Posts Tagged ‘BLOOMBERG’
2016 PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION, 2020 PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION, ABC NEWS, ABUSE OF POWER, ADOLF HITLER, ALTERNET, AMANDA CHASE, AMERICABLOG, AP, ARMED SERVICES, BABY BOOMER RESISTANCE, BARACK OBAMA, BLOOMBERG, BUZZFEED, CBS NEWS, CIA, CLAUS VON STAUFFENBERG, CNN, COVID-19, CROOKS AND LIARS, DAILY KOZ, DONALD TRUMP, DRUDGE RETORT, FACEBOOK, FBI, FEDERAL GOVERNMENT SHUTDOWN, FIVETHIRTYEIGHT, GENERAL SERVICES ADMINISTRATION, GESTAPO, HARPER’S MAGAZINE, HILLARY CLINTON, IMPEACHMENT ARTICLES, JAMES B. COMEY, JAMES MATTIS, JOHN KASICH, JOHN MCCAIN, JOSEPH BIDEN, KIM JONG-UN, MARK ESPER, MARTIAL LAW, MARTIN NIEMOELLER, MEDIA MATTERS, MICHAEL FLYNN, MOTHER JONES, MOVEON, MSNBC, MUSLIMS, NATIONAL SECURITY AGENCY, NAZI GERMANY, NBC NEWS, NEWSWEEK, NPR, OBSTRUCTION OF CONGRESS, PBS NEWSHOUR, POLITICO, POLITICUSUSA, RAW STORY, REPUBLICANS, REUTERS, SALON, SEATTLE TIMES, SERGEY KISLYAK, SERGEY LAVROV, SLATE, TALKING POINTS MEMO, THE ATLANTIC, THE CHICAGO SUN-TIMES, THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE, THE DAILY BEAST, THE DAILY BLOG, THE GUARDIAN, THE HILL, THE HUFFINGTON POST, THE LOS ANGELES TIMES, THE NATION, THE NEW REPUBLIC, THE NEW YORK TIMES, THE PENTAGON, THE TWILIGHT ZONE, THE VILLAGE VOICE, THE WASHINGTON POST, THINKPROGRESS, THIRD REICH, TIME, TRUTHDIG, TRUTHOUT, TWENTY-FIFTH AMENDMENT, TWO POLITICAL JUNKIES, U.S. NEWS & WORLD REPORT, UNITED STATES CONSTITUTION, UNITED STATES SECRET SERVICE, UPI, USA TODAY, VLADIMIR PUTIN, VOTER FRAUD, WONKETTE, WORLD WAR 11, X
In History, Law, Law Enforcement, Military, Politics, Social commentary on May 6, 2025 at 12:05 am
On July 20, 1944, Colonel Claus Schenk von Stuaffenberg tried to assassinate Adolf Hitler.
He had served with the Wehrmacht in Poland (1939), France (1940) and the Soviet Union (1941).
While serving in Tunisa, he was seriously wounded on April 7, 1943, when Allied fighters strafed his vehicle. He lost his left eye, right hand and two fingers of his left hand after surgery.
Colonel Claus Schenk von Stuaffenberg
Nevertheless, he now acted as the prime mover for the conspiracy among a growing number of German high command officers to arrest or assassinate Germany’s Fuehrer.
For most of these officers, the motive was craven: The “happy time” of German victories was over. Germany was losing the war it had unleashed on the world in 1939—and now they feared the worst.
This was especially true now that the numerically superior forces of the Soviet Union had gone onto the offensive.
For Stauffenberg, there was another reason: His disgust at the horrors he had seen committed by his fellow Wehrmacht soldiers upon defenseless POW’s and civilians in Russia.
Thus, Stauffenberg—more than many Germans–knew firsthand the vengeance his country could expect if the “Thousand-Year Reich” fell.
Something must be done, he believed, to prove to the world that not all Germans—even members of the Wehrmacht—were criminals.
Most of the conspirators wanted to arrest Hitler and surrender to British and American forces—well before the much-feared Russians gained a toehold in Germany.
Stauffenberg didn’t want to arrest Hitler; he wanted to kill him. A live Hitler might eventually be rescued by his Nazi colleagues.
But Hitler was a closely-guarded target. He was surrounded by fanatical bodyguards who were expert marksmen. He often wore a bulletproof vest and a cap lined with three pounds of laminated steel.
Adolf Hitler
Bundesarchiv, Bild 146-1990-048-29A / CC-BY-SA 3.0 [CC BY-SA 3.0 de (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/de/deed.en)%5D
But his single greatest protection—he claimed—was an instinct for danger. He would suddenly change his schedule—to drop in where he was least expected. Or suddenly depart an event where he was expected to stay a long time.
That instinct had repeatedly saved his life.
A series of assassination attempts had been made against Hitler. All of them involved time-bombs. And all of the would-be assassins were members of the German General Staff.
In one case, a bomb secretly stashed aboard Hitler’s plane failed to explode. In another, an officer who had a bomb strapped to himself unexpectedly found his scheduled meeting with Hitler called off. He had to rush into a bathroom to defuse the bomb before it exploded.
Stauffenberg intended to carry his bomb—hidden in a briefcase—into a “Hitler conference” room packed with military officers. Rigged with a time-fuse, it would be left there while he found an excuse to leave.
After the explosion, he would phone one of his fellow conspirators with the news.
Stauffenberg intended to direct the new government that would replace that of the Nazis—and open peace talks with the British and Americans.
With Hitler dead, the coup—“Operation Valkyrie”—would be on.
Anti-Nazi conspirators would seize control of key posts of the government. The British and Americans would then be informed of Germany’s willingness to surrender. Provided, of course, that the vengeance-seeking Russians did not have a say in its postwar future.
The Wehrmacht and Schutzstaffel (SS) had killed millions of Russians. Many had died in combat. Others had been murdered as captives. Still more had been allowed to die by starvation and exposure to the notorious Russian winter.
So the Germans—both Nazi and anti-Nazi—knew what they could expect if soldiers of the Soviet Union reached German soil.
On July 20, 1944, Stauffenberg appeared at Hitler’s well-guarded military headquarters in East Prussia. Like all his other outposts, Hitler had named it—appropriately enough—“Wolf’s Lair.”
“Wolf’s Lair”
Stauffenberg entered the large, concrete building while the conference was in session. He placed his yellow briefcase next to Hitler—who was standing with his generals at a heavy oaken table. Then he excused himself to take an “urgent” phone call.
After Stauffenberg left the room, Colonel Heinz Brandt, standing next to Hitler, found the briefcase blocking his legs. So he moved it—to the other side of the heavy oaken support, partially shielding Hitler from the blast..
At 12:42 p.m. on July 20, 1944, Stauffenberg’s briefcase bomb erupted.
Brandt died, as did two other officers and a stenographer.
Hitler not only survived, but the plotters failed to seize the key broadcast facilities of the Reich.
This allowed Hitler to make a late-night speech to the nation, revealing the failed plot and assuring Germans that he was still alive. And he swore to flush out the “traitorous swine” who had tried to kill him.
Mass arrests quickly followed.
Among the first victims discovered and executed was the conspiracy’s leader, Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg. Standing before a makeshift firing squad at midnight, he cried: “Long live our sacred Germany!”
At least 7,000 persons were arrested by the Gestapo. Of these, 4,980 were executed.
2016 PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION, 2020 PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION, ABC NEWS, ABUSE OF POWER, ADOLF HITLER, ALTERNET, AMANDA CHASE, AMERICABLOG, AP, ARMED SERVICES, BABY BOOMER RESISTANCE, BARACK OBAMA, BLOOMBERG, BUZZFEED, CBS NEWS, CIA, CLAUS VON STAUFFENBERG, CNN, COVID-19, CROOKS AND LIARS, DAILY KOZ, DANA ANDREWS, DONALD TRUMP, DRUDGE RETORT, FACEBOOK, FBI, FEDERAL GOVERNMENT SHUTDOWN, FIVETHIRTYEIGHT, GENERAL SERVICES ADMINISTRATION, GESTAPO, HARPER’S MAGAZINE, HILLARY CLINTON, IMPEACHMENT ARTICLES, JAMES B. COMEY, JAMES MATTIS, JOHN KASICH, JOHN MCCAIN, JOSEPH BIDEN, KIM JONG-UN, MARK ESPER, MARTIAL LAW, MARTIN NIEMOELLER, MEDIA MATTERS, MICHAEL FLYNN, MOTHER JONES, MOVEON, MSNBC, MUSLIMS, NATIONAL SECURITY AGENCY, NAZI GERMANY, NBC NEWS, NEWSWEEK, NPR, OBSTRUCTION OF CONGRESS, PBS NEWSHOUR, POLITICO, POLITICUSUSA, RAW STORY, REPUBLICANS, REUTERS, SALON, SEATTLE TIMES, SERGEY KISLYAK, SERGEY LAVROV, SLATE, TALKING POINTS MEMO, THE ATLANTIC, THE CHICAGO SUN-TIMES, THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE, THE DAILY BEAST, THE DAILY BLOG, THE GUARDIAN, THE HILL, THE HUFFINGTON POST, THE LOS ANGELES TIMES, THE NATION, THE NEW REPUBLIC, THE NEW YORK TIMES, THE PENTAGON, THE TWILIGHT ZONE, THE VILLAGE VOICE, THE WASHINGTON POST, THINKPROGRESS, THIRD REICH, TIME, TRUTHDIG, TRUTHOUT, TWENTY-FIFTH AMENDMENT, TWO POLITICAL JUNKIES, U.S. NEWS & WORLD REPORT, UNITED STATES CONSTITUTION, UNITED STATES SECRET SERVICE, UPI, USA TODAY, VLADIMIR PUTIN, VOTER FRAUD, WONKETTE, WORLD WAR 11, X
In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Military, Politics, Social commentary on May 5, 2025 at 12:09 am
“When Fascism comes to America, it will be called anti-Fascism.”
–Huey Long, Louisiana Governor/Senator
In the Twilight Zone episode, “No Time Like the Past,” Paul Driscoll (Dana Andrews), a scientist in early 1960s America, uses a time machine to visit Nazi Germany on the eve of World War II.
He’s rented a motel room overlooking the balcony from where the Fuhrer, Adolf Hitler will soon make a speech. And he’s eager to watch that speech—through the lens of a telescopic-sighted rifle.
Just as he’s about to pull the trigger, there’s a knock at his door—by the maid. Driscoll hustles her out as soon as possible, then once again picks up his rifle. He—and viewers—can once again see Hitler through the cross-hairs of his weapon.
Paul Driscoll prepares to shoot Adolf Hitler
But instead of the anticipated shot, there’s another knock at his door—his time by the black-uniformed secret police, the SS. Driscoll knows the game is up, and disappears into the present just as the thugs break down his door.
And the audience is left to ponder how different the world would have been if Driscoll—or someone in Nazi Germany—had succeeded in assassinating the man whose wars would wipe out the lives of 50 million men, women and children around the globe.
One 2016 Republican candidate for President dared to invoke the menace of Nazi Germany in warning of the dangers of a Donald Trump Presidency. And to argue that Americans could prevent that past from returning.
In November, 2015, John Kasich, the governor of Ohio, was peddling a message of creating jobs, balancing the Federal budget and disdain for Washington, D.C.
John Kasich
But he remained far behind in the polls, dropping 50% in support in just one month—from September to October. Meanwhile, Trump, the New York billionaire developer, was being backed by 25% of Republican primary voters.
So, with nothing to lose, Kasich decided to take off the gloves. He invoked the “N” word for Republicans: Nazi.
He authorized the creation of a TV ad that opened with ominous music—and the face of a snarling Donald Trump.
“I would like anyone who is listening to consider some thoughts that I’ve paraphrased from the words of German pastor Martin Niemoeller.”
The voice belonged to Tom Moe, a retired colonel in the U.S. Air Force—and a former Vietnam prisoner-of-war.
“You might not care if Donald Trump says Muslims must register with the government, because you’re not one,” continued Moe.
“And you might not care if Donald Trump says he’s going to round up all the Hispanic immigrants, because you’re not one.
Donald Trump
“And you might not care if Donald Trump says it’s OK to rough up black protesters, because you’re not one.
“And you might not care if Donald Trump wants to suppress journalists, because you’re not one.
“But think about this:
“If he keeps going, and he actually becomes President, he might just get around to you. And you’d better hope that there’s someone left to help you.”
Martin Niemoeller (1892–1984) was a prominent Protestant pastor who had commanded a U-boat during World War 1. He became a bitter public foe of Adolf Hitler.
A staunch anti-Communist, he had initially supported the Nazis as Germany’s only hope of salvation against the Soviet Union.
But when the Nazis made the church subordinate to State authority, Niemoeller created the Pastors’ Emergency League to defend religious freedom.
For his opposition to the Third Reich, Niemoeller spent seven years in concentration camps.
With the collapse of the Reich in 1945, he was freed—and elected President of the Protestant church in Hesse and Nassau in 1947. During the 1960s, he was president of the World Council of Churches.
He is best remembered for his powerful condemnation of the failure of Germans to protest the increasing oppression of the Nazis:
First they came for the Communists, but I was not a Communist, so I did not speak out.
Then they came for the Socialists, but I was not a Socialist, so I did not speak out.
Then they came for the trade unionists, but I was not a trade unionist, so I did not speak out.
Then they came for the Jews, but I was not a Jew, so I did not speak out.
And when they came for me, there was no one left to speak out for me.
Neither “Adolf Hitler” nor “Nazi Party” was mentioned during the one-minute Kasich video. But a furious Trump threatened to sue Kasich if he could find anything “not truthful” within the ad.
Apparently he couldn’t find anything “not truthful,” because he never sued.
So threatened the man who had called Mexican immigrants “rapists” and accused President Barack Obama of being a Muslim and an illegal alien.
The Kasich ad was the darkest attack made against Trump by any candidate–-Republican or Democrat. And it raised a disturbing question:
If Donald Trump proved to be America’s Adolf Hitler, would there be an American Claus von Stauffenberg?
Colonel Claus Schenk von Stuaffenberg was the German army officer who, on July 20, 1944, tried to assassinate Adolf Hitler.
9/11 ATTACKS, ABC NEWS, ADOLF EICHMANN, ADOLF HITLER, ALTERNET, AMERICABLOG, AMERICAN CIVIL LIBERTIES UNION, AP, BABY BOOMER RESISTANCE, BBC, BLOOMBERG, BUZZFEED, CBS NEWS, CNN, CROOKS AND LIARS, DAILY KOS, DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY, DONALD TRUMP, EGYPT, EXECUTIVE ORDER, FACEBOOK, FIVETHIRTYEIGHT, HARPER’S MAGAZINE, HEINRICH HIMMLER, HERMAN GORING, HITLER 1889-1936: HUBRIS, HITLER 1936-1945: NEMESIS, HITLER: ASCENT: 1889-1939, HUFFINGTON POST, IAN KERSHAW, IRAN, IRQA, JOSEPH GOEBBELS, LYBIA, MEDIA MATTERS, MOTHER JONES, MOVEON, MSNBC, MUSLIM REFUGEES, NAZI GERMANY, NBC NEWS, NEW REPUBLIC, NEWSDAY, NEWSWEEK, NPR, OSAMA BIN LADEN, PBS NEWSHOUR, PENTAGON, POLITICO, POLITICUSUSA, RAW STORY, REUTERS, ROBERT PAYNE, SALON, SAUDI ARABIA, SEATTLE TIMES, SLATE, SOMALIA, STALINGRAD (MOVIE), SUDAN, SYRIA, TALKING POINTS MEMO, THE ATLANTIC, THE CHICAGO SUN-TIMES, THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE, THE DAILY BEAST, THE DAILY BLOG, THE GUARDIAN, THE HILL, THE HUFFINGTON POST, THE INTERCEPT, THE LIFE AND DEATH OF ADOLF HITLER, THE LOS ANGELES TIMES, THE NATION, THE NEW REPUBLIC, THE NEW YORK TIMES, THE NEW YORKER, THE VILLAGE VOICE, THE WASHINGTON POST, THINKPROGRESS, THIRD REICH, TIME, TRUTHDIG, TRUTHOUT, TURKEY, TWO POLITICAL JUNKIES, U.S. NEWS & WORLD REPORT, UNITED ARAB EMIRATES, UPI, USA TODAY, VOLKER ULRICH, WALTER SHAUB, WORLD TRADE CENTER, X, YEMEN
In Bureaucracy, Business, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Politics, Social commentary on April 25, 2025 at 12:19 am
In Stalingrad, a 1993 German-made war movie, a platoon of German Army soldiers leaves behind the beaches and beauties of Italy and find themselves fighting desperately to stay alive in Russia.
Early in the film, there is an exchange that has its real-life counterpart almost 75 years later.
A young, idealistic German lieutenant, newly transferred to the Russian front, is horrified when he sees a fellow soldier from another unit sadistically beat a Russian prisoner to death.
He seeks out the man’s superior, a captain, and says: “Captain, I must protest about the behavior of your men.”
“You want to protest?” asks the captain, grinning sardonically. “Tell the Fuhrer.”
Fast forward to January 28, 2017, the day after President Donald J. Trump signed into law an executive order which:
- Suspended entry of all refugees to the United States for 120 days;
- Barred Syrian refugees indefinitely;, and
- Blocked entry into the United States for 90 days for citizens from Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen.
The new rules—and the efforts of security personnel at major international airports to enforce them—triggered a tsunami of chaos and fear among travelers.
“We’ve gotten reports of people being detained all over the country,” said Becca Heller, the director of the International Refugee Assistance Project. “They’re literally pouring in by the minute.”
Refugees on flights when the order was signed on January 27 were detained upon arrival.
Donald Trump
Many students attending American universities were blocked from returning to the United States from visits abroad.
According to Homeland Security officials, 109 people who were already in transit to the United States when the order was signed were denied access; 173 were stopped before boarding planes heading to America. Eighty-one people who were stopped were eventually given waivers to enter the United States.
Internationally, travelers were seized by panic when they were not allowed to board flights to the United States. In Dubai and Istanbul, airport and immigration officials turned passengers away at boarding gates. At least one family was removed from a flight it had boarded.
Earlier on January 28, Trump, isolated in the White House from all the chaos he had unleashed in airports across the nation and throughout the world, said:
“It’s not a Muslim ban, but we were totally prepared. It’s working out very nicely. You see it at the airports, you see it all over.”
Then the American Civil Liberties Union intervened.
Two Iraqi immigrants, defended by the ACLU, accused Trump of legal and constitutional overreach.
The Iraqis had been detained at John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York City. One had served as an interpreter for American forces in Iraq for a decade. The other was en route to reunite with his wife and son in Texas.
The interpreter, Hameed Khalid Darweesh, was released after nearly 19 hours of detention. So was the other traveler, Haider Sameer Abdulkhaleq Alshawi.
Before the two men were released, one of their lawyers, Mark Doss, a supervising attorney at the International Refugee Assistance Project, asked an official, “Who is the person we need to talk to?”
“Call Mr. Trump,” said the official, who refused to identify himself.
He might just as well have said: “You want to protest? Tell the Fuhrer.”
The ACLU action secured at least a temporary blocking of part of Trump’s order. A Brooklyn judge barred the government from deporting some arrivals who found themselves ensnared by the Presidential order.
Judge Ann M. Donnelly of the Federal District Court in Brooklyn, ruled that sending the travelers home could cause them “irreparable harm.” She said the government was “enjoined and restrained from, in any manner and by any means, removing individuals” who had arrived in the United States with valid visas or refugee status.
But she did not force the administration to let in people otherwise blocked by the executive order who have not yet traveled to the United States. Nor did she issue a broader ruling on the constitutionality of the order.
* * * * *
On November 5, 75 million ignorant, hate-filled, Right-wing Americans re-elected Donald Trump—a man reflecting their own hate and ignorance—to the Presidency.
Summing up Trump’s character in a March 25, 2016 broadcast of The PBS Newshour, conservative political columnist David Brooks warned: “The odd thing about [Trump’s] whole career and his whole language, his whole world view is there is no room for love in it. You get a sense of a man who received no love, can give no love….
“And so you really are seeing someone who just has an odd psychology unleavened by kindness and charity, but where it’s all winners and losers, beating and being beat. And that’s part of the authoritarian personality.”
There were countless warning signs available for Trump’s supporters to see—if they had wanted to see them:
- His facing 91 criminal counts in four cases;
- His threats against his political opponents and Justice Department prosecutors;
- His conviction for raping columnist E. Jean Carroll;
- His continued lying about winning the 2020 Presidential election;
- His conviction on 34 counts of falsifying business records;
- His unjustified attacks the integrity of the FBI—causing previously “law and order” Republicans to demand its defunding.
Those who voted for Trump will now learn the meaning of the Nazi slogan: “The Fuhrer proposes and disposes for all.” Those who voted against him knew this already.
2020 PRESIDENTIL ELECTION, 9/11 ATTACKS, ABC NEWS, ADOLF EICHMANN, ADOLF HITLER, ALTERNET, AMERICABLOG, AMERICAN CIVIL LIBERTIES UNION, AMERICAN CIVIL LIBERTIES UNION (ACLU), AP, AUGUST FLENTJE, BABY BOOMER RESISTANCE, BBC, BLOOMBERG, BUZZFEED, CBS NEWS, CNN, CROOKS AND LIARS, DAILY KOS, DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY, DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE, DONALD TRUMP, DUBAI, E. JEAN CARROLL, EGYPT, EL SALVADOR, EREZ REUVENI, EXECUTIVE ORDER, FACEBOOK, FALSIFYING BUSINESS RECORDS, FBI, FIVETHIRTYEIGHT, HARPER’S MAGAZINE, HEINRICH HIMMLER, HERMAN GORING, HITLER 1889 – 1936: HUBRIS (BOOK), HITLER 1889-1936: HUBRIS, HITLER 1936 – 1945 NEMESIS (BOOK), HITLER 1936-1945: NEMESIS, HITLER: ASCENT: 1889 – 1939 (BOOK), HITLER: ASCENT: 1889-1939, HUFFINGTON POST, IAN KERSHAW, ILLEGAL ALIENS, IMMIGRATION AND CUSTOMS ENFORCEMENT (ICE), INTERNATIONAL REFUGEE ASSISTANCE PROJECT, IRAN, IRAQ, ISTANBUL, JOSEPH GOEBBELS, KILMAR ABREGO GARCIA, LIBYA, LYBIA, MEDIA MATTERS, MOTHER JONES, MOVEON, MS-13 GANG, MSNBC, MUSLIM REFUGEES, MUSLIMS, NAZI GERMANY, NBC NEWS, NEW REPUBLIC, NEWSDAY, NEWSWEEK, NPR, OSAMA BIN LADEN, PAM BONDI, PAULA XINIS, PBS NEWSHOUR, PENTAGON, POLITICO, POLITICUSUSA, RAW STORY, REUTERS, ROBERT PAYNE, SALON, SAUDI ARABIA, SEATTLE TIMES, SLATE, SOMALIA, STALINGRAD (MOVIE), SUDAN, SYRIA, TALKING POINTS MEMO, THE ATLANTIC, THE CHICAGO SUN-TIMES, THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE, THE DAILY BEAST, THE DAILY BLOG, THE GUARDIAN, THE HILL, THE HUFFINGTON POST, THE INTERCEPT, THE LIFE AND DEATH OF ADOLF HITLER, THE LOS ANGELES TIMES, THE NATION, THE NEW REPUBLIC, THE NEW YORK TIMES, THE NEW YORKER, THE VILLAGE VOICE, THE WASHINGTON POST, THINKPROGRESS, THIRD REICH, TIME, TODD BLANCHE, TRUTHDIG, TRUTHOUT, TURKEY, TWO POLITICAL JUNKIES, U.S. NEWS & WORLD REPORT, UNITED ARAB EMIRATES, UPI, USA TODAY, VOLKER ULRICH, WALTER SHAUB, WERNER WILLIKENS, WORLD TRADE CENTER, X, YEMEN
In Bureaucracy, Business, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Politics, Social commentary on April 24, 2025 at 12:06 am
When historians—-and ordinary citizens—think about the Third Reich, the name of Werner Willikens doesn’t immediately spring to mind.
Adolf Hitler, Herman Goring, Joseph Goebbels, Heinrich Himmler, Adolf Eichmann—yes.
But why Werner Willikens?
British historian and author Ian Kershaw has unearthed the reason.
He has written extensively about the Third Reich. He is best-known for his monumental, two-volume biography, Hitler 1889–1936: Hubris (1998) and Hitler 1936–1945: Nemesis (2000).
Ian Kershaw
Willikens, State Secretary in the Ministry of Food, gave a speech on February 21, 1934 that casts new light on how Hitler came to exercise vast authority over Nazi Germany:
“Everyone who has the opportunity to observe it knows that the Fuhrer can hardly dictate from above everything he intends to realize sooner or later.
“On the contrary, up till now everyone with a post in the new Germany has worked best when he has, so to speak, worked towards the Fuhrer….
Werner Willikens
“In fact, it is the duty of everybody to try to work towards the Fuhrer along the lines he would wish. Anyone who makes mistakes will notice it soon enough.
“But anyone who really works towards the Fuhrer along his lines and towards his goal will certainly both now and in the future one day have the finest reward in the form of the sudden legal confirmation of his work.”
Volker Ullrich, bestselling author of Hitler: Ascent 1889 – 1939, summed up the results of this interplay between Hitler and his subjects:
“Kershaw tried to show that in many instances Hitler didn’t need to do very much at all since German society–everyone from the underlings surrounding him to ordinary people on the street—-were increasingly inclined to anticipate and fulfill the Fuhrer’s every wish, ‘working towards him.’
“…Kershaw…. illustrate[d] that without the readiness of many people to work for the man in charge, there would have been no way he could have achieved his murderous aims.
“Kershaw’s main thesis was that the dynamics of the Nazi regime arose from the interplay of Hitler’s intentions with activism emanating from subordinate individuals and institutions. The results were ever more radical ‘solutions.'”
On April 30, 1945, Adolf Hitler simultaneously bit on a cyanide capsule and fired a pistol shot into his right temple.
The concept of “working towards the Fuhrer” seemed to have come to a literally fiery end.
Fast forward almost 80 years later–to January 20, 2025.
Donald J. Trump, upon resuming the office of President, has declared all-out war on illegal aliens within the United States. He has given Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) full powers to seize and deport anyone fitting that description.
Even if that person is a legal resident who has lived in the United States legally with a work permit since 2011 and is protected from deportation by a 2019 court order.
Such was the case with Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a Salvadoran citizen living in Maryland. He illegally entered the United States at age 18 to escape being drafted into the 18th Street Gang.
In 2019 he was arrested in Maryland and detained by federal immigration authorities. An immigration judge granted Garcia protection from deportation because he might risk violence from local gangs in El Salvador.
On March 12, 2025, Garcia was stopped and detained by immigration agents and questioned about his alleged affiliation with the MS-13 gang. MS-13 was originally formed by Salvadoran immigrants fleeing civil war in their homeland and is now involved in myriad illegal enterprises,
ICE deported him to El Salvador, alongside hundreds of other men accused of being gang members.
There was just one problem: Garcia was deported due to a clerical error.
U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis ordered that Garcia be returned to Maryland: “His detention appears wholly lawless.”
In turn, the Justice Department claimed that it could not return him from a sovereign nation.
On April 5, Erez Reuveni, the acting deputy director of the department’s immigration litigation division, struggled to answer questions from the judge about the circumstances of Garcia’s deportation.
Asked why the U.S. couldn’t ask for his return, Reuveni said: “The first thing I did when I got this case on my desk is ask my clients the same question. Our only arguments are jurisdictional. He should not have been sent to El Salvador.
“My answer to a lot of these questions is going to be frustrating, and I am frustrated. The government made a choice here to produce no evidence.”
Attorney General Pam Bondi took issue with how Reuveni handled the case in court. The next day, she ordered him put on administrative leave by Deputy U.S. Attorney Todd Blanche. He is no longer working on the Abrego Garcia case or in the Justice Department in general.
August Flentje, Reuveni’s supervisor, was also placed on administrative leave. Flentje was told he had failed to supervise a subordinate.
In a statement to CNN, Bondi said: “At my direction, every Department of Justice attorney is required to zealously advocate on behalf of the United States. Any attorney who fails to abide by this direction will face consequences.”
Reuveni had been praised as a “top-notched” prosecutor by his superiors in an email announcing his promotion two weeks ago. His crime lay in his failure to “work toward the Fuhrer.“
9/11 TERRORIST ATTACKS, ABC NEWS, AFGHANISTAN, AIRPORT SECURITY, ALTERNET, AMERICABLOG, AP, BABY BOOMER RESISTANCE, BBC, BIRTH CERTIFICATES, BLOOMBERG, BLUESKY, BUZZFEED, CBS NEWS, CNN, CROOKS AND LIARS, DAILY KOS, DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY, DEPARTMENT OF MOTOR VEHICLES, DRIVER'S LICENSES, FACEBOOK, FBI, FIVETHIRTYEIGHT, HARPER’S MAGAZINE, HUFFINGTON POST, IDENTIFICATION, JOE BIDEN, MEDIA MATTERS, MOHAMMED ATTA, MOTHER JONES, MOVEON, MSNBC, NATIONAL CRIME INFORMATION CENTER (NCIC), NATIONAL GUARD, NBC NEWS, NEW REPUBLIC, NEWSDAY, NEWSWEEK, NPR, PASSPORTS, PBS NEWSHOUR, POLITICO, POLITICUSUSA, RAW STORY, REAL ID ACT, REUTERS, SALON, SAN FRANCISCO FEDERAL BUILDING, SEATTLE TIMES, SECURITY THEATER, SLATE, SOCIAL SECURITY CARD, TALIBAN, TALKING POINTS MEMO, TERRORISM, THE ATLANTIC, THE CHICAGO SUN-TIMES, THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE, THE DAILY BEAST, THE DAILY BLOG, THE GUARDIAN, THE HILL, THE HUFFINGTON POST, THE INTERCEPT, THE LOS ANGELES TIMES, THE NATION, THE NEW REPUBLIC, THE NEW YORK TIMES, THE NEW YORKER, THE VILLAGE VOICE, THE WASHINGTON POST, THEODORE BUNDY, THINKPROGRESS, TIME, TRANSPORTATION SECURITY ADMINISTRATION, TRUTHDIG, TRUTHOUT, TWO POLITICAL JUNKIES, U.S. NEWS & WORLD REPORT, UPI, USA TODAY, WORLD TRADE CENTER, X
In Bureaucracy, Business, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Military, Politics, Social commentary on April 23, 2025 at 12:08 am
In 2005—four years after 9/11—Congress passed the Real ID Act as a counter-terrorism measure. Its goal was to set security standards for government-issued IDs.
The Act started to be introduced in late 2013. But then its enforcers decided that some states hadn’t complied with all of its requirements.
As a result, driver’s licenses from those states will no longer suffice to pass through airport security. And that includes domestic flights as well as international ones.
The reason: Licenses issued by those states don’t contain enough identifying information to pass muster with the Transportation Security Administration (TSA).
The new IDs will contain one of five small stickers in the upper right corner to comply.
But the final date for compliance with Real ID has been repeatedly postponed—especially during the COVID-19 pandemic. Its current deadline is May 7, 2025.
After that, only those who have a REAL ID will be allowed to board domestic flights at TSA security checkpoints and enter certain federal buildings and properties.
So what is the easiest way to get a REAL ID? The Federal Government is advising people to get a passport.
But, as one New York traveler outlined: “To get a passport I’ll first need to get a certified copy of my birth certificate.
“And to get a copy of my birth certificate I need only to submit a copy of my driver’s license. A copy, no face-to-face, is-that-really you?
“So a New York driver’s license isn’t good enough for flying but it is good enough to get a birth certificate, which gets me a passport, which allows me to fly.”
In California, the following documents are among those accepted as proof of identity:
- Valid U.S. passport
- Social Security card
- Original or certified copy of U.S. birth certificate
- Valid Permanent Resident card
- Utility bills (at least two from different companies)
Sample state ID card that’s acceptable under the Real ID Act
So much of what passes for security is actually security theater. It doesn’t actually make us safer, but it makes us feel safer.
And it makes us feel the government is keeping us safe, even when it isn’t.
Consider this: A friend of mine—whom I’ll call Jack—recently applied for a Real ID card as issued by the California Department of Motor Vehicles. He brought a certified copy of his birth certificate, bills from AT&T and Pacific Gas and Electric.
The birth certificate easily passed muster. But for a moment there was a problem with the bills from the utility companies: Jack had been getting his mail through a P.O. box, rather than at the apartment building where he lived.
And the “examiner” wanted to see a document with his home address on it.
Fortunately, Jack was able to fish out another bill with that on it. The “examiner” was satisfied, and Jack left the DMV assured that he would soon receive his TSA-approved Real ID card.
So: How does showing a utility bill document prove your integrity?
No doubt Mohammed Atta—the ringleader of the September 11, 2001 attacks—faithfully paid his utility bills—right up to the day when he highjacked American Airlines Flight 11 and crashed the plane into the North Tower of the World Trade Center.
And, yes, a birth certificate proves you were born in the United States—but so was Timothy McVeigh, who, in 1995, blew up the Oklahoma City Federal Building, killing 168 people.
Nor does a “school document”—which can get you a Real ID card—reveal anything about the character of the person.
Theodore Bundy attended the University of Puget Sound and the University of Washington—before embarking on his career as a burglar, kidnapper, rapist and serial killer.
Another form of security theater includes checking photo IDs to enter State and Federal office buildings.
Knowing a person’s identity is useful—if you have a reliable database system to match it against, such as the FBI’s National Crime Information Center (NCIC).
But if you lack this, forcing people to “show me your ID” is pointless. And that’s assuming the ID isn’t fraudulent.
But people watching the guard performing this security theater ritual assume: “The guard must know what he’s looking for. So we have to be safer for his checking those IDs.”
In fact, most security guards have little training and even less experience. Many of them don’t carry firearms and lack self-defense skills.
According to Salary.com: The median annual salary for an unarmed security guard is $47,480, with a range usually between $42,566 and $52,989.
Not exactly a salary geared to attract “the best and the brightest,” is it?
Making all of this even more infuriating: In August, 2021, at least 76,000 unvetted Afghans were admitted into the United States.
The reason: They were too cowardly to fight the Taliban.
Americans had spent 20 years training them to do just that. And as soon as the Taliban launched a major offensive, they fled to Kabul Airport—leaving their wives, girlfriends, mothers and sisters behind to face slavery and brutality.
So while cowardly Afghans—many of whom no doubt had terrorist backgrounds—didn’t have to prove themselves trustworthy, lifelong and law-abiding Americans must.
" WIKIPEDIA, 2016 PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGN, 2020 PRESIDENTIL CAMPAIGN, ABC NEWS, ALTERNET, AMERICABLOG, AP, ATTORNEY GENERAL, BABY BOOMER RESISTANCE, BALLOTS, BBC, BLOOMBERG, BLUESKY, BUZZFEED, CBS NEWS, CENSORSHIP, CHRISTOPHER KREBS, CIVIL RIGHTS, CNN, COVID-19, CROOKS AND LIARS, CYBERSECURITY AND INFRASTRUCTURE SECURITY AGENCY (CISA), DAILY KOS, DEFENSE CYBER COMMAND, DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY (DHS), DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE, DIRECTOR OF NATIONAL INTELLIGENCE, DOMINION VOTING SYSTEMS, DONALD TRUMP, ELECTION ASSISTANCE COMMISSION, ELON MUSK, FACEBOOK, FBI, FEMINISM, FIVETHIRTYEIGHT, FOX NEWS NETWORK, FREEDOM OF THE PRESS, HACKERS, HARPER’S MAGAZINE, HERITAGE FOUNDATION, HILLARY CLINTON, HOLOCAUST, HUFFINGTON POST, I KNOW WHY THE CAGED BIRD SINGS (BOOK), JANET JACOB, JANUARY 6 COUP ATTEMPT, JOSEPH R. BIDEN, JOSEPH STALIN, MARK ZUCKERBERG, MAYA ANGELOU, MEDIA MATTERS, MEIN KAMPF (BOOK), MOTHER JONES, MOVEON, MSNBC, NATIONAL SECURITY AGENCY, NBC NEWS, NEW REPUBLIC, NEWSDAY, NEWSWEEK, NORTH ATLANTIC TREATY ORGANIZATION (NATO), NPR, PBS NEWSHOUR, PETE HEGSETH, POLITICO, POLITICUSUSA, PROJECT 2025, RACISM, RAW STORY, REPUBLICANS, REUTERS, SALON, SEATTLE TIMES, Secret Service, SENTINELONE, SLATE, SOVIET UNION, TALKING POINTS MEMO, THE ATLANTIC, THE CAMP OF THE SAINTS (BOOK), THE CHICAGO SUN-TIMES, THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE, THE DAILY BEAST, THE DAILY BLOG, THE GUARDIAN, THE HILL, THE HUFFINGTON POST, THE INTERCEPT, THE LOS ANGELES TIMES, THE NATION, THE NEW REPUBLIC, THE NEW YORK TIMES, THE NEW YORKER, THE VILLAGE VOICE, THE WASHINGTON POST, THINKPROGRESS, TIME, TROLLS, TRUTHDIG, TRUTHOUT, TWITTER, TWO POLITICAL JUNKIES, U.S. NEWS & WORLD REPORT, UNITED STATES NAVAL ACADEMY LIBRARY, UPI, USA TODAY, VLADIMIR PUTIN, WHITE SUPREMACY, X
In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Politics, Social commentary on April 16, 2025 at 12:10 am
On April 9, 2025, the White House (i.e., President Donald J. Trump) issued a MEMORANDUM FOR THE HEADS OF EXECUTIVE DEPARTMENTS AND AGENCIES.
Its purpose: To target Christopher Krebs, the former director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) run by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) for potential arrest and prosecution.
Krebs’ “crime”: Ensuring that the 2020 Presidential election was free of lies spread by Russians—and Americans—on social media platforms.
Deprived of his expected support from Russian trolls and hackers, Trump lost.
Now he wants “revenge.”
Chris Krebs
Among the “charges” outlined in Trump’s memorandum:
“Krebs skewed the bona fide debate about COVID-19 by attempting to discredit widely shared views that ran contrary to CISA’s favored perspective.”
During 2020—Trump’s last year in office as President—COVID-19 ravaged the United States. At least 400,000 Americans died—many of them because they believed Trump’s claims that:
- His administration had it under control; and
- There was no need to protect oneself from it—such as by social distancing and wearing masks in public.
Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin, in a moment of rare candor, once revealed his satanic ruthlessness to a group of fellow Bolsheviks: “To choose one’s victims, to prepare one’s plans minutely, to slake an implacable vengeance, and then to go to bed – there is nothing sweeter in the world.“
Joseph Stalin
On April 9, 2025, Trump revealed his intention to live by that belief. In his memorandum, he outlined his plans for revenge on Chris Krebs.
“I hereby direct the heads of executive department and agencies (agencies) to immediately take steps consistent with existing law to revoke any active security clearance held by Christopher Krebs.
“I further direct the Attorney General, the Director of National Intelligence, and all other relevant agencies to immediately take all action as necessary and consistent with existing law to suspend any active security clearances held by individuals at entities associated with Krebs, including SentinelOne, pending a review of whether such clearances are consistent with the national interest.”
Donald Trump
SentinelOne is an American cybersecurity company in Mountain View, California, where Krebs serves as Chief Intelligence and Public Policy Officer.
“I further direct the Attorney General and the Secretary of Homeland Security, in consultation with any other agency head, to take all appropriate action to review Krebs’ activities as a Government employee, including his leadership of CISA [Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency].“
“This review should identify any instances where Krebs’ conduct appears to have been contrary to suitability standards for Federal employees, involved the unauthorized dissemination of classified information, or contrary to the purposes and policies identified in Executive Order 14149 of January 20, 2025 (Restoring Freedom of Speech and Ending Federal Censorship).”
Trump is speaking about the censorship of Right-wing speech, which is virtually non-existent. But he has no qualms about suppressing freedom of speech for his critics.
He blocked access by the Associated Press to White House events because it refused to bow to his demand that it refer to the Gulf of Mexico as the “Gulf of America.”
On April 9, District Judge Trevor McFadden ruled the administration’s restriction on AP journalists was “contrary to the First Amendment,” which guarantees freedom of speech.
The administration has appealed the verdict to the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.
According to Trump’s memorandum:
“As part of that review, I direct a comprehensive evaluation of all of CISA’s activities over the last 6 years, focusing specifically on any instances where CISA’s conduct appears to have been contrary to the purposes and policies identified in Executive Order 14149.
“Upon completing these reviews, the Attorney General and the Secretary of Homeland Security shall prepare a joint report to be submitted to the President, through the Counsel to the President, with recommendations for appropriate remedial or preventative actions to be taken to fulfill the purposes and policies of Executive Order 14149.”
Clearly, Trump seeks to find any plausibly legal excuse to destroy the man who dared come between him and his Russian backers in 2020—and who contradicted his lies about COVID and the election.
Donald Trump’s ambition to become absolute dictator fits brilliantly into the goals of Project 2025, also known as the Presidential Transition Project.
This is a collection of policy proposals to fundamentally reshape the U.S. federal government in the event of a Republican victory in the 2024 Presidential election.
During the 2024 Presidential campaign, Trump repeatedly denied knowing anything about it—thus adding to the cascade of lies he spins almost every time he opens his mouth.
Established in 2022 by the Right-wing Heritage Foundation, the project aims to recruit tens of thousands of radical Right-wingers to the District of Columbia to replace existing federal civil servants.
Among Project 2025’s priorities:
- Replace tenured civil servants with thousands of political hacks to establish an absolute dictatorship under a Republican President.
- “Reform” the Department of Justice by making it the President’s personal law firm.
- Make the director of the FBI personally accountable to the President—as the head of the KGB is personally accountable to Vladimir Putin.
History-ignorant Americans are about to discover what it meant to live in the Soviet Union of Joseph Stalin—where truth and integrity were punished and lies and treachery were rewarded.
" WIKIPEDIA, 2016 PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGN, 2020 PRESIDENTIL CAMPAIGN, ABC NEWS, ALTERNET, AMERICABLOG, AP, ATTORNEY GENERAL, BABY BOOMER RESISTANCE, BALLOTS, BBC, BLOOMBERG, BLUESKY, BUZZFEED, CBS NEWS, CENSORSHIP, CHRISTOPHER KREBS, CIVIL RIGHTS, CNN, COVID-19, CROOKS AND LIARS, CYBERSECURITY AND INFRASTRUCTURE SECURITY AGENCY (CISA), DAILY KOS, DEFENSE CYBER COMMAND, DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY (DHS), DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE, DIRECTOR OF NATIONAL INTELLIGENCE, DOMINION VOTING SYSTEMS, DONALD TRUMP, ELECTION ASSISTANCE COMMISSION, ELON MUSK, FACEBOOK, FBI, FEMINISM, FIVETHIRTYEIGHT, FOX NEWS NETWORK, FREEDOM OF THE PRESS, HACKERS, HARPER’S MAGAZINE, HERITAGE FOUNDATION, HILLARY CLINTON, HOLOCAUST, HUFFINGTON POST, I KNOW WHY THE CAGED BIRD SINGS (BOOK), JANET JACOB, JANUARY 6 COUP ATTEMPT, JOSEPH R. BIDEN, JOSEPH STALIN, MARK ZUCKERBERG, MAYA ANGELOU, MEDIA MATTERS, MEIN KAMPF (BOOK), MOTHER JONES, MOVEON, MSNBC, NATIONAL SECURITY AGENCY, NBC NEWS, NEW REPUBLIC, NEWSDAY, NEWSWEEK, NORTH ATLANTIC TREATY ORGANIZATION (NATO), NPR, PBS NEWSHOUR, PETE HEGSETH, POLITICO, POLITICUSUSA, PROJECT 2025, RACISM, RAW STORY, REPUBLICANS, REUTERS, SALON, SEATTLE TIMES, Secret Service, SENTINELONE, SLATE, SOVIET UNION, TALKING POINTS MEMO, THE ATLANTIC, THE CAMP OF THE SAINTS (BOOK), THE CHICAGO SUN-TIMES, THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE, THE DAILY BEAST, THE DAILY BLOG, THE GUARDIAN, THE HILL, THE HUFFINGTON POST, THE INTERCEPT, THE LOS ANGELES TIMES, THE NATION, THE NEW REPUBLIC, THE NEW YORK TIMES, THE NEW YORKER, THE VILLAGE VOICE, THE WASHINGTON POST, THINKPROGRESS, TIME, TROLLS, TRUTHDIG, TRUTHOUT, TWITTER, TWO POLITICAL JUNKIES, U.S. NEWS & WORLD REPORT, UNITED STATES NAVAL ACADEMY LIBRARY, UPI, USA TODAY, VLADIMIR PUTIN, WHITE SUPREMACY, X
In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Politics, Social commentary on April 15, 2025 at 12:08 am
On April 9, 2025, the White House (i.e., President Donald J. Trump) issued a MEMORANDUM FOR THE HEADS OF EXECUTIVE DEPARTMENTS AND AGENCIES.
Its purpose was to target Christopher Krebs, the former director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) run by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) for potential arrest and prosecution.
Krebs’ “crime”: Ensuring that the 2020 Presidential election was free of lies spread by Russians—and Americans—on social media platforms.
Krebs did his job so effectively that Americans elected former Vice President Joseph R. Biden instead of re-electing then-President Trump.
And for Trump-–newly reinstalled as President in 2025—this was the equivalent of treason.
Donald Trump
Among the “charges” outlined in Trump’s memorandum:
“These disgraceful actions have taken the form of coercive threats against the private sector — including major social media platforms — to suppress conservative or dissenting voices and distort public opinion.”
The two biggest and most influential social media platforms—Twitter (now X) and Facebook—are owned by avowedly Right-wing billionaires: Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg. They gave Trump a huge megaphone of support during the 2016 and 2020 Presidential elections.
After he incited a treasonous riot against Congress on January 6, 2021, both platforms briefly banned him from posting. But then both—fearing “retribution” if he became President again—once again gave him access to their audiences.
Trump’s memorandum then moves from his general hates to his specific one: Chris Krebs.
“Christopher Krebs, the former head of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), is a significant bad-faith actor who weaponized and abused his Government authority. Krebs’ misconduct involved the censorship of disfavored speech implicating the 2020 election and COVID-19 pandemic.”
And how did Krebs do this? By guaranteeing that the 2020 Presidential election was free of Russian trolls and hackers. Specifically:
Krebs’ to-do list included paper ballots:
“Paper ballots give you the ability to audit, to go back and check the tape and make sure that you got the count right. And that’s really one of the keys to success for a secure 2020 election. Ninety-five percent of the ballots cast in the 2020 election had a paper record associated with it. Compared to 2016, about 82%.
“That gives you the ability to prove that there was no malicious algorithm or hacked software that adjusted the tally of the vote, and just look at what happened in Georgia. Georgia has machines that tabulate the vote. They then held a hand recount and the outcome was consistent with the machine vote.”
“CISA, under Krebs’ leadership, suppressed conservative viewpoints under the guise of combatting supposed disinformation, and recruited and coerced major social media platforms to further its partisan mission….”
There is absolutely no evidence to support this lie.
“Krebs, through CISA, promoted the censorship of election information, including known risks associated with certain voting practices.”
Krebs’ election-security duties included:
- Sharing intelligence from agencies such as the CIA and National Security Agency with local officials about foreign efforts at election interference.
- Ensuring that domestic voting equipment was secure.
- Attacking domestic misinformation head-on.
Chris Krebs
At his command lay the resources of a series of powerful Federal investigative agencies:
“We had the Department of Defense Cyber Command. We had the National Security Agency. We had the FBI. We had the Secret Service. We also had representatives from the Election Assistance Commission, which is the federal independent agency that supports the actual administration of elections.”
As a result, Krebs was widely praised for revamping the department’s cybersecurity efforts and increasing coordination with state and local governments.
By all accounts—except Trump’s—the November 3, 2020 election went very smoothly.
On November 12, to counter the growing chorus of lies from Trump and his Right-wing allies that the election had been stolen, Krebs put out the following statement:
“The November 3rd election was the most secure in American history. There is no evidence that any voting system deleted or lost votes, changed votes, or was in any way compromised.”
On November 17, Trump fired Chris Krebs.
Too cowardly to confront Krebs, Trump fired him by tweet—and accompanied the outrage with yet more lies:
“The recent statement by Chris Krebs on the security of the 2020 election was highly inaccurate, in that there were massive improprieties and fraud, including dead people voting, poll watchers not allowed into polling locations, glitches in the voting machines which changed votes from Trump to Biden, late voting, and many more.
Back to Trump’s memorandum/”indictment”:
“Similarly, Krebs, through CISA, falsely and baselessly denied that the 2020 election was rigged and stolen, including by inappropriately and categorically dismissing widespread election malfeasance and serious vulnerabilities with voting machines.”
Immediately after losing the 2020 Presidential election, Trump began spreading “The Big Lie”: That he had been defeated by massive voter fraud. And that this had been made possible through Dominion Voting Systems.
And soon Trump had the help of a major Right-wing propagandist to carry his lie nationwide: The Fox News Network.
On April 18, 2023, Fox News agreed to pay Dominion Voting Systems $797 million to avert a wrongful defamation trial. Dominion’s lawsuit would have exposed how the network promoted lies about the 2020 presidential election—all the while knowing they were lies.
So much for Trump’s claims of “widespread election malfeasance and serious vulnerabilities with voting machines.”
" WIKIPEDIA, 2016 PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGN, 2020 PRESIDENTIL CAMPAIGN, ABC NEWS, ALTERNET, AMERICABLOG, AP, ATTORNEY GENERAL, BABY BOOMER RESISTANCE, BALLOTS, BBC, BLOOMBERG, BLUESKY, BUZZFEED, CBS NEWS, CENSORSHIP, CHRISTOPHER KREBS, CIVIL RIGHTS, CNN, COVID-19, CROOKS AND LIARS, CYBERSECURITY AND INFRASTRUCTURE SECURITY AGENCY (CISA), DAILY KOS, DEFENSE CYBER COMMAND, DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY (DHS), DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE, DIRECTOR OF NATIONAL INTELLIGENCE, DOMINION VOTING SYSTEMS, DONALD TRUMP, ELECTION ASSISTANCE COMMISSION, ELON MUSK, FACEBOOK, FBI, FEMINISM, FIVETHIRTYEIGHT, FOX NEWS NETWORK, FREEDOM OF THE PRESS, HACKERS, HARPER’S MAGAZINE, HERITAGE FOUNDATION, HILLARY CLINTON, HOLOCAUST, HUFFINGTON POST, I KNOW WHY THE CAGED BIRD SINGS (BOOK), JANET JACOB, JANUARY 6 COUP ATTEMPT, JOSEPH R. BIDEN, JOSEPH STALIN, MARK ZUCKERBERG, MAYA ANGELOU, MEDIA MATTERS, MEIN KAMPF (BOOK), MOTHER JONES, MOVEON, MSNBC, NATIONAL SECURITY AGENCY, NBC NEWS, NEW REPUBLIC, NEWSDAY, NEWSWEEK, NORTH ATLANTIC TREATY ORGANIZATION (NATO), NPR, PBS NEWSHOUR, PETE HEGSETH, POLITICO, POLITICUSUSA, PROJECT 2025, RACISM, RAW STORY, REPUBLICANS, REUTERS, SALON, SEATTLE TIMES, Secret Service, SENTINELONE, SLATE, SOVIET UNION, TALKING POINTS MEMO, THE ATLANTIC, THE CAMP OF THE SAINTS (BOOK), THE CHICAGO SUN-TIMES, THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE, THE DAILY BEAST, THE DAILY BLOG, THE GUARDIAN, THE HILL, THE HUFFINGTON POST, THE INTERCEPT, THE LOS ANGELES TIMES, THE NATION, THE NEW REPUBLIC, THE NEW YORK TIMES, THE NEW YORKER, THE VILLAGE VOICE, THE WASHINGTON POST, THINKPROGRESS, TIME, TROLLS, TRUTHDIG, TRUTHOUT, TWITTER, TWO POLITICAL JUNKIES, U.S. NEWS & WORLD REPORT, UNITED STATES NAVAL ACADEMY LIBRARY, UPI, USA TODAY, VLADIMIR PUTIN, WHITE SUPREMACY, X
In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Politics, Social commentary on April 14, 2025 at 12:10 am
In the United States of Donald Trump, protecting the right to legitimate elections can get you investigated—if not indicted.
Case in point: Christopher Krebs, who prevented Russian trolls and hackers from sabotaging the 2020 Presidential election.
During the 2016 Presidential race, Russian propaganda played a major role in convincing millions of Americans to vote for Donald Trump. Social media platforms—especially Facebook and Twitter—were flooded with genuinely fake news to sow discord among Americans and create a pathway for Trump’s election.
And where Internet trolls left off, Russian computer hackers took over.
Hillary Clinton won the popular vote—65,853,514 to 62,984,828 for Trump. But in the United States, what counts in Presidential elections is the Electoral College vote.
And there Trump won: 304 to 227.
What put him over the top in the Electoral College was the help he got from Russian dictator Vladimir Putin.
Vladimir Putin
Putin had good reason to assist Trump: Putin wanted the United States to ditch the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) alliance, which has preserved Western Europe from Russian aggression since World War II. And Trump had often attacked America’s funding of NATO as a drain on the American economy.
As for Trump, he wanted something from Putin: He wanted to be President. For this, Putin could supply monies, Internet trolls to confuse voters with falsified news, and even the hacking of key voting centers.
So notorious was the role played by Russian trolls and hackers in winning Trump the 2016 election that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) was determined to prevent a repetition in 2020.
And the point man for this was Chris Krebs, the director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) run by DHS.
Born in Atlanta, Georgia, in 1977, Krebs had received a B.A. in environmental sciences from the University of Virginia in 1999, and a J.D. from the George Mason University School of Law in 2007.
Chris Krebs
Krebs had served as Senior Advisor to the Assistant Secretary of Homeland Security for Infrastructure Protection, and later worked in the private sector as Director for Cybersecurity Policy for Microsoft.
In preparation for the 2020 Presidential election, Krebs launched a massive effort to counter lies spread by Russians—and Americans—on social media platforms. As he explained to Scott Pelley during a “60 Minutes” interview aired on November 29, 2020:
“So we spent something on the order of three and a half years of gaming out every possible scenario for how a foreign actor could interfere with an election. Countless, countless scenarios.”
What Krebs could not know was that, less than five years later, his dedication to ensuring a free democratic election would put him in the crosshairs of the Justice Department.
A Justice Department under the control of the man defeated for the Presidency in 2020: Donald J. Trump.
On April 9, 2025, the White House (i.e., Trump) issued MEMORANDUM FOR THE HEADS OF EXECUTIVE DEPARTMENTS AND AGENCIES.
According to Wikipedia: “Donald Trump has made tens of thousands of false or misleading claims, including during his first and second terms as President of the United States. Fact-checkers at The Washington Post documented 30,573 false or misleading claims during his first presidential term, an average of 21 per day.”
So it was fitting that Trump’s memorandum opened with an outright series of lies disguised as an indictment:
“The Federal Government has a constitutional duty and a moral responsibility to respect and promote the free speech rights of Americans.
“Yet in recent years, elitist leaders in Government have unlawfully censored speech and weaponized their undeserved influence to silence perceived political opponents and advance their preferred, and often erroneous, narrative about significant matters of public debate.
“These disgraceful actions have taken the form of coercive threats against the private sector — including major social media platforms — to suppress conservative or dissenting voices and distort public opinion.
“Much of this censorship took place during a Presidential election with the apparent purpose of undermining the free exchange of ideas and debate.”
When Donald Trump makes an accusation, it is nearly always a confession of a crime he has committed or plans to commit. Thus, the above statements reflect exactly the agenda and practices of both the first Trump administration and the present one.
For example: “Elitist leaders in Government have unlawfully censored speech and weaponized their undeserved influence to silence perceived political opponents and advance their preferred, and often erroneous, narrative about significant matters of public debate.“
Trump ordered Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth to purge the U.S. Naval Academy Library of books that focus on race, gender, and sexuality, and historical books on racism and white supremacy. These include books on the Holocaust, histories of feminism, civil rights and racism.
Thus, two copies of Adolf Hitler’s Mein Kampf are available for checkout, while Maya Angelou’s I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings is not.
Memorializing the Holocaust, Janet Jacob’s book on how female victims of the Holocaust have been portrayed, is gone. But The Camp of the Saints by Jean Raspail is still on the shelves. A 1973 novel which envisions a takeover of the Western world by immigrants from Third World countries, it has been embraced by white supremacists.
ABC NEWS, ADOLF HITLER, ALTERNET, AMERICABLOG, AP, BABY BOOMER RESISTANCE, BATTLE OF OMDURMAN, BLOOMBERG, BONE SPURS, BRITISH ARMY, BUZZFEED, CBS NEWS, CNN, CROOKS AND LIARS, DAILY KOZ, DEMOCRATS, DONALD TRUMP, DRAFT DODGING, DRUDGE RETORT, EGYPT, FIVETHIRTYEIGHT, FOUR QUEEN’S OWN HUSSARS REGIMENT, GEORGE FLOYD, HARPER’S MAGAZINE, IMPEACHMENT, INDIA, JESUS, JOSEPH STALIN, KAYLEIGH MCENANY, KIM JONG-UN, LAFAYETTE PARK, LOS ANGELES, MEDIA MATTERS, MEMES, MOTHER JONES, MOVEON, MSNBC, MURIEL BOWSER, NATIONAL GUARD, NAZI GERMANY, NBC NEWS, NEW YORK CITY, NEWSWEEK, NORTH KOREA, NPR, OSAMA BIN LADEN, PBS NEWSHOUR, POLITICO, POLITICUSUSA, RAW STORY, REPUBLICANS, REUTERS, RUSSIA, SALON, SAN FRANCISCO, SCOTLAND YARD’S SPECIAL BRANCH, SEATTLE TIMES, Secret Service, SLATE, ST. JOHN’S CHURCH, TALKING POINTS MEMO, TEAR GAS, THE ATLANTIC, THE CHICAGO SUN-TIMES, THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE, THE DAILY BEAST, THE DAILY BLOG, THE GUARDIAN, THE HILL, THE HUFFINGTON POST, THE LOS ANGELES TIMES, THE NATION, THE NEW REPUBLIC, THE NEW YORK TIMES, THE VILLAGE VOICE, THE WASHINGTON POST, THINKPROGRESS, TIME, TITAN MINI-SUB, TITANIC, TRUTHDIG, TRUTHOUT, TWENTY-FIRST LANCERS, TWO POLITICAL JUNKIES, U.S. NEWS & WORLD REPORT, U.S. PARK POLICE, UPI, USA TODAY, VIETNAM WAR, VLADIMIR PUTIN, WALTER THOMPSON, WHITE HOUSE, WINSTON CHURCHILL, WONKETTE, WORLD WAR 11, X
In Bureaucracy, History, Law Enforcement, Military, Politics, Social commentary on April 9, 2025 at 12:11 am
There are literally no limits to which Donald Trump’s fanatical supporters will go to convince others he’s a heroic champion worthy of their reverence.
On Facebook and Twitter, his disciples post images of him that are not only false but laughably so.
One such image posted by “Nick Adams (Alpha Male)” showed the jowly, grotesquely overweight, 77-year-old ex-President as a muscular bodybuilder. And it came with the caption: “President Trump is a TITAN!”
Ironically, the tweet came on the same day—June 18, 2023—when news broke of the implosion of the Titan mini-sub and the loss of its five-man crew. The tragedy occurred during a dive to view the wreckage of the Titanic, which sank in 1912.
Other memes have depicted Trump—a notorious draft-dodger who received no fewer than five deferments to escape the Vietnam war—as a military hero, clad in full military gear.
One even claimed he had killed Osama bin Laden—an act that occurred when Barack Obama was President and Trump was safely presiding over the TV show, “The Apprentice.”
Other propagandists for Trump have depicted him as beloved by Jesus. This despite the fact that Trump is a notorious liar, egomaniac, adulterer, thief and materialist.
Still others have tried to compare Trump to historical titans—like Winston Churchill.
On May 25, 2020, mass protests erupted across the country following the murder of George Floyd, a black unemployed restaurant security guard, by Derek Chauvin, a white Minneapolis police officer.
Cities such as Los Angeles, San Francisco and New York City saw stores looted, vandalized and/or burned. In response, President Trump called for harsh policing, telling governors in a nationwide conference call that they must “dominate” protesters or be seen as “weak.”
Death of George Floyd
To drive home his point, on June 1, Trump ordered police, Secret Service agents and National Guard troops to violently remove peaceful protesters from Lafayette Square, which borders St. John’s Church near the White House.
The purpose of the removal: So Trump—holding a Bible upside down—could have a photo-op in front of the church.
On June 3, White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany compared Trump’s photo-op in front of St. John’s Episcopal Church to former British Prime Minister Winston Churchill’s visits to bombed British cities during World War II:
“Through all of time, we have seen presidents and leaders across the world who have had leadership moments and very powerful symbols that were important for a nation to see at any given time to show a message of resilience and determination.
“Like Churchill, we saw him inspecting the bombing damage. It sent a powerful message of leadership to the British people.”
Kayleigh McEnany
Comparing Trump to Churchill proved a triumph of imagination on McEnany’s part:
- Churchill was an avowed and relentless opponent of Fascism—and especially its most infamous exponent, German Chancellor Adolf Hitler.
- During the 1930s, as Europe’s democracies ignored or quailed before Nazi threats, Churchill demanded that England arm for the coming war against Nazi Germany.
- Trump, a Fascistic dictator by nature, tried to rule by fiat and identified with dictators—most notably Communist ones, such as Russia’s Vladimir Putin and North Korea’s Kim Jong-Un.
- Throughout World War II, Churchill had only one bodyguard—Inspector Walter Thompson, of Scotland Yard’s Special Branch.
Winston Churchill (testing a submachinegun); Walter Thompson (in black fedora)
- Trump was constantly protected by hundreds of Secret Service agents who were supplemented by platoons of local police.
- During bombing raids, Churchill often climbed atop London buildings to watch the bombardment—or raced to cities he had just learned were under attack.
- During the George Floyd protests, Trump ducked into the White House’s bombproof bunker.
- Trump turned the normally well-protected White House into an armed fortress. Block after block of tall, black reinforced fencing had been erected in recent days. Tan military vehicles rolled along Pennsylvania Avenue and camo-clad troops patrolled the corner where tourists once bought red, white and blue USA sweatshirts.
- As a young man, Churchill had served as a second lieutenant in the Fourth Queen’s Own Hussars regiment of the British Army. He volunteered to campaign against Islamic rebels in the Swat Valley of northwest India. In Egypt, he joined the 21st Lancers and saw action in the Battle of Omdurman.
- Trump had used his father’s influence to win five draft deferments during the Vietnam war—four allowing him to complete college and one for “bone spurs.”
Donald Trump is by no means the first tyrant to be hailed as a hero.
Nazi Germany’s Adolf Hitler—who almost certainly never rode a horse—was depicted as an armor-clad knight holding a swastika banner while astride a spirited steed.
And the Soviet Union’s Joseph Stalin—whose pockmarked face, short stature and widening girth were visible to all who met him—was depicted in posters as handsome, gigantic and trim.
Tyrants pay close attention to how they are depicted. They want to be seen as forever modest, humble, wise and courageous—the embodiment of virtue and patriotism.
To depict them as they usually are—vain, arrogant, stupid, cowardly—they consider a personal affront and a challenge to their absolute rule.
2016 PRESIDENTIAL RACE, 2024 PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION, ABC NEWS, ADRIANNE ZUCKER, ALTERNET, AMERICABLOG, ANTHONY FAUCI, AP, BABY BOOMER RESISTANCE, BBC, BILL CLINTON, BILLY BUSH, BLOOMBERG, BLOOMBERG NEWS, BLUESKY, BUZZFEED, CBS NEWS, CENTERS FOR DISEASE CONTROL AND PREVENTION, CNN, CROOKS AND LIARS, DAILY KOS, DAILY KOZ, DAYS OF OUR LIVES, DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES, DEPARTMENT OF VETERANS AFFAIRS, DONALD TRUMP, DRUDGE REPORT, ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY, FACEBOOK, FEDERAL AVIATION ADMINISTRATION, FIVETHIRTYEIGHT, FOOD AND DRUG ADMINISTRATION, GAIUS CALIGULA, GAIUS SUETONIUS TRANQUILLUS, HARPER’S MAGAZINE, HUFFINGTON POST, IVANKA TRUMP, JANUARY 6 COMMITTEE, JANUARY 6 COUP ATTEMPT, Kamala Harris, LIZ CHENEY, MARK MILLEY, MEDIA MATTERS, MICHELE BACHMANN, MOTHER JONES, MOVEON, MSNBC, NBC NEWS, NEW REPUBLIC, NEWSDAY, NEWSWEEK, NPR, PBS NEWSHOUR, POLITICO, POLITICUSUSA, RAW STORY, REPUBLICAN PARTY, REUTERS, ROMAN EMPIRE, SALON, SEATTLE TIMES, Secret Service, SEXUAL HARASSMENT, SLATE, TALKING POINTS MEMO, THE ATLANTIC, THE CHICAGO SUN-TIMES, THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE, THE DAILY BEAST, THE DAILY BLOG, THE GUARDIAN, THE HILL, THE HUFFINGTON POST, THE INTERCEPT, THE LOS ANGELES TIMES, THE NATION, THE NEW REPUBLIC, THE NEW YORK TIMES, THE NEW YORKER, THE TWELVE CAESARS, THE VILLAGE VOICE, THE WALL STREET JOURNAL, THE WASHINGTON POST, THINKPROGRESS, TIME, TODAY, TRUTHDIG, TRUTHOUT, TWO POLITICAL JUNKIES, U.S. NEWS & WORLD REPORT, UPI, USA TODAY, VETERANS, X
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.
&docid=yt8OxrbTDh591M&tbnid=ik44Wblm3ZvX6M%3A&vet=1&w=325&h=475&bih=469&biw=819&ved=0ahUKEwjC-_Ka0enRAhVJKGMKHV61ApUQMwghKAAwAA&iact=c&ictx=1)
Bureaucracybuster's Blog 
2016 PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION, 2020 PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION, ABC NEWS, ABUSE OF POWER, ADOLF HITLER, ALTERNET, AMANDA CHASE, AMERICABLOG, AP, ARMED SERVICES, BABY BOOMER RESISTANCE, BARACK OBAMA, BLOOMBERG, BUZZFEED, CBS NEWS, CIA, CLAUS VON STAUFFENBERG, CNN, COVID-19, CROOKS AND LIARS, DAILY KOZ, DONALD TRUMP, DRUDGE RETORT, FACEBOOK, FBI, FEDERAL GOVERNMENT SHUTDOWN, FIVETHIRTYEIGHT, GENERAL SERVICES ADMINISTRATION, GESTAPO, HARPER’S MAGAZINE, HILLARY CLINTON, IMPEACHMENT ARTICLES, JAMES B. COMEY, JAMES MATTIS, JOHN KASICH, JOHN MCCAIN, JOSEPH BIDEN, KIM JONG-UN, MARK ESPER, MARTIAL LAW, MARTIN NIEMOELLER, MEDIA MATTERS, MICHAEL FLYNN, MOTHER JONES, MOVEON, MSNBC, MUSLIMS, NATIONAL SECURITY AGENCY, NAZI GERMANY, NBC NEWS, NEWSWEEK, NPR, OBSTRUCTION OF CONGRESS, PBS NEWSHOUR, POLITICO, POLITICUSUSA, RAW STORY, REPUBLICANS, REUTERS, SALON, SEATTLE TIMES, SERGEY KISLYAK, SERGEY LAVROV, SLATE, TALKING POINTS MEMO, THE ATLANTIC, THE CHICAGO SUN-TIMES, THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE, THE DAILY BEAST, THE DAILY BLOG, THE GUARDIAN, THE HILL, THE HUFFINGTON POST, THE LOS ANGELES TIMES, THE NATION, THE NEW REPUBLIC, THE NEW YORK TIMES, THE PENTAGON, THE TWILIGHT ZONE, THE VILLAGE VOICE, THE WASHINGTON POST, THINKPROGRESS, THIRD REICH, TIME, TRUTHDIG, TRUTHOUT, TWENTY-FIFTH AMENDMENT, TWO POLITICAL JUNKIES, U.S. NEWS & WORLD REPORT, UNITED STATES CONSTITUTION, UNITED STATES SECRET SERVICE, UPI, USA TODAY, VLADIMIR PUTIN, VOTER FRAUD, WONKETTE, WORLD WAR 11, X
HITLER’S GERMANY HAD ITS RESISTENCE MOVEMENT-–TRUMP’S AMERICA DID NOT: PART TWO (OF THREE)
In History, Law, Law Enforcement, Military, Politics, Social commentary on May 6, 2025 at 12:05 amOn July 20, 1944, Colonel Claus Schenk von Stuaffenberg tried to assassinate Adolf Hitler.
He had served with the Wehrmacht in Poland (1939), France (1940) and the Soviet Union (1941).
While serving in Tunisa, he was seriously wounded on April 7, 1943, when Allied fighters strafed his vehicle. He lost his left eye, right hand and two fingers of his left hand after surgery.
Colonel Claus Schenk von Stuaffenberg
Nevertheless, he now acted as the prime mover for the conspiracy among a growing number of German high command officers to arrest or assassinate Germany’s Fuehrer.
For most of these officers, the motive was craven: The “happy time” of German victories was over. Germany was losing the war it had unleashed on the world in 1939—and now they feared the worst.
This was especially true now that the numerically superior forces of the Soviet Union had gone onto the offensive.
For Stauffenberg, there was another reason: His disgust at the horrors he had seen committed by his fellow Wehrmacht soldiers upon defenseless POW’s and civilians in Russia.
Thus, Stauffenberg—more than many Germans–knew firsthand the vengeance his country could expect if the “Thousand-Year Reich” fell.
Something must be done, he believed, to prove to the world that not all Germans—even members of the Wehrmacht—were criminals.
Most of the conspirators wanted to arrest Hitler and surrender to British and American forces—well before the much-feared Russians gained a toehold in Germany.
Stauffenberg didn’t want to arrest Hitler; he wanted to kill him. A live Hitler might eventually be rescued by his Nazi colleagues.
But Hitler was a closely-guarded target. He was surrounded by fanatical bodyguards who were expert marksmen. He often wore a bulletproof vest and a cap lined with three pounds of laminated steel.
Adolf Hitler
Bundesarchiv, Bild 146-1990-048-29A / CC-BY-SA 3.0 [CC BY-SA 3.0 de (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/de/deed.en)%5D
But his single greatest protection—he claimed—was an instinct for danger. He would suddenly change his schedule—to drop in where he was least expected. Or suddenly depart an event where he was expected to stay a long time.
That instinct had repeatedly saved his life.
A series of assassination attempts had been made against Hitler. All of them involved time-bombs. And all of the would-be assassins were members of the German General Staff.
In one case, a bomb secretly stashed aboard Hitler’s plane failed to explode. In another, an officer who had a bomb strapped to himself unexpectedly found his scheduled meeting with Hitler called off. He had to rush into a bathroom to defuse the bomb before it exploded.
Stauffenberg intended to carry his bomb—hidden in a briefcase—into a “Hitler conference” room packed with military officers. Rigged with a time-fuse, it would be left there while he found an excuse to leave.
After the explosion, he would phone one of his fellow conspirators with the news.
Stauffenberg intended to direct the new government that would replace that of the Nazis—and open peace talks with the British and Americans.
With Hitler dead, the coup—“Operation Valkyrie”—would be on.
Anti-Nazi conspirators would seize control of key posts of the government. The British and Americans would then be informed of Germany’s willingness to surrender. Provided, of course, that the vengeance-seeking Russians did not have a say in its postwar future.
The Wehrmacht and Schutzstaffel (SS) had killed millions of Russians. Many had died in combat. Others had been murdered as captives. Still more had been allowed to die by starvation and exposure to the notorious Russian winter.
So the Germans—both Nazi and anti-Nazi—knew what they could expect if soldiers of the Soviet Union reached German soil.
On July 20, 1944, Stauffenberg appeared at Hitler’s well-guarded military headquarters in East Prussia. Like all his other outposts, Hitler had named it—appropriately enough—“Wolf’s Lair.”
“Wolf’s Lair”
Stauffenberg entered the large, concrete building while the conference was in session. He placed his yellow briefcase next to Hitler—who was standing with his generals at a heavy oaken table. Then he excused himself to take an “urgent” phone call.
After Stauffenberg left the room, Colonel Heinz Brandt, standing next to Hitler, found the briefcase blocking his legs. So he moved it—to the other side of the heavy oaken support, partially shielding Hitler from the blast..
At 12:42 p.m. on July 20, 1944, Stauffenberg’s briefcase bomb erupted.
Brandt died, as did two other officers and a stenographer.
Hitler not only survived, but the plotters failed to seize the key broadcast facilities of the Reich.
This allowed Hitler to make a late-night speech to the nation, revealing the failed plot and assuring Germans that he was still alive. And he swore to flush out the “traitorous swine” who had tried to kill him.
Mass arrests quickly followed.
Among the first victims discovered and executed was the conspiracy’s leader, Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg. Standing before a makeshift firing squad at midnight, he cried: “Long live our sacred Germany!”
At least 7,000 persons were arrested by the Gestapo. Of these, 4,980 were executed.
Share this: