporters charged in the January 6, 2021 insurrection that shook the foundations of American democracy.

Dozens of them had prior convictions or pending charges for rape, child sexual abuse, domestic violence, manslaughter, production of child pornography and drug trafficking.

Donald Trump

During the 2024 presidential campaign, Trump made more than 100 threats to investigate, prosecute, imprison or otherwise punish his perceived enemies, including political opponents and private citizens.

To prevent this, President Joe Biden issued pre-pardons to, among others: 

  • Former Wyoming Representative Liz Cheney;
  • Former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley;
  • Members of the Biden family; 
  • Dr. Anthony Fauci, former director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infections Diseases;
  • Members of Congress who served on the House Select Committee to investigate the January 6 attack on the United States Capitol.  

Issuing pardons to those who had not committed crimes to protect them from a vengeance-seeking President was an act unprecedented in American history.

Caligula’s egomania soon reached psychotic heights.

  • He  gave himself several surnames: “Pious,” “Child of the Camp,” “Father of the Armies,” and “Greatest and Best of Caesars.”
  • Flattered that he had risen higher than princes and kings, he began to believe himself a god.
  • He appeared at the temple of Castor and Pollux to be worshiped as Jupiter Latiaris.

Trump’s egomania is literally stamped on his properties. Of the 515 entities he owns, 268 of them—52%–bear his last name. He often refers to his properties as “the swankiest,” “the most beautiful.”  

Among the references he’s made to himself: 

  • “My fingers are long and beautiful, as, it has been well documented, are various other parts of my body.” 
  • “I think the only difference between me and the other candidates is that I’m more honest and my women are more beautiful.”
  • “My IQ is one of the highest––and you all know it.”

When Caligula wasn’t ordering wholesale Stalin-like purges—ranging from Roman aristocrats to slaves—he was setting new records for debauchery. 

According to the Roman historian Gaius Suetonius Tranquillus: “[Caligula] lived in habitual incest with all his [three] sisters, and at a large banquet he placed each of them in turn below him, while his wife reclined above. Of these he is believed to have violated Drusilla when he was still a minor.”

Trump has never been charged with incest, but he’s repeatedly made sexually inappropriate comments about his daughter, Ivanka:  

  • “Yeah, she’s really something, and what a beauty, that one. If I weren’t happily married and, ya know, her father …”
  • When asked how he would react if Ivanka, a former teen model, posed for Playboy, Trump replied: “I don’t think Ivanka would do that, although she does have a very nice figure. I’ve said if Ivanka weren’t my daughter, perhaps I’d be dating her.”     

I

Ivanka Trump

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.

Since returning to the White House on January 20, Trump has ordered a massive and continuing purge of federal employees. By April 1, 2025, about 60,000 workers had been laid off or fired.

Among the purged agencies:

  • Federal Aviation Administration
  • Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
  • Food and Drug Administration
  • Department of Veterans Affairs
  • Environmental Protection Agency
  • Department of Health and Human Services

These firings were not related to poor job performance. And those fired were not given advance notice of their coming termination.

Veterans—who comprise about 30% of the federal workforce–have been particularly hard-hit.

Even those responsible for protecting Trump have been or will be affected: Many Secret Service agents have friends or family members whose lives have been shattered by these purges.

Some of those victims have lost their livelihood. Still others may die of illnesses owing to Trump’s attacks on the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

It remains to be seen if Trump suffers the final fate as Caligula.

WHEN HUBRIS TURNS CRITICAL: PART TWO (END)

In Business, Entertainment, History, Law, Military, Politics, Social commentary on April 15, 2026 at 12:11 am

Facing an apparently unwinnable war with Iran that he had started, President Donald Trump found himself facing an unexpected opponent: Pope Leo X1V.  

“Come back to the table,” said Leo. “Let’s talk, let’s look for solutions in a peaceful way and let’s remember especially the innocent children, the elderly, sick, so many people who have already become or will become victims of this continued warfare.”

On April 12 Trump posted on Truth Social: “Pope Leo is WEAK on Crime, and terrible for Foreign Policy. I don’t want a Pope who thinks it’s OK for Iran to have a Nuclear Weapon.” 

“I’m not afraid of the Trump administration or speaking out loudly of the message of the gospel, which is what I believe I am here to do, what the church is here to do,” replied the Pope.

American bishops rallied behind him, describing Leo not as a political opponent but as a “vicar of Christ who speaks from the truth of the Gospel.”

So, with the world holding its breath at what disaster might follow, Trump clearly felt that the time had come to remind people of his divine presence—and mission.

On April 13 he posted an AI-generated image of himself as Jesus healing a stricken man in a hospital bed. 

Image

If he assumed that his Religious Right followers would gaze at it in awe, Trump quickly learned otherwise: They were outraged by what they saw as his blasphemous comparison of  himself to Jesus.

“Is he looking for a response? Does he actually think this? Either way, two things are true. 1) a little humility would serve him well 2) God shall not be mocked,” Riley Gaines, a Fox News host and conservative commentator, wrote on X.

“OUTRAGEOUS blasphemy,” Megan Basham, a writer at the conservative Daily Wire, said of the post.

“Nothing matters more than Jesus,” wrote Isabel Brown, a host on the same outlet. “This post is, frankly, disgusting and unacceptable, but also a profound misreading of the American people experiencing a true and beautiful revival of faith in Christ.”

Reporters asked Trump whether he posted a picture depicting himself as Jesus Christ. Trump replied with typical lack of humility: “It wasn’t a depiction, it was me, It’s supposed to be me as a doctor making people better. And I do make people better. I make people a lot better,”   

Aside from the religious reasons for being outraged at Trump’s self-depiction, there are genuine secular ones. Such as: Is it wise to entrust a nuclear arsenal to a man so unstable as to believe himself divine?

Trump has often worn a red MAGA hat bearing the inscription: “TRUMP WAS RIGHT ABOUT EVERYTHING.”

No one is ever right about everything. And those who believed they were usually discovered they weren’t.

A classic example of this was the Roman emperor Gaius Caligula (August 31, 12 A.D. to January 24, 41 A.D).

Gaius Caligula

  Carole Raddato from FRANKFURT, Germany, CC BY-SA 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0&gt;, via Wikimedia Commons

It was Caligula who, as “the Mad Emperor” of Rome, once said: “Bear in mind that I can treat anyone exactly as I please.” 

And he did. He began laying claim to divine majesty, and killing or exiling anyone he saw as a threat. He ordered a tribune to murder his brother Tiberius, and drove his father-in‑law Silanus to cut his throat with a razor. 

Caligula’s favorite method of execution was to have a victim tortured with many slight wounds. His infamous order for this: “Strike so that he may feel that he is dying.”

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.”

Anyone who has ever seen the Biblical epics “The Robe” (1953) and “Demetrius and the Gladiators” (1954) remembers Jay Robinson’s chilling performance as Caligula. His face a perpetual sneer, he revels in wanton cruelty and megalomania. Ultimately, he comes to believe he’s a god.

Jay Robinson as Emperor Caligula: 'The Robe' 1953, 'Demetrius And The Gladiators' 1954

Jay Robinson as Gaius Caligula in “The Robe”

In one scene, Caligula confronts his paternal uncle, Claudius, and asks: “Do you see her Claudius? The Goddess Diana. Every night she comes to me. My arms. There….there she goes. Now do you see her?”

Claudius replies: “No, sire.”

“Why not?” demands Caligula.  

“Only you gods are privileged to see each other,” says Claudius—which instantly satisfies Caligula.

In “Demetrius”—as in history—Caligula, to his surprise, finds there are people willing to end his reign of evil.

In “Demetrius” it comes with a single spear thrown by one of his guards in a gladiatorial arena. In reality, it happened in an underground corridor where he was stabbed to death by officers of the Praetorian Guard.

Trump, like Caligula, revels in the destruction he wields. And, as with Caligula, there are clearly no limits to his megalomania.

The only question that remains to be answered: Will Trump’s reign—like Caligula’s-–end before he can destroy everyone within reach?

WHEN HUBRIS TURNS CRITICAL: PART ONE (OF TWO)

In Business, History, Law, Military, Politics, Social commentary on April 14, 2026 at 12:10 am

And the most glorious exploits do not always furnish us with the clearest discoveries of virtue or vice in men. Sometimes a matter of less moment, an expression or a jest, informs us better of their characters and inclinations, than the most famous sieges, the greatest armaments, or the bloodiest battles whatsoever.
—Plutarch, “Life of Alexander” 

“A matter of less moment, an expression or a jest” occurred on the morning of April 13: A President of the United States informed the public that he was divine.

In 2025, Donald Trump signed legislation that will strip medical coverage of nearly 12 million Americans by gutting Medicaid.  The goal: To provide his wealthy donors with huge tax breaks.

On April 13, he posted an AI-generated image of himself to Truth Social depicting himself as Jesus, healing a man in a hospital bed. Light shines from his hands while a demon flies away in the background.  

On Easter Sunday—along with Christmas, the holiest day of the year for Christians—he posted: “Tuesday will be Power Plant Day, and Bridge Day, all wrapped up in one, in Iran. There will be nothing like it!!! Open up the Fuckin’ Strait, you crazy bastards, or you’ll be living in Hell – JUST WATCH! Praise be to Allah. President DONALD J. TRUMP”  

Related image

Donald Trump

Over a month earlier—on February 28–-Trump had, along with Israel, launched a series of brutal, unprovoked airstrikes against Iran. Tactically, the strikes were a success, leaving countless dead Iranians and destroyed buildings in their wake.

But then—to Trump’s surprise and fury—Iran closed the narrow Strait of Hormuz, through which about 20% of the world’s total liquid petroleum consumption (about 20–21 million barrels per day) flows.

Overnight, gas prices rose. By April 5, the national average for a gallon of regular gas in the United States reached $4.11, compared to roughly $2.98 before military operations began.

For more than a year, a majority of Americans had tolerated—if not supported—Trump’s ceaseless attacks on their Constitutional liberties. But now his brutal and reckless actions threatened to come between them and their gas-guzzling cars.

And for most Americans, this was the one sin they could not forgive.

With midterm elections eight months away, Republicans might well lose their control over the Senate and House of Representatives. And with a Democratic majority in both houses, a third impeachment trial for Trump would be a certainty.

With the Iranians apparently not intimidated by his April 5 post, Trump followed with another on April 7: “A whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again. I don’t want that to happen, but it probably will.”

Legal experts and international organizations such as Amnesty International, warned that attacking civilian infrastructure would constitute war crimes under international law.

As the hours ticked off April 6. American pilots were forced to decide: “Do we want to become war criminals?”

The B-52 Stratofortress: The Legendary ...

B-52 bomber

Then, on April 8, the United States and Iran agreed to a two-week ceasefire—less than two hours before Trump’s deadline.

But then Iran cited Israel’s bombing of Lebanon as a violation of the truce, and once again began restricting shipping through the Strait of Hormuz.

In response, Trump ordered the United States Navy to blockade Iran’s ports—just as he has imposed a naval blockade of Cuba. “We can’t let a country blackmail or extort the world because that’s what they’re doing,” he said. 

Iran responded with threats on all ports in the Persian Gulf and the Gulf of Oman, taking aim at U.S.-allied countries.

Meanwhile, Trump was at war with not only Iranian religious figures but the chief Christian one:  Pope Leo XIV, the first US-born pope in Catholic history.

Leo had aroused Trump’s ire by daring to say: “Today as we all know there was this threat against all the people of Iran. This is truly unacceptable.”

And he added: “We have a worldwide economic crisis, an energy crisis, (a) situation in the Middle East of great instability, which is only provoking more hatred throughout the world.

“Come back to the table, let’s talk, let’s look for solutions in a peaceful way and let’s remember especially the innocent children, the elderly, sick, so many people who have already become or will become victims of this continued warfare.”

Photograph of Pope Leo XIV wearing papal regalia and glasses and slightly smiling. His dress consists of a white cassock with matching pellegrina and with white-fringed fascia, silver pectoral cross, and white zucchetto.

Pope Leo X1V

Edgar Beltrán, The Pillar, CC BY-SA 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0&gt;, via Wikimedia Commons

On April 12 Trump posted on Truth Social: “Pope Leo is WEAK on Crime, and terrible for Foreign Policy. I don’t want a Pope who thinks it’s OK for Iran to have a Nuclear Weapon.” 

This from a man who was convicted of 34 felonies on May 30, 2024. A New York jury found him guilty of falsifying business records in the first degree to conceal hush-money payments made to porn “star” Stormy Daniels before the 2016 election. 

And he continued:  

“Leo should get his act together as Pope, use Common Sense, stop catering to the Radical Left, and focus on being a Great Pope, not a Politician. It’s hurting him very badly and, more importantly, it’s hurting the Catholic Church!” 

So, with the world holding its breath at what disaster might follow, Trump clearly felt that the time had come to remind people of his divine presence—and mission. 

THREE WAYS A TYRANT CAN LOSE POWER: PART TWO (END)

In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Military, Politics, Social commentary on April 13, 2026 at 12:07 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

Death by Fellow Bureaucrat 

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 5, 1953, Stalin died—officially from  a cerebral hemorrhage.

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 in other ways:

  • The Vice President and a majority of the Cabinet could invoke the Twenty-Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution. This allows the removal of the President when he is “unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office.” The Vice President then becomes President.
  • Within the Senate and House of Representatives, Republicans could stop backing his every infamy and secure his impeachment and conviction.
  • Generals could protest publicly Trump’s attacks on their intelligence and even patriotism—or his racist and sexist firings of professional military officers. 
  • FBI agents could initiate their own unofficial investigations of Trump’s crimes and leak those results to the press. It was through such leaks that Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein brought down Richard Nixon.

* * * * * * * * * *

More than 500 years ago, Niccolo Machiavelli, the Florentine statesman, authored The Discourses on Livy, a work of political history and philosophy. In it, he outlined how citizens of a republic can maintain their freedoms. 

One of the longest chapters—Book Three, Chapter Six—covers “Of Conspiracies.”  In it, those who wish to conspire against a ruler will find highly useful advice.  And so will those who wish to foil such a conspiracy. 

Niccolo Machiavelli

Above all, he 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.”

THREE WAYS A TYRANT CAN LOSE POWER: PART ONE (OF TWO)

In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Military, Politics, Social commentary on April 10, 2026 at 12:16 am

A dictator can die of illness or old age. That’s what happened to Francisco Franco (Spain), Mao Zedong (China) and Fidel Castro (Cuba).       

But there are other ways a tyrant can be forced to give up power—such as the following three.

Death by Bodyguards 

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&gt;, 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. 

Death by Suicide

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. 

AMERICA’S BRUSH WITH ARMAGEDDON: PART FOUR (END)

In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Military, Politics, Social commentary on April 7, 2026 at 12:17 am

“John and Robert Kennedy knew what they were doing. They waged a vicious war against Fidel Castro—a war someone had to lose.”       

And the loser turned out to be John F. Kennedy. 

So writes investigative reporter Gus Russo in Live By the Sword: The Secret War Against Castro and the Death of JFK, published in 1998.

In what is almost certainly the definitive account of the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, Russo reaches some startling—but highly documented—conclusions:

  • Lee Harvey Oswald assassinated Kennedy.
  • He did it alone.
  • Oswald, a former Marine, was a committed Marxist—whose hero was Castro.
  • The CIA’s ongoing campaign to overthrow and/or assassinate Castro was an open secret throughout the Gulf.
  • Oswald visited New Orleans in the spring of 1963.
  • There he learned that Castro was in the crosshairs of the CIA.
  • Oswald told his Russian-born wife, Marina: “Fidel Castro needs defenders. I’m going to join his army of volunteers.”
  • Jack Ruby, a Dallas nightclub owner, murdered Oswald because he was distraught over Kennedy’s death.
  • Ruby was not part of a Mafia conspiracy to silence Oswald.
  • Skeptics of the Warren Commission—which concluded that Oswald had acted alone—asked the wrong question: “Who killed Kennedy?”
  • They should have asked: “Why was he killed?”
  • The answer–according to Russo: “The Kennedys’ relentless pursuit of Castro and Cuba backfired in tragedy on that terrible day in November, 1963.”

Another book well worth reading about America’s Cuban obsession during the early 1960s is American Tabloid, by James Ellroy.

Although a novel, it vividly captures the atmosphere of intrigue, danger and sleaziness that permeated that era in a way that dry, historical documents never can.

“The 50’s are finished,” reads its paperback dust jacket. “Zealous young lawyer Robert Kennedy has a red-hot jones to nail Jimmy Hoffa. JFK has his eyes on the Oval Office.

“J. Edgar Hoover is swooping down on the Red Menace. Howard Hughes is dodging subpoenas and digging up Kennedy dirt. And Castro is mopping up the bloody aftermath of his new Communist nation….

“Mob bosses, politicos, snitches, psychos, fall guys and femmes fatale. They’re mixing up a Molotov cocktail guaranteed to end the country’s innocence with a bang.”

Among the legacies of America’s twisted romance with anti-Castro Cubans:

  • Following the JFK assassination, there was a coverup.
  • Its purposes: To protect the reputation of the United States government—and that of its newly-martyred President.
  • Thus, the CIA and FBI concealed the CIA-Mafia assassination plots from the Warren Commission assigned to investigate Kennedy’s murder.
  • Other government officials participating in the coverup included Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy and President Lyndon B. Johnson.
  • Ironically, this secrecy ignited the widespread—and false—belief that the President had died at the hands of a government conspiracy.
  • Robert Kennedy feared that his relentless pursuit of Castro might have led Castro to “take out” JFK first.
  • Fearing his own assassination if he continued Kennedy’s efforts to murder Castro, President Johnson ordered the CIA to halt its campaign to overthrow and/or assassinate the Cuban leader.
  • The huge Cuban community throughout Florida—and especially Miami—continues to exert a blackmailing influence on American politics.
  • Right-wing politicians from Richard Nixon to Donald Trump have reaped electoral rewards by catering to the demands of this hate-obsessed voting block.
  • These Cuban ex-patriots hope that the United States will launch a full-scale military invasion of the island to remove Castro.

The Cuban Missile Crisis was the deadliest moment of the Cold War, when the world stood only minutes away from nuclear Armageddon.

That crisis stemmed from America’s twisted obsession with Cuba, an obsession that continues today.

Sixty-three years after that crisis, the world wonders: Could nuclear war erupt over Cuba? 

And, once again, that decision lies in the hands of two men—Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump—out of a world population of more than eight billion. 

The Soviet Union began aiding Cuba in early 1960, shortly after the 1959 revolution, with a formal trade agreement signed in February 1960. This deal involved exchanging Soviet oil for Cuban sugar. The relationship quickly expanded to include extensive economic subsidies and military support that continued through 1990.

On January 29, 2026, President Donald Trump threatened to impose huge tariffs on goods from any country that supplied oil to Cuba. Declaring a national emergency, he aims to cripple the island’s energy supply.

On February 18, Russian President Vladimir Putin met with Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez in Moscow and reaffirmed his support for the island nation. Putin reminded his guest that Russia “will not accept anything of the sort” when discussing the sanctions against the country. 

“I do believe I’ll be having the honor of taking Cuba. That’s a big honor. Taking Cuba in some form,” Trump said on March 16. “Whether I free it, take it, I think I could do anything I want with it, if you want to know the truth. They are a very weakened nation right now.”

Nikita Khrushchev, facing a choice of humiliation or Armageddon during the Cuban Missile Crisis, chose humiliation—so his country could live another day. 

It remains to be seen if Vladimir Putin is willing to make the same decision.

AMERICA’S BRUSH WITH ARMAGEDDON: PART THREE (OF FOUR)

In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Military, Politics, Social commentary on April 6, 2026 at 12:17 am

On October 22, 1962, President John F. Kennedy announced on nationwide TV the discovery of Russian missiles installed in Cuba—and his blockade of that island.     

He warned that any nuclear missile launched from Cuba against any nation would be regarded as an attack on the United States by the Soviet Union—and would trigger “a full retaliatory response” upon the U.S.S.R.

John F. Kennedy address the nation

And he demanded that the Soviets remove all of their offensive weapons from Cuba: “The cost of freedom is always high, but Americans have always paid it. And one path we shall never choose, and that is the path of surrender or submission.” 

On October 26,  the United States raised the readiness level of SAC forces to DEFCON 2—the step just short of war. For the only time in U.S. history, B-52 bombers were dispersed to various locations and made ready to take off, fully equipped, on 15 minutes’ notice.

Other measures taken included:

  • One-eighth of America’s 1,436 bombers were on airborne alert.
  • About 145 intercontinental ballistic missiles stood on ready alert.
  • Air Defense Command redeployed 161 nuclear-armed interceptors to 16 dispersal fields within nine hours with one-third maintaining 15-minute alert status.
  • Twenty-three nuclear-armed B-52s were sent to orbit points within striking distance of the Soviet Union.

An invasion date was set for October 29. But the Kennedy Administration—and the American military—didn’t know that the Russian soldiers guarding the missiles had been armed with tactical nuclear weapons.

Had the Marines gone in, those mini-nukes would have been used. And a fullscale nuclear exchange between the United States and the Soviet Union would have almost certainly followed.

At the height of the crisis, Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy offered a solution.

Khrushchev had sent two teletypes to Kennedy. The first had agreed to remove the missiles, but the second had demanded that the United States remove its own missiles from Turkey, which bordered the Soviet Union.

Robert Kennedy’s solution: The administration should ignore the second message—and announce that it had accepted Premier Nikita Khrushchev’s offer to remove the missiles.

After this announcement was made, President Kennedy said to his advisors: “It can go either way now.”

John F. Kennedy

The crisis ended on October 28. Under enormous pressure, Khrushchev agreed to remove the missiles from Cuba.

Behind his decision lay a secret promise by the Kennedy administration to remove its obsolete nuclear missiles from Turkey.  And a public pledge to not invade Cuba.

On the night the crisis ended, a prophetic exchange occurred between the two Kennedy brothers:

JFK: “Maybe this is the night I should go to the theater”—a reference to Abraham Lincoln’s fatal attendance of Ford’s Theater at the end of the Civil War.

RFK: “If you go, I want to go with you.”

John F. and Robert F. Kennedy

But President Kennedy was not finished with Castro. While continuing the campaign of sabotage throughout Cuba, the Kennedys were preparing something far bigger: A full-scale American invasion of the island.

On October 4, 1963, the Joint Chiefs of Staff submitted its latest version of the invasion plan, known as OPLAN 380-63. Its timetable went:

  • January, 1964:  Infiltration into Cuba by Cuban exiles.
  • July 15, 1964:  U.S. conventional forces join the fray.
  • August 3, 1964:  All-out U.S. air strikes on Cuba.
  • October 1, 1964:  Full-scale invasion to install “a government friendly to the U.S.”

During the Cuban Missile Crisis, Robert Kennedy—referring to the 1941 Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor—had resisted demands for a “sneak attack” on Cuba by saying: “I don’t want my brother to be the Tojo of the 1960s.”

Now the Kennedys planned such an attack on Cuba just one month before the November, 1964 Presidential election.

Then fate—in the unlikely figure of Lee Harvey Oswald—intervened.

On November 22, 1963, while the President rode through Dallas in an open-air automobile, a rifle-wielding assassin opened fire. He scored two hits on Kennedy—in the back of the neck and head. The second wound proved instantly fatal.

The nation and the world were shocked—and plunged into deep mourning.

But for some of those who had waged a secret, lethal war against Fidel Castro for the previous two years, Kennedy’s death—at least in retrospect—didn’t come as a surprise.

Robert Kennedy, in particular, spent the remaining years of his life agonizing over the possibility that his highly personal war against Castro had backfired.

That Castro, fed up with the CIA’s assassination plots against him, had retaliated with one of his own.

Robert Kennedy’s fears and guilt were compounded by the fact that, while waging war on Castro, he had waged an equally ruthless crusade against organized crime.

And some of the mobsters he had done his best to put into prison had played a major role in the CIA’s efforts to “hit” Castro. Had the Mafia—believing itself the victim of a double-cross—put out a “contract” on JFK instead?

“John and Robert Kennedy knew what they were doing. They waged a vicious war against Fidel Castro—a war someone had to lose.”

And the loser turned out to be John F. Kennedy.

So writes investigative reporter Gus Russo in Live By the Sword: The Secret War Against Castro and the Death of JFK, published in 1998.

AMERICA’S BRUSH WITH ARMAGEDDON: PART TWO (OF FOUR)

In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Military, Politics, Social commentary on April 3, 2026 at 12:14 am

In April, 1961, the CIA tried to overthrow the Communist regime of Cuba’s “Maximum Leader,” Fidel Castro, at the Bay of Pigs.     

When that failed, President John F. Kennedy ordered Castro’s removal through a campaign of sabotage and assassination.

These covert operatives became known within the CIA as the Special Group, and were ultimately supervised by Robert F. Kennedy, the President’s brother and Attorney General.

The war against Castro became known within the CIA as Operation Mongoose.

But not everyone in the CIA was enthusiastic about the “get Castro” effort.

“Everyone at CIA was surprised at Kennedy’s obsession with Fidel,” recalled Sam Halpern, who was assigned to the Cuba Project. “They thought it was a waste of time. We all knew [Fidel] couldn’t hurt us. Most of us at CIA initially liked Kennedy, but why go after this little guy?

“One thing is for sure: Kennedy wasn’t doing it out of national security concerns. It was a personal thing. The Kennedy family felt personally burnt by the Bay of Pigs and sought revenge.”

It was all-out war. Among the tactics used:

  • Hiring Cuban gangsters to murder Cuban police officials and Soviet technicians.
  • Sabotaging mines.
  • Paying up to $100,000 per “hit” for the murder or kidnapping of Cuban officials.
  • Using biological and chemical warfare against the Cuban sugar industry.

“Bobby (Kennedy) wanted boom and bang all over the island,” recalled Halpern. “It was stupid. The pressure from the White House was very great.”

Among that “boom and bang” were a series of assassination plots against Castro, in which the Mafia was to be a key player.

Chicago Mobster Johnny Rosselli proposed a simple plan: Through its underworld connections in Cuba, the Mafia would recruit a Cuban in Castro’s entourage, such as a waiter or bodyguard, who would poison him.

The CIA’s Technical Services division produced a botulinus toxin which was then injected into Castro’s favorite brand of cigars. The CIA also produced simpler botulinus toxin pills that could be dissolved in his food or drink.

But the deputized Mafia contacts failed to deliver any of the poisons to Castro.

Rosselli told the CIA that the first poisoner had been discharged from Castro’s employ before he could kill him, and the back-up agent got “cold feet.”

Other proposals or attempts included:

  • Planting colorful seashells rigged to explode at a site where Castro liked to go skindiving.
  • Trying to arrange for his being presented with a wetsuit impregnated with noxious bacteria and mold spores, or with lethal chemical agents.
  • Attempting to infect Castro’s scuba regulator with tuberculous bacilli.
  • Trying to douse his handkerchiefs, tea and coffee with other lethal bacteria.

Americans would rightly label such methods as ”terrorist” if another power used them against the United States today. And that was how the Cuban government saw the situation.

So Castro appealed to Nikita Khrushchev, leader of the Soviet Union, for assistance.

Fidel Castro 

Nikita Khrushchev

Khrushchev was quick to comply: “We must not allow the communist infant to be strangled in its crib,” he told members of his inner circle.

By October, 1962, the Soviet Union had sent more than

  • 40,000 soldiers,
  • 1,300 field pieces,
  • 700 anti-aircraft guns,
  • 350 tanks and
  • 150 jets

to Cuba to deter another invasion.

Most importantly, Khrushchev began supplying Castro with nuclear-tipped ballistic missiles.

Their discovery, on October 15, 1962, ignited the single most dangerous confrontation of the 50-year Cold War.

Suddenly, the United States and the Soviet Union—bristling with nuclear weapons—found themselves on the brink of nuclear war.

At the time, Kennedy officials claimed they couldn’t understand why Khrushchev had placed nuclear missiles in Cuba. “Maybe Khrushchev’s gone mad” was a typical public musing.

None of these officials admitted that JFK had been waging a no-holds-barred campaign to overthrow the Cuban government and assassinate its leader.

On October 16, the next day, President Kennedy was informed of the missile installations.  He immediately convened a group of his 12 most important advisors, which became known as Ex-Comm, for Executive Committee.

Then followed seven days of guarded and intense debate by Kennedy and his advisors.  Some of the participants—such as Air Force General Curtis LeMay—urged an all-out air strike against the missile sites.

Others—such as Adlai Stevenson, the United States delegate to the United Nations—urged a reliance on quiet diplomacy.

It was Secretary of Defense Robert S. McNamara who suggested a middle course: A naval blockade—a “quarantine” in Kennedy’s softened term—around Cuba. This would hopefully prevent the arrival of more Soviet offensive weapons on the island.

Finally, the President decided to to impose a naval blockade.

On October 22, Kennedy went on nationwide TV to announce the discovery of the missiles and his blockade of Cuba.

He warned that any nuclear missile launched from Cuba against any nation would be regarded as an attack on the United States by the Soviet Union—and would trigger “a full retaliatory response” upon the U.S.S.R. 

John F. Kennedy address the nation

And he demanded that the Soviets remove all of their offensive weapons from Cuba:

“The path we have chosen for the present is full of hazards, as all paths are, but it is the one most consistent with our character and courage as a nation and our commitments around the world.”