Posts Tagged ‘ANTHONY FAUCI’
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In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Politics, Social commentary on April 8, 2025 at 12:27 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 foundation 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.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Politics, Social commentary on April 7, 2025 at 12:07 am
Even many Republicans secretly believe that Donald Trump is better-suited for the role of Gaius Caligula than President of the United States. It was Caligula who, as the mad emperor of Rome, once said: “Bear in mind that I can treat anyone exactly as I please.”
Gaius Caligula
On October 7, 2016, The Washington Post leaked a video of Donald Trump making sexually predatory comments about women.
The remarks came during a 2005 exchange with Billy Bush, then the host of Access Hollywood (and now host of Today).
The two were traveling in an Access Hollywood bus to the set of the soap opera Days of Our Lives, where Trump was to make a cameo appearance.
Neither Trump nor Bush could be seen during the exchange—the video focuses entirely on the bus. But the audio came in clearly—and, for Trump, damningly:
DONALD TRUMP: You know and I moved on her actually. You know she was down on Palm Beach.
UNKNOWN: She used to be great. She’s still very beautiful.
TRUMP: I moved on her and I failed. I’ll admit it. I did try and fuck her. She was married.
UNKNOWN: That’s huge news.
TRUMP: No, no, Nancy. No this was—and I moved on her very heavily, in fact, I took her out furniture shopping. She wanted to get some furniture. I said I’ll show you where they have some nice furniture.
I took her out furniture. I moved on her like a bitch, but I couldn’t get there, and she was married. Then all of a sudden I see her, she’s now got the big phony tits and everything. She’s totally changed her look.
[At that point, they spot Adrianne Zucker, the starring actress in Days in Our Lives.]
Donald Trump
BUSH: Sheesh, your girl’s hot as shit. In the purple. Yes! The Donald has scored. Whoa, my man!
TRUMP: Look at you. You are a pussy. Maybe it’s a different one.
BUSH: It better not be the publicist. No, it’s her. It’s—
TRUMP: Yeah, that’s her. With the gold. I better use some Tic Tacs just in case I start kissing her. You know I’m automatically attracted to beautiful—I just start kissing them. It’s like a magnet. Just kiss. I don’t even wait. And when you’re a star they let you do it. You can do anything. Grab them by the pussy. You can do anything.
When the Washington Post broke the story on October 7, the reaction was immediate—and explosive.
This was not a testosterone-fueled teenager fantasizing about making love with a girl he adored. This was a 70-year-old man bragging about having used deceit to try to lure a married woman into bed.
And about having used his celebrity status to force himself on women: “I moved on her very heavily. Just kiss. I don’t even wait. Grab them by the pussy. You can do anything.”
Gaius Caligula himself couldn’t have said it better. He lived 29 years and ruled Rome three years, 10 months and eight days. When he died, his reign of depravity and terror died with him.
Today, millions of Americans fear a similar fate will sweep their country now that Donald Trump has again become President.
Caligula’s life spanned August 31, 12 A.D. to January 24, 41 A.D. His chief biographer was Gaius Suetonius Tranquillus.
Gaius Suetonius Tranquillus
Trump was born on June 14, 1946.
Caligula became Emperor in 37 A.D. after succeeding the Emperor Tiberius, his uncle who had adopted him as a son after his father died.
Trump was reelected President on November 5, 2024, after winning 312 electoral votes to 226 for his Democratic opponent, Vice President Kamala Harris.
Trump began his real estate career at his father’s real estate and construction company. He rose to wealth and fame after his father, Fred, gave him control of the business in 1971.
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 destroyed lists of those Tiberius had declared traitors. He allowed the magistrates unrestricted jurisdiction, without appeal to himself.
Similarly, soon after acquiring the family business, Trump set out to build his own empire—hotels, golf courses, casinos, skyscrapers across North and South America, Europe and Asia. He named many of them after himself.
He appeared at the Miss USA pageants, which he owned from 1996 to 2015. He hosted and co-produced The Apprentice, an NBC reality television series from 2004 to 2015.
The ancient historians describe Caligula as a noble and enlightened ruler during the first six months of his reign. But in October 37 A.D. he fell seriously ill or perhaps was poisoned.
Caligula soon recovered but emerged a changed man. 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.
He 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.”
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In Business, Entertainment, History, Medical, Military, Politics, Social commentary on March 6, 2025 at 12:12 am
On November 8, 1963—57 years before COVID-19 invaded the United States—Rod Serling’s “The Twilight Zone” offered a prophecy of future disaster for the country.
“The Old Man in the Cave” is set in a post-apocalyptic rural town in 1974, 10 years after a nuclear war has devastated the United States.
A nuclear explosion
The townspeople have discovered a supply of canned food. However, they are waiting for Mr. Goldsmith [John Anderson], their leader, to return with a message from the mysterious and unseen “old man in the cave.” Then they will learn whether the food is contaminated with radiation.
When Goldsmith returns, he informs them that the old man has declared the food is contaminated and that it should be destroyed.
Shortly thereafter, three soldiers led by Major French [James Coburn] enter the town and clash with Goldsmith as they try to establish their authority.
French is clearly a precursor of Donald Trump: Demanding instant obedience and threatening death to anyone who disobeys him, he claims he will organize the region to rebuild society..
Donald Trump
However, Goldsmith believes that French and his men simply want to strip the town of its food.
French attacks the townspeople’s belief in the seemingly infallible “old man in the cave.” He tells them they have survived these past 10 years—but they haven’t lived.
Fifty-seven years later, Donald Trump will furiously attack not COVID-19 but the medical advice of his own Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)—especially that provided by Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation’s top expert on infectious disease.
He will disdain the wearing of masks and social distancing, and attack those Democratic governors who impose stay-at-home orders to contain the virus. He will offer a series of rosy predictions—none of which come true—that the virus will soon end.
His “cures” include ingesting Clorox bleach and/or having UV light shined up one’s anus.
COVID-19 virus
And French holds himself out as the man who can deliver them a wonderful new future.
Fifty-seven years later, Donald Trump will similarly declare: “I have joined the political arena so that the powerful can no longer beat up on people that cannot defend themselves. Nobody knows the system better than me, which is why I alone can fix it.”
French tempts the townspeople to eat the food Goldsmith warned was contaminated. There is a wild orgy of gluttony as they greedily consume it.
Only Goldsmith refuses to partake in the food orgy.
The townspeople turn on Goldsmith and threaten him with death unless he reveals the identity of “the old man in the cave.” Goldsmith finally takes the assembly to the cave to reveal his source: A computer.
French incites the townspeople to stone the computer with rocks and canned goods until it explodes. Then French leads the people into celebrating their new-found freedom from this “tyranny”.
Fifty-seven years later, Trump will similarly incite his followers to attack the United States Capitol building to halt the legal transfer of Presidential power from himself to Joe Biden.
But as Goldsmith had insisted, the “old man” was correct: The canned goods were contaminated with radiation. All the townspeople—including French and the soldiers—die, their bodies left lying throughout the streets.
Trump will similarly tempt millions of Americans to ignore the deaths of tens of thousands of their fellow citizens from COVID-19 and the overwhelming of the nation’s hospitals. The result will be a vast increase in deaths.
Only one man survives—Goldsmith, who has refused to eat the forbidden food and somberly walks out of the now-dead town.
As always in a “Twilight Zone” episode, it is Rod Serling who gets the final word: “Mr. Goldsmith, survivor. An eyewitness to man’s imperfection. An observer of the very human trait of greed. And a chronicler of the last chapter—the one reading ‘suicide’. Not a prediction of what is to be, just a projection of what could be. This has been The Twilight Zone.”
Rod Serling
Except that Serling was wrong: “The Old Man in the Cave” has proven an uncanny prediction of what did happen in America.
* * * * *
The chief lesson to be learned from the COVID-19 epidemic is that catastrophe inevitably results when natural disaster collides with an evil and incompetent administration.
And totally ignoring that lesson were the 77 million Americans who re-elected Donald Trump—the man most responsible for the deaths of 400,000 Americans—as President.
Under his tyrannical rule, the United States suffered not simply from a lethal virus but a combination of denial, lies, Republican subservience, chaos, extortion, propaganda as news, quackery as medicine, premature demands to “re-open the country,” ignoring the danger and—finally—resignation (“Learn to live with the virus”).
Even after three vaccines were produced, millions of Americans—almost all of them Right-wing Trump supporters—refused to protect themselves and the families and friends they claimed to love.
And Trump has appointed Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.—a 14-year heroin addict and fanatical anti-vaccine proponent—Secretary of Health and Human Services.
As if on cue: A mystery illness has emerged in the Congo whose symptoms—which include fever, vomiting and internal bleeding—result in death in 48 hours.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Medical, Politics, Social commentary on June 17, 2024 at 12:09 am
“I’ve chosen this life. I know what it is. There are things about it that sometimes are disturbing. But you just focus on the job you have to do. And just put all that other stuff aside.”
The speaker wasn’t a longtime Mafia enforcer turned-State’s-witness. He was Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.
And he was speaking with an NBC News reporter about death threats he had received.
At 83, Fauci is getting the sort of protection reserved for organized crime witnesses through the Justice Department’s Witness Security Program.
Dr. Anthony Fauci
Cmichel67, CC BY-SA 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons
In 2020, the U.S. Marshals Service deputized nine officers from the Department of Health and Human Services as bodyguards for Fauci.
And since leaving government service as Chief Medical Advisor to the President in 2022, he’s still receiving protection from the U.S. Marshals Service.
For which Fox News is furious.
A July 17, 2023 story on its website blared: “Fauci still Getting U.S. Marshal security detail on taxpayers’ dime, despite retirement, documents snow.”
So what has this man—who has dedicated his entire adult life to protecting Americans against infectious diseases—done to require such protection?
He has merely spoken the hard medical truth about Coronavirus. In doing so, he has at times contradicted former President Donald Trump’s ignorance- and lie-riddled statements.
For example: Trump loudly touted hydroxychloroquine, used for treating malaria, as a miracle cure for the Coronavirus.
Yet Fauci dared to point out there have been no scientific trials of the drug for its effectiveness against Coronavirus. Moreover, given the medical condition of some patients, it could even prove fatal.
Such statements have infuriated Trump’s base of—at best—half-educated fans.
During the 2016 Presidential race, after winning the Nevada primary, Trump infamously celebrated his victory: “We won the evangelicals. We won with young. We won with old. We won with highly educated. We won with poorly educated. I love the poorly educated.”
A February 24, 2016 USA Today story covering this event carried the headline: “Donald Trump loves the poorly educated—and they love him.”
An August 20, 2019 story in Forbes noted that a Pew Research survey, conducted in July, had found that “67% of Democrats and Democrat-leaning respondents say higher education is having a positive effect on the country compared to only 33% of Republicans and Republican-leaning participants.”
Furthermore, “The percentage of Republicans attributing a positive effect to higher education has steadily eroded from 58% (2010), 53% (2012), 54% (2015), 43% (2016), and 36% (2017). Among Republicans, 59% now say higher education has a negative effect on the U.S., compared to just 18% of Democrats.”
In March, 2020, an NBC News poll found that only 30% of Republicans said that they would actually listen to the advice of doctors to stay away from large, crowded areas to avoid Coronavirus.
These are the same people who get their version of reality from Right-wing sources like Fox News Network and Rush Limbaugh.
Rush Limbaugh
On his March 27, 2020 show, Limbaugh dismissed Coronavirus as “the common cold,” then added: “We didn’t elect a president to defer to a bunch of health experts that we don’t know.
“And how do we know they’re even health experts? Well, they wear white lab coats, and they’ve been in the job for a while, and they’re at the CDC and they’re at the NIH, and they’re up, well—yeah, they’ve been there, and they are there.”
This is the same Rush Limbaugh who said, in 2015: “Firsthand smoke takes 50 years to kill people, if it does. Not everybody that smokes gets cancer. Now, it’s true that everybody who smokes dies, but so does everyone who eats carrots.”
In February, 2020, Limbaugh—a longtime and heavy cigar smoker—announced that he had Stage Four lung cancer. He died on February 17, 2021.
And then there is former President Trump—and his chorus of cheerleaders.
Among these: Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA). At a House subcommittee hearing about the country’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic, Greene screeched: “You know what this committee should be doing? We should be recommending you to be prosecuted.
“We should be writing a criminal referral because you should be prosecuted for crimes against humanity. You belong in prison, Dr. Fauci!”
Later, on X, she posted: “No one should get death threats and I get them ALL THE TIME.
“But lucky for Mr Fauci, he has Secret Service Protection at the tax payers expense. I DO NOT, and have to pay for my own security and am a gun owner.
“It’s not my comments that have people furious at Mr Fauci, it’s the FACT that his ridiculous, non-scientific, tyrannical policies DESTROYED people’s lives and he’s a narcissistic ass hole and liar which is why SO MANY people hate him.”
These, then, are the types of “reliable sources” that millions of Right-wingers take as gospel—while dismissing the warnings of the medical profession as erroneous or, worse, products of a liberal conspiracy.
And by daring to contradict such blatant ignorance—if not outright lies—Dr. Anthony Fauci has made himself a target for Right-wing hatred and death threats.
By the time Trump left office—on January 20, 2021—more than 400,000 Americans had died of COVID-19.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Medical, Politics, Social commentary on March 22, 2024 at 1:17 am
It was the night of March 5, 1836. For the roughly 200 men inside the surrounded Alamo, death lay only hours away.
Inside a house in San Antonio, Texas, Mexican dictator Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna was holding a council of war with his generals.
For 12 days, his army had bombarded the old mission. Still, the Texians—whose numbers included the legendary bear hunter and Congressman David Crockett and knife fighter James Bowie—held out.
Now Santa Anna was in a hurry to take the makeshift fortress. Once its defenders were dead, he could march on to sweep all American settlers from Texas.
One of his generals, Manuel Castrillón, urged Santa Anna to wait just a few more days. By then, far bigger cannon would be available. When the Alamo’s three-feet-thick walls had been knocked down, the defenders would be forced to surrender.
The lives of countless Mexican soldiers would thus be spared.
Santa Anna was eating a late-night chicken dinner. He held up a chicken leg and said: “What are the lives of soldiers but those of so many chickens?”
Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna
Santa Anna ordered his generals to prepare an all-out attack on the Alamo, to be launched the next morning—March 6, 1836—at 5 a.m.
Hours later, the attack went forward. Within 90 minutes, every Alamo defender was dead—and so were at least 600 Mexican soldiers.
“What are the lives of Americans but those of so many chickens?”
That could well be the slogan of President Donald Trump in his approach to COVID-19.
The United States has become the country worst-affected by Coronavirus—with more than 8.38 million diagnosed cases and more than 222,000 deaths.
Coronavirus
Americans are living through their tenth month with the virus, and still the Trump administration cannot—or will not—design a coordinated plan to combat it.
Trump started out 2020 by dismissing COVID-19 as a threat. On January 22 he said: “We have it totally under control. It’s one person coming in from China.”
By February 28, he had termed the disease the Democrats’ “new hoax.”
By March, he was making it clear that each state was responsible for securing its needed supply of Personal Protective Equipment (PPEs) for its doctors and nurses aiding Coronavirus patients.
This resulted in a dog-eat-dog atmosphere of cutthroat competition and scarcity, with Americans not only fighting the virus but each other.
Even worse: Trump didn’t simply refuse to provide states with vitally-needed medical supplies—he ordered the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) to illegally seize those supplies that states had ordered.
Donald Trump
When states’ governors issued stay-at-home orders, Trump was forced to cancel his campaign rallies. Starting Easter weekend, he held almost 50 daily press briefings at the White House.
Their official purpose: To update the country on the administration’s ongoing response to the Coronavirus pandemic.
Their real purpose: To serve as a substitute for Trump’s hate-filled political rallies, which have been likened to those staged by Germany’s Fuhrer, Adolf Hitler, at Nuremberg.
Eager to return to his mass rallies and reignite his support from Right-wingers, he began furiously campaigning to end social distancing and the wearing of masks. Both of these had been mandated by such governors as California’s Gavin Newsom and New York’s Andrew Cuomo.
He also demanded the reopening of businesses across the nation—although no vaccine nor even adequate testing and contact-tracing facilities existed. This led many states—especially in the South and Midwest—to reopen prematurely, with a resulting rise in COVID infections and deaths.
He urged his Right-wing supporters to flood into the capitols of such states as Michigan, Minnesota and Virginia—whose governors were Democrats—and demand an end to mask-wearing and social distancing. This was in direct defiance of the laws legally in force in those states.
And they did as he ordered—massing shoulder-to-shoulder, most of them not wearing masks, and with many of them carrying automatic rifles.
On April 23, at a White House press briefing, he suggested that UV light and disinfectant—such as Clorox—might prove an effective preventative or cure for Coronavirus. This prompted alarm from medical professionals—even as some Americans believed him and swallowed disinfectant to prevent COVID-19.
Unable—or unwilling—to effectively attack the virus, Trump chose to attack the medical professionals desperately trying to save lives. He accused them of hoarding scarce medical supplies and lying about the number of COVID cases they were treating.
As fall approached, Trump demanded that Americans risk the lives of their children by sending them back to school. This would allow their parents to return to work. Then Trump could claim that he had “saved” the American economy—and be re-elected.
His chief target: Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the U.S. National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. There were two reasons for this:
- Fauci repeatedly warned about the dangers of the virus—and criticized the failures of the Federal Government to effectively combat it; and
- His warnings repeatedly proved correct—while Trump’s rosy predictions proved wrong.
Finally, Trump wanted Americans to simply ignore the virus—and re-elect him.
Like Santa Anna, Trump could have easily said: “What are the lives of Americans but those of so many chickens?”
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In Bureaucracy, History, Medical, Politics, Social commentary on September 21, 2023 at 12:10 am
Well, come on all of you Right-wing men
Donald Trump needs your help again.
He’s got himself in a terrible jam
He’s spread a virus across the land.
So throw off those masks, give a big cheer
Your Coronavirus-in-Chief is here!
“I think I made a mistake. I thought this was a hoax, but it’s not.”
So spoke a 30-year-old patient before he died at Methodist Hospital in San Antonio, Texas. His last words came after attending a so-called “COVID party,” according to the hospital.
Methodist Hospital
According to Dr. Jane Appleby, chief medical officer for Methodist Hospital and Methodist Children’s Hospital: “Someone will be diagnosed with the disease, and they’ll have a party to invite their friends over to see if they can beat the disease.
“One of the things that was heart-wrenching that he said to his nurse was, ‘You know, I think I made a mistake.’ And this young man went to a COVID party.. He didn’t really believe. He thought the disease was a hoax. He thought he was young and invincible and wouldn’t get affected by the disease.”
And it’s one-two-three
What are they dyin’ for?
Don’t ask em’, they don’t give a damn
Right here in COVID-land.
And it’s five-six-seven
Open up those graveyard gates
Well, there ain’t no time to wonder why
Whoopee! They’re all going to die.
It’s understandable that this patient believed COVID-19 was a hoax. He was, after all, from Texas, which overwhelmingly gave its votes to Donald J. Trump in 2016 and 2020.
And it was President Trump who infamously said, on February 28, 2020: “Now the Democrats are politicizing the Coronavirus….We did one of the great jobs….One of my people came up to me and said, ‘Mr. President, they tried to beat you on Russia, Russia, Russia’….They couldn’t do it. They tried the impeachment hoax….It’s all turning, they lost….And this is their new hoax.”
“Hoax” is one of Trump’s favorite words.
He called the well-documented ties between Russian Intelligence agents and his 2016 Presidential campaign “a hoax.”
Ditto for the efforts of the House of Representatives to remove him for trying to extort Ukraine into smearing then-former Vice President Joe Biden: “The impeachment hoax.”
Climate change, for Trump, is “an expensive hoax.”
Indicted for mishandling classified documents at his Florida estate, Trump said: “It’s a hoax.”
Donald Trump
“Trump is trying to undermine the trustworthiness of any source but himself,” said Margaret Levi, professor of political science at Stanford University. “The point is to make himself the only credible authority, to be fully trusted as a ‘war-time’ president.”
And in the case of the anonymous San Antonio patient—and untold numbers of his other supporters—he succeeded brilliantly. To their misfortune.
Well, grifters and traitors throughout the land
Pack yourselves off to COVID-land.
Don’t be shy, don’t hesitate
Satan is ready, so don’t make ‘em wait.
Just be glad that Donald Trump’s your man
As you’re dyin’ off as fast as you can.
By July 11, 2020, there were 8,332 new confirmed Coronavirus cases in Texas, according to a New York Times database. By September 20, 2023, 93,400 Texans had died of COVID.
Yet for those attending the Coronavirus party, such facts meant nothing compared to the assurances of Donald Trump—a proven serial liar—that there was nothing to fear.
“People will come in[to the hospital] initially, and they don’t look so bad,” said Appleby. “They don’t look really sick. But when you check their oxygen levels and their lab tests, they’re really sicker than they appear on the surface.”
Among the COVID-19 danger signs to look for, advised Appleby: If you’re not feeling well, have a high fever, cough and severe muscle aches.
Well, come on Republicans, let’s move fast,
Your big chance is here at last.
It doesn’t matter that Trump is Red
As he walks on the bodies of Americans dead.
Just be sure Vlad Putin knows your name
Treason’s just a part of your game.
Meanwhile, Trump was trying to discredit Dr. Anthony Fauci, the country’s leading infectious disease expert.
The reason: Fauci had not hesitated to warn about the dangers of COVID-19—and the failures of the Federal Government to effectively control it.
Anthony Fauci
Cmichel67, CC BY-SA 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons
Trump saw the virus not as a danger to Americans but to his chances for re-election. Among his “efforts” to “deal” with it:
- Denying the dangers of the virus.
- Lying about the extent of its spread.
- Pitting states against each other for scarce medical supplies.
- Seizing medical supplies ordered by states.
- Demanding an end to governors’ “stay-at-home” orders so the country can “reopen”—before proper safeguards can be installed.
For tyrants, truth is always the most dangerous enemy.
As World War II went increasingly against Nazi Germany, those who dared to say “The war is lost” were strung up with piano wire—often on lamp posts, as a warning to others.
Denying the truth didn’t save the dictatorship of Adolf Hitler. And it didn’t save the would-be dictatorship of Donald Trump
And it’s one-two-three
What are they dyin’ for?
Don’t ask em’, they don’t give a damn
Right here in COVID-land.
And it’s five-six-seven
Open up those graveyard gates
Well, there ain’t no time to wonder why
Whoopee! They’re all going to die.
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In Bureaucracy, Business, History, Politics, Social commentary on June 6, 2023 at 12:10 am
Right-wingers love to attack those they hate as “snowflakes,” and boast about how easy it is to “trigger” them into anger.
Yet it is Right-wingers whose sensitive feelings can be “triggered” by something as innocuous as a word: DEI (Diversity, Equity, Inclusion).
Target, Bud Light and Disney have all faced backlash for their support of the queer community, which is officially known as LGBTQ (Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender Queer).
Other companies that have found themselves targets for Right-wing ire have been:
- Keurig (for dropping advertising on Sean Hannity’s show on the Right-wing Fox Network)
- The NFL (for its players sitting or kneeling during the National Anthem
- Amazon (for supporting Washington State in a federal lawsuit challenging President Donald Trump’s executive order barring people from seven majority-Muslim countries from entering the United States)
- Starbucks (for its CEO opposing the same executive order)
- Nordstrom (for cutting ties with Ivanka Trump’s brand of clothing)
- Kellogg (for dropping advertising on the Right-wing Breitbart website)
Now comes Chick-fil-A as the latest business to enrage the self-appointed holy warriors of the Right. Its crime: Hiring a vice president of DEI.
And even worse for the Right: He’s black.
Erick McReynolds has been a longtime employee of Chick-fil-A. According to the company’s official statement:
“Erick McReynolds joined Chick-fil-A in February 2007 as a Business Consultant. Since then, he has been promoted to various positions like Team Captain, Director – Service Team, Executive Director (Midwest Region), and Executive Director (DEI).”
In 1988 he had earned an MBA from Florida Agricultural and Mechanical University He then worked as a Sales Representative at International Paper till June 2001. He served as a Senior Business Analyst at Sprint for five years till January 2007.
Erick McReynolds
Chick-fil-A has long championed Right-wing causes. By 2012, it had donated over $5 million to anti-LGTBQ groups. When the company faced backlash for this, Republicans like Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee led counter-protesting efforts such as “Chick-fil-A Appreciation Day.”
Its owner, Dan Cathy, publicly denounced same-sex marriage, citing the “biblical definition of the family unit.” This enraged liberals but ignited support among Republicans.
The company promised in 2019 to stop donating to anti-LGBTQ groups. It would instead focus its philanthropic efforts on hunger, education and homelessness.
Although McReynolds has served as VP of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion since November, 2021, the Right was unaware of his appointment until May 30, 2023. That was when Right-wing strategist Joey Mannarino tweeted:
“We have a problem. Chick-Fil-A just hired a VP of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion. This is bad. I don’t want to have to boycott. Are we going to have to boycott?
“It’s only a matter of time until they start putting tranny semen in the frosted lemonade at this point.”
Joey Mannarino
Adding to Mannarino’s resentment was McReynolds’ public statement:
“Chick-fil-A restaurants have long been recognized as a place where people know they will be treated well. Modeling care for others starts in the restaurant, and we are committed to ensuring mutual respect, understanding and dignity everywhere we do business. These tenets are good business practice and crucial to fulfilling our Corporate Purpose.”
Other Right-wing eruptions on Twitter included:
Director of Citizens for Renewing America Wade Miller: “Everything good must come to an end. Here @ChickfilA is stating it’s commitment to systemic racism, sexism, and discrimination. I cannot support such a thing.”
@BrandonStraka: “As a liberal I boycotted Chick-fil-A. As a conservative I’ll be boycotting them again. I will not support any company that pushes the disingenuously named diversity, equity, inclusion agenda.”
@amuse: “Sadly, Chick-fil-A is embracing DEI and ESG [Environmental Social and Corporate Governance] after being co-opted by race & trans activists who have made it impossible for the organization to reflect the Christian values of its founder. Marxists won’t allow belief in Jesus Christ.”
The Right generally and Republicans in particular have long been fixated on issues involving sexuality. This is especially true for those where children are supposedly victimized.
Thus, fetuses become “babies” even when they’re no bigger than a microdot. This allows Rightists to claim they’re “pro-life”—while they champion the “right” of criminals, terrorists and the insane to own military-style firepower
And even though 90% of child molesters are heterosexual family or friends, the Right continues to charge all homosexuals with pedophilia.
Anyone who dares to challenge its agenda is charged with being a “groomer”—someone who builds an emotional connection with children or young people to sexually exploit them.
Totally ignored by Republicans are supposed Right-wing moral paragons who turn out to be “groomers” like Josh Duggar (of the “19 Kids and Counting” series) who was sentenced in 2022 to 12 years’ imprisonment for possession of child pornography;
A useful rule of thumb: Be wary of those who loudly preach their own virtue—such as Charles Sutherland, an elementary school librarian who spray painted “groomer” around the D.C. area during the 2022 Pride week. When police arrested him for possessing child pornography, they found a child-sized doll in his bed.
Meanwhile, Right-wing politicians—most notably Florida Governor and Presidential candidate Ron DeSantis—continue to exploit the fears and hatred of their equally Fascistic constituents.
With the 2024 Presidential campaign now underway, expect more of the same to come.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Medical, Politics, Social commentary on June 5, 2023 at 12:10 am
“All revolutions,” said Ernst Rohm, leader of Adolf Hitler’s brown-shirted thugs, the S.A., “devour their own children.”
Fittingly, he said this as he sat inside a prison cell awaiting his own execution.
Ernst Rohm
On June 30, 1934, Hitler had ordered a massive purge of his private army, the S.A., or Stormtroopers. The purge was carried out by Hitler’s elite army-within-an-army, the Schutzstaffel, or Protective Squads, better known as the SS.
The S.A. Brownshirts had been instrumental in securing Hitler’s rise to Chancellor of Germany on January 30, 1933. They had intimidated political opponents and organized mass rallies for the Nazi Party.
But after Hitler reached the pinnacle of power, they became a liability.
Ernst Rohm, their commander, urged Hitler to disband the regular German army, the Reichswehr, and replace it with his own legions as the nation’s defense force.
Frightened by Rohm’s ambitions, the generals of the Reichswehr gave Hitler an ultimatum: Get rid of Rohm—or they would get rid of him.
So Rohm died in a hail of SS bullets—as did several hundred of his longtime S.A. cronies.
SS firing squad
Eighty-six years later, even the most Right-wing Republicans learned there’s a price to pay for disagreeing with The Leader.
Case in point: Representative Liz Cheney (R-Wyoming) the House Republican Conference Chair—and the only female member of the House GOP leadership.
On July 21, 2020, she became the target of members of her own party.
Her GOP Freedom Caucus attackers included
- Representative Jim Jordan (R-Ohio)
- Matt Gaetz (R-Florida)
- Thomas Massie (R-Kentucky)
- Chip Roy (R-Texas)
- Andy Biggs (R-Arizona)
- Scott Perry (R-Pennsylvania) and
- Ralph Norman (R-South Carolina).
Jordan, the top Republican on the Judiciary Committee, praised Cheney for defending President Donald Trump during the impeachment trial in February. But he attacked her for publicly disagreeing with Trump’s intention to remove troops from Germany and Afghanistan.
He also assailed Cheney for her recent rebukes of Trump—for his mishandling of the Coronavirus and his Twitter rants.
Cheney remembered that Jordan’s Right-wing Freedom Caucus had caused problems for the GOP’s leadership when the party held the majority in the House.
“I look forward to hearing your comments about being a team player when we’re back in the majority,” replied Cheney.
Representative Roy (Texas) assailed Cheney for supporting Anthony Fauci, the nation’s leading infectious disease expert, and complained that his Democratic opponent had retweeted some of Cheney’s tweets.
Cheney defended Fauci, who had served under Republican and Democratic Presidents as the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases since 1984.
“At this moment when we’re trying to find every way we can to defeat the virus, when we’re trying to find therapeutics and vaccines, we need all hands on deck, and I can’t imagine anybody better than Dr. Fauci to continue to play that role,” Cheney told reporters after the meeting.
Trump was jealous of Fauci’s popularity for speaking the hard truth about Coronavirus—and the Federal Government’s failure to combat it.
Anthony Fauci
Trump also resented that his own popularity was steadily falling as COVID cases and deaths rose—and he offered only rosy predictions that “one day it will be gone.”
Rep. Andy Biggs of Arizona, the head of the Freedom Caucus, said that if someone had a problem with Trump, they should keep it to themselves. He said Cheney undermined the GOP’s ability to win back the House, which Democrats won in November, 2018.
Matt Gaetz, who once split with Trump over a war powers resolution, later tweeted: “Liz Cheney has worked behind the scenes (and now in public) against @realDonaldTrump and his agenda. House Republicans deserve better as our Conference Chair.”
Gaetz’ tweet was quickly backed by such major Republicans as Senator Rand Paul (Kentucky) and Trump’s son, Donald, Jr.
Republicans, tweeted Trump, Jr., “already have one Mitt Romney, we don’t need another.”
Senator Mitt Romney (R-Utah) was the only Republican to vote to convict Trump for abuse of power and obstruction of Congress during the February, 2020 impeachment effort.
“Donald Trump Jr. Is not a member of the House Republican Conference,” Cheney dismissed the attack later.
During the conference meeting, Gaetz and Massie complained that Cheney was supporting a primary challenge to Massie.
Cheney told Gaetz that she looked forward to seeing an upcoming HBO documentary, “The Swamp,” about him, Massie and a third Republican congressman, Ken Buck of Colorado.
Cheney told Massie that his issue was with Trump, not her. Trump had called Massie “a third rate grandstander” and said he wanted Massie ousted from the Republican party. Despite this, Massie had beaten Todd McMurtry, a primary challenger.
Cheney had donated to McMurtry, but later asked that the money be returned after his past racist social media posts became public.
Anyone in Nazi Germany could be accused of disloyalty to Adolf Hitler. Now anyone in the Republican party could be accused of disloyalty to Donald Trump.
“Fanatics can justify practically any atrocity to themselves,” wrote the author Mercedes Lackey. “The more untenable their position becomes, the harder they hold to it, and the worse the things they are willing to do to support it.”
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In Bureaucracy, History, Politics, Social commentary on December 23, 2022 at 12:10 am
From January to early March, 2020, President Donald Trump and his allies within the Republican party and Fox News Network repeatedly assured Americans they had nothing to fear from COVID-19.
Donald Trump
Barnstorming the country in a series of hate-filled political rallies, Trump told his supporters:
- “We have it totally under control.”
- “This is [the Democrats’] new hoax.”
- “It will go away. Just stay calm.”
On February 27, 2020, Dr. Deborah Birx was appointed White House Coronavirus Response Coordinator for President Donald J. Trump.
On March 26, Birx reassured Americans in a press conference that “there is no situation in the United States right now that warrants that kind of discussion [that ventilators or ICU hospital beds might be in limited supply].”
A day earlier, The New York Times had run the headline: “Amid Desperate Need for Ventilators, Calls Grow for Federal Intervention.”
Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, took a different tack. The coronavirus could become cyclical; a vaccine was still many months away; and therapeutic treatments—which Trump had pushed as a “game changer”—were still unproven.
Deborah Birx
Trump insisted that each state was responsible for securing its needed supply of Personal Protective Equipment (PPEs) for its doctors and nurses aiding Coronavirus patients. This created ruthless competition and scarcity, with Americans not only fighting the virus but each other. But it ensured that Trump remained the final voice of authority.
Birx did not publicly urge the Federal Government—i.e., Trump—to create a streamlined approach to providing these necessities. Nor did she protest Trump’s refusal to do so.
On March 27, The New York Times reported: “Dr. Birx’s comments casting doubt on talk of ventilator and hospital-bed shortages, and praising Mr. Trump’s attention to detail in lavish terms, have raised questions about her independence as the number of coronavirus infections in the United States has soared past 100,000….
“Conservative commentators have praised her as a truth-teller, pushing back on coronavirus hysteria. Critics of Mr. Trump accused her of squandering the credibility she had developed as a health official in Democratic and Republican administrations.”
In April, she asserted that COVID-19 infections had peaked and the virus was fading quickly. In fact, infections quickly surged.
Birx helped create a reopening plan—presented by Trump on April 16, 2020—with voluntary standards for states to end coronavirus lockdowns.
On April 23, Trump, in a public press conference, recommended the use of ultraviolet light and disinfectant as possible cures for COVID-19.
Birx remained silent.
The Internet—and medical experts—did not.
Trump’s critics—including many medical experts—believed that, by her silence, Birx forfeited her opportunity to confront the cascade of lies and crackpot theories Trump was promoting.
One of these was California’s Democratic Representative Ted Lieu: “The malicious incompetence that resulted in hundreds of thousands of unnecessary deaths starts at the top, with the former President and his enablers. And who was one of his enablers? Dr. Birx, who was afraid to challenge his unscientific rhetoric and wrongfully praised him.”
Political commentator Joe Scarborough said: “…And it’s been one scam idea after another, that people then promoted on other networks, scam doctors promoting these scam solutions, claiming that everybody who had taken this malaria drug had been cured in certain hospitals. This is just the sort of thing that catches up to Donald Trump.”
In July 2020, a working group convened by Birx ordered hospitals to bypass the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and send all COVID-19 patient information to a database at the Department of Health and Human Services.
The continuing flood of alarming Coronavirus information was undermining Trump’s “everything-is-OK” assurances. Some public health officials warned that bypassing the CDC would allow Trump to politicize the findings and withhold them from the public.
In November, Birx stated in an internal report: “There is an absolute necessity of the Administration to use this moment to ask the American people to wear masks, physical distance and avoid gatherings in both public and private spaces.”
But she did not say this in public.
Trump had politicized the wearing of masks, dividing the country into his supporters, who didn’t wear masks, and “Never Trumpers” who did. He also called for the “liberation” of states that had ordered lockdowns to stop the spread of the virus.
Birx never publicly criticized Trump for creating this divisiveness.
During Thanksgiving, Birx hosted three generations of her family from two households—after she had urged Americans to restrict such gatherings to “your immediate household.”
After her term ended on January 20, 2021, Birx said that she had often considered quitting her position due to the administration’s hyper-partisanship, especially during the 2020 Presidential election.
Perhaps the most damning verdict on Deborah Birx came from Birx herself.
On March 29, 2021, speaking with Sanjay Gupta, MD, CNN’s chief medical correspondent, she said: “The first time, we have an excuse. There were about 100,000 deaths that came from the original surge. All of the rest of them, in my mind, could have been mitigated or decreased substantially.”
By mid-March, 2021, nearly 550,000 Americans had died from COVID-19. By the time Trump left office, 400,000 Americans would be dead of it.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Politics, Social commentary on December 22, 2022 at 12:08 am
Born on March 19, 1905 and trained as an architect, Albert Speer joined the Nazi Party in 1931. He met Adolf Hitler in 1933, when he presented the Fuhrer with architectural designs for the Nuremberg Rally scheduled for that year.
Hitler was thoroughly impressed.
From then on, Speer became Hitler’s “genius architect” assigned to create buildings for the Third Reich, meant to last for a thousand years.
In 1937, Hitler appointed Speer as General Building Inspector for Berlin. This made him responsible for the Central Department for Resettlement that evicted Jewish tenants from their homes in Berlin. The vast majority of these men, women and children ended up in extermination camps.
Adolf Hitler
Speer had nothing to do with their imprisonment; that was strictly the province of SS-Reichsuhrer Heinirich Himmler. Nevertheless, he knew the end results of his evictions.
On September 1, 1939, Hitler ordered the invasion of Poland—unintentionally igniting World War II.
In 1943, Hitler appointed Speer Minister of Armaments, charged with revitalizing the German war effort.
As Hitler’s architect, Speer had stayed aloof from the political intrigues of such power-driven men as Himmler, Luftwaffe chief Hermann Goering and Minister of Propaganda Joseph Goebbels.
But as Minister of Armaments, Speer thrust himself into the currents of intrigue surrounding the Fuhrer. It was this role that earned him 20 years in Spandau Prison for war crimes.
Albert Speer
With millions of able-bodied German men drafted for his endless wars, Hitler turned to slave laborers to keep his arms factories going.
“Speer joined in planning and executing the program to dragoon prisoners of war and foreign workers into German war industries, which waxed in output while the workers waned in starvation,” charged chief United States prosecutor Robert H. Jackson during the Nuremberg war crimes trials.
Speer’s attorney, Hans Flächsner, presented Speer as an artist thrust into political life who had always remained apolitical.
Both at Nuremberg and for the rest of his life, Speer claimed that he was unaware of Nazi extermination plans. But in a letter dated December 23, 1971, Speer wrote: “There is no doubt—I was present as Himmler announced on October 6, 1943, that all Jews would be killed.”
If Speer’s extensive involvement in the Holocaust had been known at the time of his trial he would have been sentenced to death. Twelve of his fellow defendants were so sentenced—and died by hanging.
Speer was found guilty of war crimes and crimes against humanity, principally for the use of slave labor and forced labor. He was sentenced to 20 years’ imprisonment, and was released from Spandau Prison on October 1, 1966.
He spent the rest of his life portraying himself as “the good Nazi” who, as an apolitical technocrat, deeply regretted having failed to discover the monstrous crimes of the Third Reich. Out of this came his bestselling autobiography, Inside the Third Reich, published in 1969.
He died of a heart attack on September 1, 1981—42 years to the day his Fuhrer had plunged the world into war.
British historian Hugh Trevor-Roper considered Speer an administrative genius whose basic instincts were peaceful and constructive. Nevertheless, he assailed Speer for failing to recognize the immorality of the Hitler regime—and called him “the real criminal of Nazi Germany.”
Specifically:
“For ten years he sat at the very centre of political power; his keen intelligence diagnosed the nature and observed the mutations of Nazi government and policy; he saw and despised the personalities around him; he heard their outrageous orders and understood their fantastic ambitions; but he did nothing.
“Supposing politics to be irrelevant, he turned aside and built roads and bridges and factories, while the logical consequences of government by madmen emerged. Ultimately, when their emergence involved the ruin of all his work, Speer accepted the consequences and acted. Then it was too late; Germany had been destroyed.”
Germans are not, however, the only ones to clinch a deal with the Devil.
Eighty-seven years after Albert Speer began his rise to power—and infamy—Deborah Birx, an American physician and diplomat, reached her own height of power—and infamy.
Born on April 4, 1956, Deborah Birx served from 1980 to 1994 as an active duty reserve officer in the United States Army. From 1994 to 2008, Birx was on active duty regular Army, achieving the rank of Colonel.
From 1980 to 1989, Birx worked as a physician at the Walter Reed Army Medical Center. In 1981, she completed a one-year internship and did a two-year residency in internal medicine. From 1983 to 1986, she completed two fellowships in clinical immunology in the areas of allergies and diagnostics.
From 1985 to 1989, Birx was the assistant chief of the Walter Reed Allergy/Immunology Service. Birx started her career as a clinician in immunology, eventually specializing on HIV/AIDS vaccine research.
She served as the United States global AIDS coordinator for Presidents Barack Obama and Donald Trump (2014-2020). She also served as the country’s special representative for global health diplomacy between 2015 and 2021.
On February 27, 2020, she was appointed White House Coronavirus Response Coordinator for President Donald J. Trump.
The virus, which originated in Wuhan, China, in December, 2019, quickly spread around the world.
Coronaviruses are a group of viruses that affect birds and mammals. In humans, they can cause pneumonia and may cause bronchitis.
Coronavirus
On February 29, 2020, the first American died of Coronavirus.
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CALIGULA-IN-CHIEF: PART TWO (END)
In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Politics, Social commentary on April 8, 2025 at 12:27 amThe 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 foundation 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:
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.
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:
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:
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:
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.
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