Posts Tagged ‘ASSASSINATION’
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In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Politics, Social commentary on October 9, 2026 at 12:10 am
There were numerous instances where intervention by Federal legislators or law enforcement authorities could have utterly changed the outcome of the 2024 Presidential election.
Case #12: Democrats expected to receive support from their traditional allies—such as blacks and Hispanics. But that didn’t happen.
Despite Donald Trump’s overt racism, blacks deserted Vice President Kamala Harris in droves. About three in 10 back men under age 45 went for Trump, roughly double the share he got in 2020.
A clear majority of young black voters described the economy as “not so good” or “poor,” compared with about half of older black voters.
Despite Trump’s demands for “mass deportations,” numerous Hispanics, when interviewed, said they didn’t feel threatened. They felt certain that Trump would deport “only the bad people.”
Young Latinos, particularly young Latino men, were more supportive to Trump than in 2020. Roughly half of young Latino men voted for Harris, compared with about six in 10 who went for Trump.
Majorities of black and Latino voters said the economy was in bad shape. They wanted a bigger paycheck. And they were willing to re-elect a man who despised them in hopes of getting it.
Case #13: Muslims—especially those living in Dearborn, Michigan—played a losing blackmail game with the Biden administration
On October 7, 2023, under the cover of thousands of rockets fired from Gaza, Hamas terrorists slaughtered an estimated 1,139 men, women and children in Israeli streets, houses, kibbutz communities and at a rave music festival.
About 250 others were kidnapped and taken into Gaza.
Israel responded by declaring a state of war—pounding Gaza with bombs, missiles. tanks and soldiers.
Palestinians celebrating the attack on Israel
Terrorism-sympathizing Islamics—especially in Michigan—demanded that the Biden administration stop sending military equipment to Israel—and force Israelis to stop their military campaign to free the hostages. They threatened: “If you don’t do what we want, we won’t vote for Kamala Harris.”
Biden and Harris rejected their demands—and Islamics voted for Trump or didn’t vote at all.
The result: Harris lost—and was replaced with a Right-wing administration so pro-Israel that it made the Biden one seem pro-Palestinian by comparison.
Case 14: Ignorance of and/or contempt for history.
“Low information voters” is a euphemism for people dangerously ignorant of and indifferent to the issues affecting their lives.
After World War II ended in 1945, the United States proved a force for worldwide stability. Its “nuclear umbrella” prevented a Russian takeover of Europe and a Chinese takeover of Asia.
But voters ignored Trump’s “bromance” with Communist dictators Vladimir Putin (Russia), Xi Jinping (China) and Kim Jong-Un (North Korea). They also ignored his proven disdain for the leaders of democratic nations—such as Canada and Great Britain.
As a result, Canada and Mexico, America’s biggest trading partners, are now treated—by Trump—as enemies. Meanwhile, he cozies up to Putin against Ukraine’s legally-elected President, Vododmyr Zelensky.
* * * * *
Countless historians have tried to answer the question: “Was the rise of Adolf Hitler—and the catastrophe he unleashed—inevitable?”
Future historians will ask the same question about Donald Trump—and the almost certain disaster of a second Trump Presidency.
Competent historians will conclude that no one factor was responsible, but a combination of otherwise unrelated ones. Among these:
- Republicans: Who feared that Trump’s Fascistic supporters would deprive them of political office if they didn’t abase themselves to a lifelong criminal and would-be dictator.
- Republican judges: Who bent and/or broke the law to enable Trump to escape justice.
- Justice Department prosecutors: Whose awe of the Presidency allowed Trump to slander and threaten federal prosecutors and judges.
- Attorney General Merrick Garland: Whose cowardice prevented him from appointing Jack Smith Special Counsel until November 18, 2022—giving Trump time to delay justice and again win the Presidency.
- Democrats: Whose cowardice toward Trump encouraged Republicans to ever more extreme measures.
- Blacks: Voted for a racist in hopes of a bigger paycheck.
- Muslims: Refused to vote for Kamala Harris because Biden wouldn’t stop Israel’s military campaign to free Hamas-captured hostages.
- Hispanics: Like the Jews in Hitler’s Germany, who couldn’t believe that Trump would carry out his threats to imprison and/or deport them.
- The Biden administration: Which refused to stem the tide of illegal aliens invading America—and thus enraged millions of law-abiding Americans into supporting Trump.
- Toxic masculinity voters: Whose misogynistic attitudes toward women led them to reject a former local and state prosecutor for a 34-times convicted felon.
- American voters: Whose hatred of Hispanic illegal aliens and inflationary grocery prices led them to ignore overwhelming evidence of Trump’s intent to overturn the democratic process and make himself absolute dictator.
In short: Those opposed to Trump’s evil were too divided and shortsighted to combine against a common danger.
As John Adams, second President of the United States, observed:
Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts and murders itself. There never was a democracy yet that did not commit suicide. It is in vain to say that democracy is less vain, less proud, less selfish, less ambitious, or less avaricious than aristocracy or monarchy. It is not true, and nowhere appears in history. Those passions are the same in all men, under all forms of simple government, and when unchecked, produce the same effects of fraud, violence and cruelty.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Medical, Social commentary on October 8, 2026 at 12:56 am
There were numerous instances where intervention by Federal legislators or law enforcement authorities could have utterly changed the outcome of the 2024 Presidential election.
Case #9: Americans had become increasingly worried and angry about surging numbers of illegal aliens pouring into the country. But the Biden administration refused—until its closing months—to dramatically address this issue.
A Vox story, dated July 12, 2024, warned: “According to Gallup, 2024 is the first time since 2005 that most of the public have wanted less immigration, and this year marks the largest share of Americans feeling resistant to immigration since 58 percent said so in 2001….”
Illegal aliens climbing over the border fence in Brownsville, Texas
Six months later, on January 17, 2025, another Vox story offered: “What Democrats must learn from Biden’s disastrous immigration record.”
It opened: “One of the main reasons Vice President Kamala Harris lost the election is the Biden administration’s record on immigration and the border — polls show it ranks up close with inflation among the top issues that drove swing voters to Trump….
“During Biden’s first three years in office, the number of arriving migrants skyrocketed, leading to a backlash as even blue states and cities complained they were overwhelmed. The peak came in December 2023, a month when officials reported about 250,000 encounters with migrants at the border, a record.”
Then, starting early in 2024, and continuing throughout the year, border arrivals plummeted—by more than 80%.
The reasons:
- The Biden administration got the Mexican government to launch an extensive crackdown on migrants passing through its territory to the United States.
- Biden decreed that new unauthorized migrants would be ineligible for asylum if too many people were coming to the border. Essentially, this meant shutting down the asylum process.
Unfortunately for Harris, the downturn in illegal immigration came too late.
Donald Trump
In times of economic uncertainty, hostility rises toward immigrants—especially those who are alien to a host country’s language and culture. This has proven true in Europe as well as the United States.
Case #10: Americans blamed President Biden for inflationary price increases—especially for groceries such as eggs.
According to a December 20, 2024 article—“Why are groceries so expensive? What you need to know”—by the Center for Science in the Public Interest:
“Since January 2019, food prices have risen nearly 30 percent in the US, leaving many households struggling to afford groceries.”
Among the issues responsible for this:
- COVID-19: Caused worldwide disruptions in supply chains.
- Transportation costs and fuel prices: Fuel costs are directly tied to how much retailers charge for groceries and other goods.
- Animal diseases, weather events, crop failures: When bird flu (H5N1) first struck the U.S. in 2022, eggs were priced at around $2 per dozen. They peaked at $4.82/dozen in January 2023, and in December 2024—following the infection of over 123 million chickens—prices fell to about $4.15/dozen.
- Global conflict: In February, 2022, Russia invaded Ukraine, which exports wheat, corn and agricultural fertilizer, among other products. Russia has tried to strangle Ukraine’s exports by attacking the nation’s agricultural centers.
No President—including Biden and Trump—can control such events. Unfortunately, every Presidential candidate virtually promises to be Superman. And voters repeatedly fall victim to this absurdity.
So when elected Presidents fail to perform miracles, those voters turn on them—and turn them out of office.
Case #11: Americans don’t want a woman President.
American voters proved that in 2016 when former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton ran for President—and lost to Trump in the Electoral College by a count of 227 to 304.
And Hillary had an advantage that Vice President Kamala Harris lacked: Hillary was white.
England has elected a female Prime Minister: Margaret Thatcher. And Mexico—notorious for the machismo of its men—has elected a woman President: Claudia Sheinbaum Pardo. But in the United States, electing a woman chief executive is unthinkable to most American men.
According to Daniel Cassino, Professor of Government and Politics at Fairleigh Dickinson University, men who support Trump hold to a traditionally masculine identity.
“So, among that group, Trump is up over Harris by about 35 points. Huge gap, Among other men, the half of men who don’t put themselves at the extremes of masculinity, Harris is up by 20. In fact, Harris is also up by 20 among most groups of women. So, really the gap is not between men and women, it’s between this one group of traditional masculine men and everybody else.”
Machismo played a major role in Trump’s popularity among Hispanics. Roughly six in 10 men described Trump as a strong leader, compared with 43% who said that in 2020. About half of Hispanic women said Trump was a strong leader, up from 37%.
Case #12: Democrats expected to receive support from their traditional allies—such as blacks and Hispanics. But that didn’t happen.
During the eight-year tenure of America’s first black President, Donald Trump attacked Barack Obama as a foreign-born citizen who was thus ineligible for that office. He also had a history of supporting—and being supported by—racist white groups like the Proud Boys and the Oath Keepers.
Nevertheless, blacks deserted Vice President Kamala Harris in droves. About three in 10 back men under age 45 went for Trump, roughly double the share he got in 2020.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Medical, Politics, Social commentary on October 7, 2026 at 12:11 am
There were numerous instances where intervention by Federal legislators or law enforcement authorities could have utterly changed the outcome of the 2024 Presidential election.
Case #5: Even after Donald Trump left office, the Justice Department treated him with a deference not shown any other criminal defendant.
He was allowed, for example, to hurl insults and threats at Special Counsel Jack Smith and even Smith’s family.
One such post, published on Trump’s website, Truth Social, went: “Deranged Jack Smith, who is a sick puppet for A.G. Garland & Crooked Joe Biden, should be DEFUNDED & put out to rest. Republicans must get tough or the Dems will steal another Election. MAGA!”
By “A.G. Garland” Trump meant Attorney General Merrick Garland. By “put out to rest,” he meant that his followers should assassinate Smith.
Not even Mafia bosses like Charles “Lucky” Luciano and Albert “The Executioner” Anastasia dared issue such a threat.
Jack Smith
By contrast: Jimmy Hoffa was president of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters. But that didn’t prevent Robert F. Kennedy’s Justice Department from indicting him for jury tampering—and convicting him on March 4, 1964. He was sentenced to eight years in prison and a $10,000 fine.
No one in the Kennedy Justice Department said: “He’s the elected president of the Teamsters Union—so we can’t touch him.” Yet that is precisely how the Biden Justice Department repeatedly acted—simply because, in 2016, he won a Presidential election.
Case #6: Throughout his struggles to stay out of prison, Trump was aided by the unrelenting support of the Republican party.
Republicans loudly and repeatedly claimed that Donald Trump was the legitimate winner of the 2020 Presidential election—despite overwhelming evidence that he wasn’t.
They also claimed that, by appointing Special Counsel Jack Smith to investigate Trump, the Democrats had weaponized Federal law enforcement.
They also fully supported Trump’s demand for the release of those who attacked the Capitol Building on January 6, 2021.
For example: Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) has depicted these coup supporters as persecuted martyrs.
On March 24, 2022, members of the Republicans’ House Oversight Committee toured a Washington, D.C. jail where some of these defendants were held.
“Their due process rights are being violated. And they have been mistreated and treated as political prisoners,” Greene told reporters after the tour.
Adolf Hitler similarly portrayed as martyrs the Nazis who tried to violently overthrow the government of Bavaria on November 9, 1923.
A March 2, 2020 Washington Monthly story concluded ominously: “U.S. democracy wasn’t set up to deal with a president openly behaving like a James Bond villain while being protected by a political party behaving more like a mafia than a civic institution.”
Case #7: While Congressional Republicans relentlessly investigated President Joe Biden and his family, Democrats refused to similarly investigate Trump’s family.
The United States House Oversight Committee opened its investigation into the Biden family on January 11, 2023. The investigation included the foreign business activities of Biden’s son, Hunter, and brother, James.
By November 2023, the investigation had not found any evidence of wrongdoing by President Biden.
Democrats, by contrast, never probed why Jared Kushner, Donald Trump’s son-in-law and former White House adviser, received $2 billion from Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. The money came to Kushner’s private equity firm after Kushner left the White House in 2021.
Jared Kushner
Salman has been implicated by U.S. Intelligence reports in the 2018 torture and dismemberment of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi. When asked if he believed the reports, Kushner said: “Are we really still doing this?”
Democrats also refused to investigate the Trump administration’s illegally seizing vitally-needed medical supplies in at least seven states during the COVID-19 pandemic.
The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) did not publicly report the thefts, despite the outlay of millions of dollars of taxpayer money. Nor did the administration explain how it decided which supplies to seize and where to reroute them.
The Federal Government did not inform states whose supplies it seized if they would receive the materials they ordered and paid for.
Case #8: On July 13, 2024, Trump was allegedly wounded in his right ear by a gunman while speaking at an open-air Presidential campaign rally near Butler, Pennsylvania.
The would-be assassin, Thomas Matthew Crooks, fired eight rounds from an AR-15 style rifle from the roof of a nearby building. Trump dived for cover behind his lectern, as the shooter killed one audience member and critically injured two others.
Crooks was shot and killed seconds later by the Secret Service’s Counter Sniper Team.
Had Trump not slightly turned his head at the moment Crooks fired, Republicans would have been forced to choose another nominee.
In addition, Trump would not have been alive to win the 2024 Presidential election and openly threaten to imprison the Justice Department prosecutors who sought to hold him accountable for his litany of crimes.
The assassination attempt calls to mind that by Colonel Claus Schenk von Stauffenberg on July 20, 1944, to kill Adolf Hitler with a briefcase bomb. Had he succeeded, the war in Europe would no doubt have ended far earlier, with countless lives being saved.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Military, Politics, Social commentary on October 6, 2026 at 12:05 am
On January 20, 2025, for the second time, Donald J. Trump took the oath of office as the 47th President of the United States.
Since then, he has aggressively committed a series of outrages against the country he claims to love, including:
- Granting clemency to more than 1,500 people convicted of offenses related to the January 6, 2021 United States Capitol attack.
- Flooding Minneapolis and St. Paul, Minnesota, with 3,000 Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents who terrorized (and in two cases murdered) both American citizens and illegal aliens
- Signing executive orders reversing climate change initiatives and eliminating DEI programs.
- Revoking an executive order on Artificial Intelligence safety signed by former President Joseph Biden, to establish safeguards for the rapidly advancing AI technology.
- Threatening Greenland—an autonomous territory within the Kingdom of Denmark—with invasion unless it agreed to acquisition by the United States. Since Denmark is a member of NATO, such an invasion would pit the United States against its own alliance.
Greenland
- Purging 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”: Investigating Trump’s inciting the January 6, 2021 coup attempt and illegally holding highly sensitive national security documents after leaving office.
- Repeatedly threatening to make Canada—a United States ally for over 200 years—America’s “51st state” by military or economic force.
- Firing the board members at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts and appointing himself as chairman—just as Joseph Stalin made himself arbiter of what was permissible for artists in the Soviet Union.
- Ordering the Justice Department to indict his critics such as New York Attorney General Letitia James and former FBI Director James Comey.
- Launching an unprovoked attack on Iran on February 28, he believes that in six weeks he can force its Islamic rulers to abandon their plans to develop nuclear weapons. Expecting victory in six weeks, after eight months he finds himself stymied by Iran’s closing the Strait of Hormuz.
Strait of Hormuz
- Shutting down the Federal Government on October 1, when Democrats refused to agree to his gutting Medicaid, Medicare and the Affordable Care Act (ACA), causing 10-15 million Americans to lose health insurance coverage.
- Shutting off the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) for the poor to pressure Democrats to support his gutting of healthcare programs.
There were numerous instances where intervention by Federal legislators or law enforcement authorities could have utterly changed the outcome of the 2024 election—and prevented these outrages.
Case #1: On December 18, 2019, the Democratic-controlled House of Representatives adopted two articles of impeachment against Trump: abuse of power and obstruction of Congress. On February 5, 2020, the Republican-dominated Senate voted to acquit Trump on both articles of impeachment.
Their motive: Fear that if they didn’t, they would be “primaried” by even more extreme, Trump-supported Right-wing candidates—and lose their positions and the accompanying power and perks.
Had Republicans agreed to convict him, he could not have run again for President.
Case #2: On January 13, 2021, Trump was impeached for the second time for “incitement of insurrection”—inciting the January 6, 2021 attack on the United States Capitol.
The reason: To stop the counting of Electoral College votes, which he knew would prove that former Vice President Joseph Biden had won the 2020 Presidential election.
The evidence against him was overwhelming—including video of his inciting a mob of his followers to storm the Capitol Building.
But Republican Senators again acquitted Trump on February 13, 2021—choosing ambition over patriotism.
Had they done so, he could not have again been a candidate for President.
Donald Trump
Case #3: Only on November 18, 2022—a year and a half after becoming Attorney General—did Merrick Garland appoint Jack Smith Independent Counsel to investigate Donald Trump’s role for:
- Inciting the January 6 attack on Congress; and
- Illegally seizing and storing highly classified government documents at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach Florida.
This gave Trump time to play his “deny and delay” game. Had he been prosecuted and convicted before the November 5 Presidential election, the results might well have been different.
Even hardcore supporters might have proved unwilling to vote for someone found guilty of inciting a riot or stealing highly classified documents.
Case #4: In June, 2023, Trump was indicted for illegally seizing and storing hundreds of highly classified government documents at his Mar-a-Lago estate.
Aileen Cannon, a Trump appointee as Federal Judge of the United States District Court for the Southern District of Florida, presided over the case.
She repeatedly ruled in his favor and finally dismissed the case in July, 2024. claiming that Special Counsel Jack Smith’s appointment was unconstitutional.
Aileen Cannon
Southern District of Florida, CC BY-SA 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons
Many legal experts, citing her handling of the civil case against Trump, called for her recusal from the case. Jack Smith could have requested her removal from the case but did not ask a Federal appeals court to do so.
MSNBC analyst Barbara McQuade told Newsweek that Smith likely refused to do so to “return public trust” to the Justice Department, which had been challenged in recent years.
Cannon’s kid-gloves treatment of Trump echoed that of the Right-wing judge who presided over Adolf Hitler’s trial in 1923 for trying to overthrow the government of Bavaria.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Military, Politics, Social commentary on August 7, 2026 at 12:05 am
Colonel Brandt: “I wonder what we’ll do after we lose the war.”
Captain Kiesel: “Prepare for the next one.”
–-“The Cross of Iron,” film by Sam Peckinpah
On September 12, 2001, President George W. Bush attended a meeting of the National Security Council.
“Why shouldn’t we go against Iraq, not just Al-Qaeda?” demanded Donald Rumsfeld, the Secretary of Defense.
Vice President Dick Cheney enthusiastically agreed.
Secretary of State Colin Powell then pointed out there was absolutely no evidence that Iraq had had anything to do with 9/11 or Al-Qaeda. And he added: “The American people want us to do something about Al-Qaeda”—not Iraq.
On November 21, 2001, only 10 weeks after 9/11, Bush told Rumsfeld: It’s time to turn to Iraq.
Liars Club: Dick Cheney, George Bush, Donald Rumsfeld
Bush and his war-hungry Cabinet officials knew that Americans demanded vengeance on Al-Qaeda’s mastermind, Osama bin Laden, and not Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein. So they repeatedly fabricated “links” between the two:
- Saddam had worked hand-in-glove with Bin Laden to plan 9/11.
- Saddam was harboring and supporting Al-Qaeda throughout Iraq.
- Saddam, with help from Al-Qaeda, was scheming to build a nuclear bomb.
Yet as early as September 22, 2001, Bush had received a classified President’s Daily Brief intelligence report, which stated that there was no evidence linking Saddam Hussein to 9/11.
The report added that there was scant credible evidence that Iraq had any significant collaborative ties with Al-Qaeda.
Saddam Hussein
Even more important: Saddam had tried to monitor Al Qaeda through his intelligence service—because he saw Al-Qaeda and other theocratic radical Islamist organizations as a potential threat to his secular regime.
Bush administration officials repeatedly claimed that Iraq possessed huge quantities of chemical and biological weapons, in violation of UN resolutions. And they further claimed that US intelligence agencies had determined:
- the precise locations where these weapons were stored;
- the identities of those involved in their production; and
- the military orders issued by Saddam Hussein for their use in the event of war.
Among other lies stated as fact by members of the Bush administration:
- Iraq had sought uranium from Niger, in west Africa.
- Thousands of aluminum tubes imported by Iraq could be used in centrifuges to create enriched uranium.
- Iraq had up to 20 long-range Scud missiles, prohibited under UN sanctions.
- Iraq had massive stockpiles of chemical and biological agents, including nerve gas, anthrax and botulinum toxin.
- Saddam Hussein had issued chemical weapons to front-line troops who would use them when US forces crossed into Iraq.
Consider the following:
August 26, 2002: Cheney told the Veterans of Foreign Wars, “There is no doubt that Saddam Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction. There is no doubt he is amassing them to use against our friends, against our allies and against us.”
Vice President Dick Cheney
September 8, 2002: National Security Advisor Condoleeza Rice said on CNN: ”There is certainly evidence that Al-Qaeda people have been in Iraq. There is certainly evidence that Saddam Hussein cavorts with terrorists.”
September 18, 2002: Rumsfeld told the House Armed Services Committee, “We do know that the Iraqi regime has chemical and biological weapons. His regime has amassed large, clandestine stockpiles of chemical weapons—including VX, sarin, cyclosarin and mustard gas.”
October 7, 2002: Bush declared in a nationally televised speech in Cincinnati that Iraq “possesses and produces chemical and biological weapons. It is seeking nuclear weapons.”
March 16, 2003: Cheney declared on NBC’s “Meet the Press”: “We believe [Saddam Hussein] has, in fact, reconstituted nuclear weapons.”
March 30, 2003: On ABC’s “This Week” program, 10 days into the war, Rumsfeld said: “We know where they [weapons of mass destruction] are.”
Bush never regretted his decision to invade Iraq, which occurred on March 20, 2003.
Even as American occupying forces repeatedly failed to turn up any evidence of “weapons of mass destruction” (WMDs), Bush and his minions claimed the invasion a good thing.
In fact, Bush—who hid out the Vietnam war in the Texas Air National Guard—even joked publicly about the absence of WMDs.
He did so at a White House Correspondents dinner on March 24, 2004—one year after he had started the war.
George W. Bush at the 2004 White House Correspondents’ dinner
To Bush, the non-existent WMDs were nothing more than the butt of a joke that night. While an overhead projector displayed photos of a puzzled-looking Bush searching around the Oval Office, Bush recited a comedy routine.
“Those weapons of mass destruction have gotta be somewhere,” Bush laughed, while a photo showed him poking around the corners in the Oval Office.
“Nope–no weapons over there! Maybe they’re under here,” he said, as a photo showed him looking under a desk.
Meanwhile, an assembly of wealthy, pampered men and women—the elite of America’s media and political classes—laughed heartily during Bush’s performance. It was a scene worthy of the court of the ancient Caesars, complete with royal flunkies.
Ultimately, the war that Bush had deliberately provoked
- Took the lives of 4,484 Americans.
- Cost the United States Treasury at least $2 trillion.
- Created a Middle East power vacumn.
- Allowed Iran–Iraq’s arch enemy–to eagerly fill it.
- Killed at least 655,000 Iraqis.
- Bush retired from office with a lavish pension and full Secret Service protection.
- He wrote his memoirs and was paid $7 for the first 1.5 million copies.
- Cheney, Rumsfeld, Rice retired to private business, wrote their own memoirs, and lived in comfort as respected elder statesmen.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Military, Politics, Social commentary on August 6, 2026 at 12:05 am
September 11, 2026 marks the 25th anniversary of the worst terrorist attack on United States soil. Inevitably, this is a time to remember all those whose lives were so cruelly snuffed out.
But it should also be a time to remember those who made this atrocity inevitable—by refusing to acknowledge and address the impending threat from Al-Qaeda.
British historian Nigel Hamilton has chronicled their arrogance and indifference in his 2010 biography: American Caesars: Lives of the Presidents from Franklin D. Roosevelt to George W. Bush.
Hamilton noted that Richard Clarke, the national security advisor on terrorism, was certain that Osama bin Laden had arranged the [USS.] Cole bombing in Aden on October 12, 2000.
Richard Clarke
For months, Clarke tried to convince others in the Bush Administration that Bin Laden was plotting another attack against the United States—either abroad or at home.
But Clarke could not prevail against the know-it-all arrogance of such higher-ranking Bush officials as Vice President Dick Cheney; Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld; Rumsfeld’s deputy, Paul Wolfowitz; and National Security Advisor Condoleeza Rice.
Rice initially refused to hold a cabinet-level meeting on the subject. Then she “insisted the matter be handled only by a more junior Deputy Principals meeting” in April, 2001, writes Hamilton.
Wolfowitz, the number-two man at the Department of Defense, said: “I don’t understand why we are beginning by talking about this one man, bin Laden.”
Even after Clarke outlined the threat posed by Al-Qaeda, Wolfowitz—whose real target was Saddam Hussein—said: “You give bin Laden too much credit.”
Wolfowitz insisted that bin Laden couldn’t carry out his terrorist acts without the aid of a state sponsor—namely, Iraq.
Wolfowitz, in fact, blamed Iraq for the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center. Clarke was stunned, since there was absolutely no evidence of Iraqi involvement in this.
“Al-Qaeda plans major acts of terrorism against the United States,” Clarke warned his colleagues. He pointed out that, like Adolf Hitler, bin Laden had actually published his plans for future destruction.
Osama bin Laden
And he added: “Sometimes, as with Hitler in Mein Kampf, you have to believe that these people will actually do what they say they will do.”
Wolfowitz heatedly traded on his Jewish heritage to bring Clarke’s unwelcome arguments to a halt: “I resent any comparison between the Holocaust and this little terrorist in Afghanistan.”
Writing in outraged fury, Hamilton sums up Clarke’s agonizing frustrations:
- Bush’s senior advisors treated their colleagues who had served in the Clinton administration with contempt.
- President Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney, National Security Advisor Condoleeza Rice, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz seemed content to ignore the danger signals of an impending Al-Qaeda attack.
- This left only Secretary of State Colin Powell, his deputy Richard Armitage, Richard Clarke and a skeptical Treasury Secretary, Paul O’Neill, to wage “a lonely battle to waken a seemingly deranged new administration.”
Clarke alerted Federal Intelligence agencies that “Al-Qaeda is planning a major attack on us.” He asked the FBI and CIA to report to his office all they could learn about suspicious persons or activities at home and abroad.
Finally, at a meeting with Rice on September 4, 2001, Clarke challenged her to “picture yourself at a moment when in the very near future Al-Qaeda has killed hundreds of Americans, and imagine asking yourself what you wish then that you had already done.”
Seven days later, Al-Qaeda struck, and 3,000 Americans died horrifically—and needlessly.
Neither Bush, Cheney, Rice, Rumsfeld nor Wolfowitz ever admitted their negligence. Nor would any of them be brought to account.
Disgustingly, these were the same officials who, afterward, posed as the Nation’s saviors—and branded anyone who disagreed with them as a traitor, practices the Right continues to exploit to this day.
Only Richard Clarke—who had vainly argued for stepped-up security precautions and taking the fight to Al-Qaeda—gave that apology.
On March 24, 2004, Clarke testified at the public 9/11 Commission hearings. Addressing relatives of victims in the audience, he said: “Your government failed you, those entrusted with protecting you failed you, and I failed you.”
Yet even worse was to come.
On the evening after the September 11 attacks, Bush took Clarke aside during a meeting in the White House Situation Room:
“I want you, as soon as you can, to go back over everything, everything. See if Saddam [Hussein, the dictator of Iraq] did this. See if he’s linked in any way.”
Clarke was stunned: “But, Mr. President, Al-Qaeda did this.”
“I know, I know,” said Bush. “But see if Saddam was involved. I want to know.”
Hussein had not plotted the attack—and there was no evidence proving that he did. But the attack gave “W” the excuse he wanted to remove the man he blamed for the 1992 defeat of his father, President George H.W. Bush.
Bush believed that his father would have been re-elected if he had “gone all the way” into Baghdad during the 1991 Gulf War.
He would finish the job that his father had started but failed to compete.
On September 12, 2001, Bush attended a meeting of the National Security Council.
“Why shouldn’t we go against Iraq, not just Al-Qaeda?” demanded Donald Rumsfeld, the Secretary of Defense.
Vice President Dick Cheney enthusiastically agreed.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Military, Politics, Social commentary on August 5, 2026 at 12:14 am
This September 11th will mark 25 years—a quarter of a century—-since Islamic terrorists slammed two jetliners into the World Trade Center and a third into the Pentagon.
They would have crashed a fourth jetliner into the White House or Capitol Building except for the heroic resistance of passengers aboard United Airlines Flight 93.
Americans born since then can’t truly understand the horror this ignited in 281.4 million Americans. No one knew if this would be a single cataclysmic act—or if it was only the beginning?
Was the United States destined to become like Beirut, with bombs exploding and buildings collapsing in a seemingly endless spiral of destruction?
In the months directly after 9/11, Americans stopped going out at night. Home seemed to be the safest place to be—which is why food delivery services did a thriving business. So did stores offering VCR rentals.
World Trade Center on September 11, 2001
The September 11 attacks drastically transformed the United States by:
- Vastly expanding federal surveillance powers through the newly-passed Patriot Act;
- Thrusting the United States into a nine-year war in Iraq and a 19-year war in Afghanistan;
- Eliminating the longstanding U.S. ban on assassinating foreign leaders;
- Instituting new mandatory ID checks, full-body scans and restrictions on carry-on items at airports through the newly-created Transportation Safety Administration (TSA).
- Sparking a momentary wave of patriotism, which dimmed owing to prolonged wars and controversial domestic policies.
As on past commemorations of 9/11, on this 25th anniversary, those who died will be remembered by friends and relatives who knew and loved them.
It is in fact appropriate to remember the innocents who died on that day—and the heroism of the police and firefighters who died trying to save them.
But it’s equally important to remember those who made 9/11 not simply possible but inevitable.
And that does not mean only the 19 highjackers who turned those planes into fuel-bombs. It means the officials at the highest levels of the administration of President George W. Bush.
Officials who, to this day, have never been held accountable in any way for the resulting death and destruction.
Tribute to 9/11 World Trade Center Victims
And who have been allowed to blatantly lie that they “kept us safe” from terrorism.
Obviously, such an indictment is not going to be presented by TV commentators today—not even on such liberal networks as CNN and MSNBC. And most definitely not on the right-wing Fox network.
Fortunately, British historian Nigel Hamilton has dared to lay bare the facts of this disgrace. Hamilton is the author of several acclaimed political biographies, including JFK: Reckless Youth and Bill Clinton: Mastering the Presidency.
In 2007, he began research on his latest book: American Caesars: The Lives of the Presidents From Franklin D. Roosevelt to George W. Bush.
Nigel Hamilton
The inspiration for this came from a classic work of ancient biography: The Twelve Caesars, by Gaius Suetonius Tranquillus–-known as Suetonius.
Suetonius, a Roman citizen and historian, had chronicled the lives of the first twelve Caesars of imperial Rome: Julius Caesar, Augustus, Tiberius, Caligula, Claudius, Nero, Galba, Otho, Vitellius, Vespasian, Titus and Domitian.
Hamilton wanted to examine post-World War II United States history as Suetonius had examined that of ancient Rome: Through the lives of the 12 “emperors” who had held the power of life and death over their fellow citizens—and those of other nations.
For Hamilton, the “greatest of American emperors, the Caesar Augustus of his time,” was Franklin D. Roosevelt, who led his country through the Great Depression and World War II.
His “”great successors” were Harry S. Truman, Dwight D. Eisenhower and John F. Kennedy—who, in turn, contained the Soviet Union abroad and presided over sustained economic prosperity at home.
By contrast, “arguably the worst of all the American Caesars” was “George W. Bush, and his deputy, Dick Cheney, who willfully and recklessly destroyed so much of the moral basis of American leadership in the modern world.”
Among the most lethal of Bush’s offenses: The appointing of officials who refused to take seriously the threat posed by Al-Qaeda.
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And this arrogance and indifference continued–right up to September 11, 2001, when the World Trade Center and Pentagon became targets for destruction.
Among the few administration officials who did take Al-Qaeda seriously was Richard Clarke, the chief counter-terrorism adviser on the National Security Council.
Clarke had been thus appointed in 1998 by President Bill Clinton. He continued in the same role under President Bush—but the position was no longer given cabinet-level access.
This put him at a severe disadvantage when dealing with other, higher-ranking Bush officials—such as Vice President Dick Cheney, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, Rumsfeld’s deputy, Paul Wolfowitz and National Security Advisor Condoleeza Rice.
These turned out to be the very officials who refused to believe that Al-Qaeda posed a lethal threat to the United States.
“Indeed,” writes Hamilton, “in the entire first eight months of the Bush Presidency, Clarke was not permitted to brief President Bush a single time, despite mounting evidence of plans for a new al-Qaeda outrage.” [Italics added]
Nor did it help that, during his first eight months in office before September 11, Bush was on vacation, according to the Washington Post, 42% of the time.
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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.
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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.
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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.”
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BIRTHING FASCISM–AND TRUMP’S EVIL: PART FOUR (END)
In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Politics, Social commentary on October 9, 2026 at 12:10 amThere were numerous instances where intervention by Federal legislators or law enforcement authorities could have utterly changed the outcome of the 2024 Presidential election.
Case #12: Democrats expected to receive support from their traditional allies—such as blacks and Hispanics. But that didn’t happen.
Despite Donald Trump’s overt racism, blacks deserted Vice President Kamala Harris in droves. About three in 10 back men under age 45 went for Trump, roughly double the share he got in 2020.
A clear majority of young black voters described the economy as “not so good” or “poor,” compared with about half of older black voters.
Despite Trump’s demands for “mass deportations,” numerous Hispanics, when interviewed, said they didn’t feel threatened. They felt certain that Trump would deport “only the bad people.”
Young Latinos, particularly young Latino men, were more supportive to Trump than in 2020. Roughly half of young Latino men voted for Harris, compared with about six in 10 who went for Trump.
Majorities of black and Latino voters said the economy was in bad shape. They wanted a bigger paycheck. And they were willing to re-elect a man who despised them in hopes of getting it.
Case #13: Muslims—especially those living in Dearborn, Michigan—played a losing blackmail game with the Biden administration
On October 7, 2023, under the cover of thousands of rockets fired from Gaza, Hamas terrorists slaughtered an estimated 1,139 men, women and children in Israeli streets, houses, kibbutz communities and at a rave music festival.
About 250 others were kidnapped and taken into Gaza.
Israel responded by declaring a state of war—pounding Gaza with bombs, missiles. tanks and soldiers.
Palestinians celebrating the attack on Israel
Terrorism-sympathizing Islamics—especially in Michigan—demanded that the Biden administration stop sending military equipment to Israel—and force Israelis to stop their military campaign to free the hostages. They threatened: “If you don’t do what we want, we won’t vote for Kamala Harris.”
Biden and Harris rejected their demands—and Islamics voted for Trump or didn’t vote at all.
The result: Harris lost—and was replaced with a Right-wing administration so pro-Israel that it made the Biden one seem pro-Palestinian by comparison.
Case 14: Ignorance of and/or contempt for history.
“Low information voters” is a euphemism for people dangerously ignorant of and indifferent to the issues affecting their lives.
After World War II ended in 1945, the United States proved a force for worldwide stability. Its “nuclear umbrella” prevented a Russian takeover of Europe and a Chinese takeover of Asia.
But voters ignored Trump’s “bromance” with Communist dictators Vladimir Putin (Russia), Xi Jinping (China) and Kim Jong-Un (North Korea). They also ignored his proven disdain for the leaders of democratic nations—such as Canada and Great Britain.
As a result, Canada and Mexico, America’s biggest trading partners, are now treated—by Trump—as enemies. Meanwhile, he cozies up to Putin against Ukraine’s legally-elected President, Vododmyr Zelensky.
* * * * *
Countless historians have tried to answer the question: “Was the rise of Adolf Hitler—and the catastrophe he unleashed—inevitable?”
Future historians will ask the same question about Donald Trump—and the almost certain disaster of a second Trump Presidency.
Competent historians will conclude that no one factor was responsible, but a combination of otherwise unrelated ones. Among these:
In short: Those opposed to Trump’s evil were too divided and shortsighted to combine against a common danger.
As John Adams, second President of the United States, observed:
Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts and murders itself. There never was a democracy yet that did not commit suicide. It is in vain to say that democracy is less vain, less proud, less selfish, less ambitious, or less avaricious than aristocracy or monarchy. It is not true, and nowhere appears in history. Those passions are the same in all men, under all forms of simple government, and when unchecked, produce the same effects of fraud, violence and cruelty.
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