Posts Tagged ‘BLUESKY’
ABC NEWS, ABORTION, ADOLF HITLER, ALTERNET, AMERICABLOG, AP, BABY BOOMER RESISTANCE, BBC, BLOOMBERG, BLOOMBERG NEWS, BLUESKY, BUZZFEED, CBS NEWS, CNN, CROOKS AND LIARS, DAILY KOS, FACEBOOK, FIVETHIRTYEIGHT, GAYS, HARPER’S MAGAZINE, HOMOSEXUALITY, HUFFINGTON POST, INDIANA, ISLAM, JOSEPH STALIN, MEDIA MATTERS, MIKE PENCE, MOTHER JONES, MOVEON, MSNBC, NBC NEWS, NEW REPUBLIC, NEWSDAY, NEWSWEEK, NPR, PBS NEWSHOUR, POLITICO, POLITICUSUSA, RAW STORY, RELIGION, RELIGIOUS FREEDOM RESTORATION ACT, REPUBLICAN PARTY, REUTERS, SALON, SCIENCE, SEATTLE TIMES, SHARIA, SLATE, SOVIET UNION, 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 VILLAGE VOICE, THE WASHINGTON POST, THINKPROGRESS, TIME, TRUTHDIG, TRUTHOUT, TWO POLITICAL JUNKIES, U.S. NEWS & WORLD REPORT, UPI, USA TODAY, WOMEN'S RIGHTS, WONKETTE, X
In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Politics, Social commentary on May 8, 2025 at 12:17 am
Adolf Hitler had a warning for the Indiana legislators who passed the Religious Freedom Restoration Act.
A warning they should have heeded—but didn’t.
It all started on June 22, 1941.
On that date, Hitler ordered his powerful Wehrmacht to invade the Soviet Union.
Less than two years earlier, on August 23, 1939, he had signed a “non-aggression” pact with his longtime arch-enemy, Joseph Stalin, dictator of the Soviet Union.
Since then, his army had conquered Poland, Norway, Denmark, Holland, Belgium and France.
Adolf Hitler with his generals
Now, he believed, it was time to “settle accounts” with the Soviet Union.
Only there could Germany obtain the “living space” it “needed” for its expanding population.
So at 3 a.m. on June 22, 1941, Hitler once again launched an invasion.
At first, Hitler—no doubt like the Indiana legislators—felt giddy with excitement.
Turning to Alfred Jodl, his chief of operations for the Wehrmacht, he said: “We have only to kick in the door and the whole rotten structure will come crashing down.”
German soldiers marching through Russia
But soon afterward—almost as if he had just looked into the future and seen that he had none—he told an aide: “At the beginning of each campaign, one pushes a door into a dark, unseen room. One can never know what is hiding inside.”
That certainly proved true for Hitler.
Within four years, he was dead and the Red Army occupied Berlin.
And now the law of unintended consequences may be coming true for Indiana.
On March 26, 2015, its then-governor, Mike Pence, signed into law the Religious Freedom Restoration Act.
This allows any individual or corporation to cite its religious beliefs as a defense when sued by a private party.
In short, a bakery that doesn’t want to make a cake to be used at a gay wedding or a restaurant that doesn’t want to serve lesbian patrons can legally refuse to do so.
Officially, its intent is to prevent the government from forcing business owners to act in ways contrary to strongly held religious beliefs.
Unofficially, its intent is to appease the hatred of gays and lesbians by the religious Right, a key constituency of the Republican party.
The bill was passed overwhelmingly by both chambers of the Republican-controlled state legislature. And signed into law by a Republican governor.
Indiana Governor Mike Pence
“Today I signed the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, because I support the freedom of religion for every Hoosier of every faith,” Mike Pence said in a statement on the day he signed the bill.
“The Constitution of the United States and the Indiana Constitution both provide strong recognition of the freedom of religion but today, many people of faith feel their religious liberty is under attack by government action.”
Bill-signing ceremonies are usually highly public events. Governors—and presidents—normally want their constituents to see them creating new legislation.
Yet for all his praise for the bill, Pence signed it in a ceremony closed to the public and the press. The media were asked to leave even the waiting area of the governor’s office.
It’s almost as if Pence sensed—like Hitler—that he was about to push open “a door into a dark, unseen room.”
And this may well be the case.
Through that door has marched the First Church of Cannabis.
The day after Pence signed the Act, church founder Bill Levin announced on his Facebook page that he had filed paperwork with the office of the Indiana Secretary of State.
Its registration had been approved—and Levin was ecstatic: “Now we begin to accomplish our goals of Love, Understanding, and Good Health.
“Donate $100 or more and become a GREEN ANGEL.
“Donate $500 or more and become a GOLD ANGEL.
“Donate $1000 or more and become a CHURCH POOHBA.”
And Levin had a personal comment for the governor who had made it all possible:
“Dear Mikey Pence…
“DUDE!.. keep crapping all over the state.. and I will plant a seed of LOVE, UNDERSTANDING and COMPASSION in each pile you leave.. and it will grow into a big skunky cannabis tree. Crap away Mikey.. Crap Away…”
According to Levin, the church was granted IRS tax-exempt status less than 30 days after he applied.
No doubt many Indiana legislators are furious that their effort to attack gays may have brought legal marijuana to their highly conservative state.
But worse may yet come.
Since 9/11, Right-wingers such as Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity have warned that Muslims are trying to impose Sharia (Islamic law) on America.
And now Indiana’s legislators, in elevating religion above the law, may have pushed upon that door “into a dark, unseen room.”
What will happen when Indiana Muslims
- Claim their right—guaranteed in Islamic religious law—to have as many as four wives?
- Demand a taxpayer-funded “halal” non-pork food shelf at free food pantries for the poor? (Exactly this happened among Somali refugees in Minnesota in 2015.)
- Demand that police departments cancel counter-terrorism courses by claiming that their materials are anti-Muslim? (Exactly this happened to several police departments in Illinois.)
And when they cite the Religious Freedom Restoration Act as the basis for their demands?
Fasten your seatbelts. It’s going to be a bumpy nightmare.
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.
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.
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, Politics, Social commentary on April 7, 2025 at 12:07 am
Even many Republicans secretly believe that Donald Trump is better-suited for the role of Gaius Caligula than President of the United States. It was Caligula who, as the mad emperor of Rome, once said: “Bear in mind that I can treat anyone exactly as I please.”
Gaius Caligula
On October 7, 2016, The Washington Post leaked a video of Donald Trump making sexually predatory comments about women.
The remarks came during a 2005 exchange with Billy Bush, then the host of Access Hollywood (and now host of Today).
The two were traveling in an Access Hollywood bus to the set of the soap opera Days of Our Lives, where Trump was to make a cameo appearance.
Neither Trump nor Bush could be seen during the exchange—the video focuses entirely on the bus. But the audio came in clearly—and, for Trump, damningly:
DONALD TRUMP: You know and I moved on her actually. You know she was down on Palm Beach.
UNKNOWN: She used to be great. She’s still very beautiful.
TRUMP: I moved on her and I failed. I’ll admit it. I did try and fuck her. She was married.
UNKNOWN: That’s huge news.
TRUMP: No, no, Nancy. No this was—and I moved on her very heavily, in fact, I took her out furniture shopping. She wanted to get some furniture. I said I’ll show you where they have some nice furniture.
I took her out furniture. I moved on her like a bitch, but I couldn’t get there, and she was married. Then all of a sudden I see her, she’s now got the big phony tits and everything. She’s totally changed her look.
[At that point, they spot Adrianne Zucker, the starring actress in Days in Our Lives.]
Donald Trump
BUSH: Sheesh, your girl’s hot as shit. In the purple. Yes! The Donald has scored. Whoa, my man!
TRUMP: Look at you. You are a pussy. Maybe it’s a different one.
BUSH: It better not be the publicist. No, it’s her. It’s—
TRUMP: Yeah, that’s her. With the gold. I better use some Tic Tacs just in case I start kissing her. You know I’m automatically attracted to beautiful—I just start kissing them. It’s like a magnet. Just kiss. I don’t even wait. And when you’re a star they let you do it. You can do anything. Grab them by the pussy. You can do anything.
When the Washington Post broke the story on October 7, the reaction was immediate—and explosive.
This was not a testosterone-fueled teenager fantasizing about making love with a girl he adored. This was a 70-year-old man bragging about having used deceit to try to lure a married woman into bed.
And about having used his celebrity status to force himself on women: “I moved on her very heavily. Just kiss. I don’t even wait. Grab them by the pussy. You can do anything.”
Gaius Caligula himself couldn’t have said it better. He lived 29 years and ruled Rome three years, 10 months and eight days. When he died, his reign of depravity and terror died with him.
Today, millions of Americans fear a similar fate will sweep their country now that Donald Trump has again become President.
Caligula’s life spanned August 31, 12 A.D. to January 24, 41 A.D. His chief biographer was Gaius Suetonius Tranquillus.
Gaius Suetonius Tranquillus
Trump was born on June 14, 1946.
Caligula became Emperor in 37 A.D. after succeeding the Emperor Tiberius, his uncle who had adopted him as a son after his father died.
Trump was reelected President on November 5, 2024, after winning 312 electoral votes to 226 for his Democratic opponent, Vice President Kamala Harris.
Trump began his real estate career at his father’s real estate and construction company. He rose to wealth and fame after his father, Fred, gave him control of the business in 1971.
Caligula’s reign began well—and popularly. He gave Tiberius a magnificent funeral—then recalled to Rome all those whom Tiberius had banished, and ignored all charges that Tiberius had leveled against them.
He gave bonuses to the military and destroyed lists of those Tiberius had declared traitors. He allowed the magistrates unrestricted jurisdiction, without appeal to himself.
Similarly, soon after acquiring the family business, Trump set out to build his own empire—hotels, golf courses, casinos, skyscrapers across North and South America, Europe and Asia. He named many of them after himself.
He appeared at the Miss USA pageants, which he owned from 1996 to 2015. He hosted and co-produced The Apprentice, an NBC reality television series from 2004 to 2015.
The ancient historians describe Caligula as a noble and enlightened ruler during the first six months of his reign. But in October 37 A.D. he fell seriously ill or perhaps was poisoned.
Caligula soon recovered but emerged a changed man. He began laying claim to divine majesty, and killing or exiling anyone he saw as a threat. He ordered a tribune to murder his brother Tiberius, and drove his father-in‑law Silanus to cut his throat with a razor.
He favorite method of execution was to have a victim tortured with many slight wounds. His infamous order for this: “Strike so that he may feel that he is dying.”
ABC NEWS, ADOLF HITLER, ALTERNET, AMERICABLOG, AP, BABY BOOMER RESISTANCE, BBC, BLIND AMBITION (SERIES), BLOOMBERG, BLUESKY, BUZZFEED, CBS NEWS, CHINA, CIVIL WAR, CNN, CONSPIRACY (MOVIE), CROOKS AND LIARS, DAILY KOS, DONALD TRUMP, DOUGLAS MACARTHUR, FIVETHIRTYEIGHT, GUTS AND GLORY: THE RISE ND FALL OF OLIVER NORTH (SERIES), HARPER’S MAGAZINE, HITLER: THE RISE OF EVIL (SERIES), HITLER’S PEOPLE: THE FACES OF THE THIRD REICH (BOOK), HITLER’S SS: PORTRAIT OF EVIL (MOVIE), HOLOCAUST, HOLOCAUST (SERIES), HUFFINGTON POST, INSIDE THE THIRD REICH (SERIES), JOSEPH MCCARTY, KOREAN WAR, MEDIA MATTERS, MOTHER JONES, MOVEON, MSNBC, NAZI GERMANY, NAZIS, NBC NEWS, NEW REPUBLIC, NEWSDAY, NEWSWEEK, NPR, NUREMBERG (MOVIE), OLIVER NORTH, PBS NEWSHOUR, POLITICO, POLITICUSUSA, RAW STORY, REPUBLICANS, REUTERS, RICHARD J. EVANS, RICHARD NIXON, Ronald Reagan, SALON, SEATTLE TIMES, SLATE, SOVIET UNION, SPANISH-AMERICAN WAR, TAIL GUNNER JOE (MOVIE), TALKING POINTS MEMO, THE ATLANTIC, THE BUNKER (MOVIE), THE CHICAGO SUN-TIMES, THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE, THE DAILY BEAST, THE DAILY BLOG, THE FINAL DAYS (MOVIE), 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 PLOT TO KILL HITLER (MOVIE), THE VILLAGE VOICE, THE WASHINGTON POST, THINKPROGRESS, THIRD REICH, TIME, TRUTHDIG, TRUTHOUT, TV, TWO POLITICAL JUNKIES, U.S. NEWS & WORLD REPORT, UPI, USA TODAY, VIETNAM WAR, WORLD WAR 1, WORLD WAR 11, X
In Entertainment, History, Military, Politics, Social commentary on April 2, 2025 at 12:08 am
Future historians—if there are any—may well view the administration of President Donald Trump the same way that historian Richard J. Evans analyzes the Third Reich.
To place the infamy of the Trump administration in the same context as that of the Third Reich, consider the opening paragraph from his latest bestseller: Hitler’s People: The Faces of the Third Reich.
Substitute “Republicans” for “Nazis,” “Donald Trump” for “Adolf Hitler,” and “Americans” for “Germans.”
As in the following:
“Who were the Republicans? What motivated the leaders and functionaries of the Republican movement and those who put their project into action? What had happened to their moral compass?
“Were they in some sense deviant, or deranged, or degenerate? Were they gangsters acting with criminal intent? Or were they ‘ordinary men’ (and a few women), or perhaps, more precisely, ‘ordinary Americans’? Did they come from the margins of society, were they outsiders, or were they in some sense part of American society’s mainstream?
“And how do they explain Trump’s drive to achieve dictatorial power? Was he a kind of empty shell, devoid of personal qualities and without a personal life, into which Americans poured their deepest political ambitions and desires?
“What made otherwise normal people carry out, or approve, terrible and murderous atrocities against Republicans’ real and supposed enemies? Or were they perhaps not normal at all? Beyond this, why did so many leading Americans in responsible positions, in the key institutions of society, go along with the dictatorship….?
“And what did those of them who survived….think of about their conduct during the Trump administration? Did they gain a moral perspective on it, did they repent, did they come to an understanding of what they had done?”
Americans have always considered themselves separate from—and superior to—those in other nations. Germans and Russians might fall prey to evil dictators, but Americans? Never!
Evangelical Americans believe that the United States is divinely inspired—and protected.
Thus, American TV networks have filled the airwaves with movies and doc-u-dramas about Nazi Germany such as: “Hitler: The Rise of Evil,” “The Bunker,” “Nuremberg,” “Holocaust,” “Inside the Third Reich,” “Conspiracy,” “Hitler’s SS: Portrait of Evil,” “The Plot to Kill Hitler.”
Yet American networks have been unwilling to produce films about the evil of America’s own Right-wing leaders. It’s extremely unlikely that future network executives will OK a miniseries on “Trump: The Rise of Evil.”
To date, only one film—“Tail Gunner Joe”—has been made about the rise and fall of Senator Joseph McCarthy.
For four years (1950-1954) McCarthy terrorized Americans with false charges of a massive Communist conspiracy, leaving broken lives and national mistrust in his wake.
And “Tail Gunner Joe” was made in 1974.
The fall of President Richard Nixon in 1974 led networks to produce such movies as “Blind Ambition” (1979) and “The Final Days” (1989). But those appeared decades ago. And no new ones have appeared since.
In 1989, CBS found the courage to run “Guts and Glory: The Rise and Fall of Oliver North.” What made this unusual was that it appeared only three years after the story of the infamous “Iran-Contra” arms-for-hostages story broke.
But the role of former President Ronald Reagan in waging unjustified terror-war against Nicaragua was totally ignored. And no other movie has since been made on this disgraceful period in United States history.
Ronald Reagan
Americans have always been convinced of their own purity as a people—especially when compared to those supposedly corrupt, undemocratic European nations. And so, according to popular mythology, the United States is constantly losing its innocence.
Such as:
I861 – 1865: Civil War—When brother supporting slavery fought brother supporting freedom.
1898: Spanish-American War––The United States freed Cuba from the Spanish.
1917 – 1918: World War 1––When innocent American “doughboys” rushed to Europe to save immoral France and England from the Hunnish Germans.
1942 – 1945: World War II––Once again, Americans rushed to Europe to (again) save impure France and England from (again) the Hunnish Germans and end the Holocaust.
1954 – 1975: Vietnam War––The United States rushed to fight Communism on behalf of a people struggling to be free.
Lost in all these “innocent” scenarios are such unpleasant realities as:
- After the Civil War, millions of former slaves were left to fend for themselves. Although freed, blacks were left poor, despised and subject to violence at any time by the Ku Klux Klan.
- After the Spanish-American war, America seized the Philippines for itself—and relinquished them only in 1946.
- Before World War II, the United States turned away thousands of would-be Jewish immigrants, dooming them to the Holocaust. And it entered the war only after it was attacked at Pearl Harbor.
- During the Vietnam war, the United States defended an unpopular dictatorship in the South against a popular Communist one in the North.
During the 1950s, Baby Boom schoolers were spoon-fed a Disney version of American history. When they grew old enough to witness the struggles for black civil rights and against the Vietnam war, they felt they had been lied to—and reacted with anger and protest.
Generations that have been “protected” against the ugly realities of the past are ill-equipped to cope with those in their own lives.
2012 PRESIDENTIAL RACE, ABC NEWS, ALTERNET, AMERICABLOG, AP, BABY BOOMER RESISTANCE, BARACK OBAMA, BBC, BLOOMBERG, BLUESKY, BUZZFEED, CBS NEWS, CNN, CROOKS AND LIARS, CUBAN MISSILE CRISIS, DAILY KOS, DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION, DONALD J. TRUMP, FIDEL CASTRO, FIVETHIRTYEIGHT, HARPER’S MAGAZINE, HERMAN CAIN, HUFFINGTON POST, JOHN F. KENNEDY, LINDA MCMAHON, MEDIA MATTERS, MOTHER JONES, MOVEON, MSNBC, NBC NEWS, NEW REPUBLIC, NEWSDAY, NEWSWEEK, NIKITA KHRUSHCHEV, NPR, NUCLEAR TEST BAN TREATY, PBS NEWSHOUR, POLITICO, POLITICUSUSA, RAW STORY, REUTERS, RICK PERRY, SALON, Sarah Palin, SEATTLE TIMES, SLATE, SOVIET UNION, 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 MISSILES OF OCTOBER, THE NATION, THE NEW REPUBLIC, THE NEW YORK TIMES, THE NEW YORKER, THE VILLAGE VOICE, THE WALL STREET JOURNAL, THE WASHINGTON POST, THINKPROGRESS, TIME, TRUTHDIG, TRUTHOUT, TWO POLITICAL JUNKIES, U.S. NEWS & WORLD REPORT, UPI, USA TODAY, VIETNAM WAR, X
In Bureaucracy, EDUCATION, History, Politics, Social commentary on March 28, 2025 at 12:06 am
Sixty-one years ago, on November 22, 1963, two bullets slammed into the neck and head of President John Fitzgerald Kennedy.
It has been said that he left his country with three great legacies:
- The Nuclear Test Ban Treaty;
- The Apollo moon landing; and
- The Vietnam war.
Of these, the following can be said with certainty:
- The Test Ban Treaty has prevented atmospheric testing—and poisoning—by almost all the world’s nuclear powers.
- After reaching the moon—in 1969—Americans quickly lost interest in space and have today largely abandoned plans for manned exploration. For America, as for JFK, beating the Russians to the moon was the end-goal.
- Under Presidents Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon, 58,000 Americans died in Vietnam; 153,303 were wounded; and billions of dollars were squandered in a hopeless effort to intervene in what was essentially a Vietnamese civil war.
But there was a fourth legacy—and perhaps the most important of all: The belief that mankind could overcome its greatest challenges through rationality and perseverance.
White House painting of JFK
At American University on June 10, 1963, Kennedy called upon his fellow Americans to re-examine the events and attitudes that had led to the Cold War. And he declared that the search for peace was by no means absurd:
“Our problems are man-made; therefore, they can be solved by man. And man can be as big as he wants. No problem of human destiny is beyond human beings.
“Man’s reason and spirit have often solved the seemingly unsolvable, and we believe they can do it again.”
Today, politicians from both parties cannot agree on solutions to even the most vital national problems.
For example: Republicans cannot agree with Democrats that the violent January 6, 2021 attempt by Donald Trump’s supporters to overturn the results of the 2020 Presidential election qualified as treason.
President Kennedy insisted on being well-informed. He speed-read several newspapers every morning and nourished personal relationships with the press—and not for altruistic reasons. These journalistic contacts gave Kennedy additional sources of information and perspectives on national and international issues.
During the 2012 Presidential campaign, Republican Presidential candidates celebrated their ignorance of both.
Former Godfather’s Pizza CEO Herman Cain famously said, “We need a leader, not a reader.” Thus he excused his ignorance for why President Barack Obama had intervened in Libya.
Former Texas Governor Rick Perry and Secretary of Energy showed similar pride in not knowing there are nine judges on the United States Supreme Court. He thought there were eight:
Rick Perry
“Here’s what I do know. That when I put an individual on the Supreme Court, just like I done in Texas, ah, we got nine Supreme Court justices in Texas, ah, they will be strict constructionists….”
In short, it’s the media’s fault if they ask you a question and your answer reveals your own ignorance, stupidity or criminality.
Sarah Palin rewrote history via “The Midnight Ride of Paul Revere”: “He warned the British that they weren’t going to be taking away our arms by ringing those bells and, um, making sure as he’s riding his horse through town to send those warning shots and bells that, uh, we were going to be secure and we were going to be free.”
In fact, Revere wasn’t warning the British about anything. Instead, he was warning his fellow Americans about an impending British attack—as his celebrated catchphrase “The British are coming!” made clear.
During the height of the Cuban Missile Crisis, Kennedy spoke with aides about a book he had just finished: Barbara Tuchman’s The Guns of August, about the events leading to World War 1.
He said that the book’s most important revelation was how European leaders had blindly rushed into war, without thought to the possible consequences. Kennedy told his aides he did not intend to make the same mistake—that, having read his history, he was determined to learn from it.
Republicans attacked President Obama for his Harvard education and articulate use of language. Among their taunts: “Hitler also gave good speeches.”
And they resented his having earned most of his income as a writer of two books: Dreams From My Father and The Audacity of Hope. As if being a writer is somehow subversive.
When knowledge and literacy are attacked as “highfalutin’” arrogance, and ignorance and incoherence are embraced as sincerity, national decline lies just around the corner.
Many Americans believe that decline arrived with the 2016 election of Donald Trump. In fact, they believe it was Trump who announced it after winning the Nevada Republican primary: “We won with poorly educated. I love the poorly educated.”
And as if to underscore his contempt for education, newly-reelected President Trump intends to eliminate the Department of Education. His choice to temporarily head it: Linda McMahon, best known as the former president (1980 – 2009) of World Wrestling Entertainment.
Trump wants McMahon “to put herself out of a job.”
And McMahon agrees: “I want to invite all employees to join us in this historic final mission on behalf of all students.”
In retrospect, the funeral for President Kennedy marked the death of more than a rational and optimistic human being.
It marked the death of Americans’ pride in choosing reasoning and educated citizens for their leaders.
ABC NEWS, ADOLF HITLER, ALTERNET, AMERICABLOG, AP, BABY BOOMER RESISTANCE, BATTLE OF BRITAIN (MOVIE), BBC, BENITO MUSSOLINI, BLOOMBERG, BLUESKY, BUZZFEED, CANADA, CBS NEWS, CHINA, CLAUDIA SHEINBAUM PARDO, CNN, CROOKS AND LIARS, DAILY KOS, DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE, DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES, DONALD TRUMP, EUROPEAN UNION, FIVETHIRTYEIGHT, GREECE, GREENLAND, HARPER’S MAGAZINE, HERMANN GORING, HUFFINGTON POST, JUSTIN TRUDEAU, LUFTWAFFE, MEDIA MATTERS, MEXICO, MOTHER JONES, MOVEON, MSNBC, NBC NEWS, NEW REPUBLIC, NEWSDAY, NEWSWEEK, NPR, PANAMA, PBS NEWSHOUR, PETE HEGSETH, POLITICO, POLITICUSUSA, RAW STORY, REUTERS, ROBERT F. KENNEDY JR., SALON, SEATTLE TIMES, SLATE, SOVIET UNION, TALKING POINTS MEMO, TARIFFS, 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 RISE ND FALL OF THE THIRD REICH (BOOK), THE VILLAGE VOICE, THE WASHINGTON POST, THINKPROGRESS, TIME, TRUTHDIG, TRUTHOUT, TWO POLITICAL JUNKIES, U.S. NEWS & WORLD REPORT, UPI, USA TODAY, WEHRMACHT, WILLIAM L. SHIRER, WINSTON CHURCHILL, WORLD WAR 11, X, YUGOSLAVIA
In Bureaucracy, Business, History, Military, Politics, Social commentary on March 27, 2025 at 12:06 am
On March 12, President Donald Trump halts imposing double tariffs on imports of Canadian steel and metal to 50%, just hours after announcing them. But he announces that he will raise duties on steel and aluminum imports from the European Union (EU) by 25%.
In response:
- Canada says it will place 25% reciprocal tariffs on steel products and raise taxes on tools, computers, servers, display monitors, sports equipment, and cast-iron products.
- The EU announces it will raise tariffs on American beef, poultry, bourbon and motorcycles, peanut butter and jeans.
- Tariffs on bourbon will aim a deadly blow at the American liquor industry—especially that which produces Kentucky bourbon.
Then, on March 13, Trump, like Adolf Hitler, justifies his attacks on peaceful nations. It is only when his victims dare counterattack that he feels wronged.
Bypassing the normal channels of diplomacy, Trump reverts to form on his own website, Truth Social:
“If this tariff is not removed immediately, the US will shortly place a 200% tariff on all WINES, CHAMPAGNES, & ALCOHOLIC PRODUCTS COMING OUT OF FRANCE AND OTHER EU REPRESENTED COUNTRIES. This will be great for the Wine and Champagne businesses in the US.”
On March 20, the EU announces that it will delay its planned tariffs on American goods, which are set to go into effect at the start of April, until mid-April instead. The decision gives the bloc more time to negotiate with Washington and review the list of products that would be affected by the tariffs.
Trump’s threat to raise tariffs even further echoes Adolf Hitler’s self-righteous indignation at the refusal of Yugoslavians to submit to his tyranny.
On October 28, 1940, his ally, Italian dictator Benito Mussolini—jealous of Hitler and desperate to create his own empire—attacked Greece. And his armies had taken a severe beating by the descendants of Alexander the Great.
So Hitler, reluctantly, decided to rush troops to Greece to save Mussolini from the embarrassment of losing his new war.
Adolf Hitler
At the time Yugoslavia was a monarchy ruled by the regent Prince Paul on behalf of the young King Peter II. On March 25, 1941, under threat of German invasion, Yugoslavia joined the Axis and agreed to permit transit through its territory to German troops headed for Greece.
When Yugoslavia’s nonaggression treaty with Germany was announced the next day in the Yugoslav capital of Belgrade, regent Prince Paul and the government were promptly overthrown in a popular uprising led by Yugoslav Air Force officers with the support of the Yugoslav Army.
On March 27, King Peter II was officially installed as king, ending the regency.
Hitler quickly learned the news. At first he thought it was a joke—and then he exploded in one of the wildest rages of his life.
Shouting that he had been “personally insulted,” Hitler demanded that Yugoslavia be crushed with “unmerciful harshness and that the military destruction be done in Blitzkrieg style. Now I intend to make a clean sweep of the Balkans—it is time people got to know me better!”
The invasion of Yugoslavia opened on April 6, 1941, with an overwhelming bombardment of Belgrade and facilities of the Royal Yugoslav Air Force by the the German air force, the Luftwaffe. The Wehrmacht attacked from southwestern Bulgaria, Romania, Hungary and Austria.
On April 17, after only 11 days of fighting, representatives for Yugoslavia signed the armistice and unconditionally surrendered all Yugoslav troops. Yugoslavia was subsequently divided amongst Germany, Hungary, Italy and Bulgaria.
Hitler was ecstatic: He had “avenged” his “betrayal,” and given the world another lesson on the power of his army and air force.
But his victory had come at a cost: The attack on Yugoslavia forced him to postpone his planned invasion of the Soviet Union by five weeks. And the Wehrmacht would suffer horribly when the bitterly cold Russian winter arrived.
As journalist and historian William L. Shirer wrote in his monumental study, The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich: “This postponement of the attack on Russia in order that the Nazi warlord might vent his personal spite against a small Balkan country which had dared to defy him was probably the most catastrophic single decision in Hitler’s career.
“It is hardly too much to say that by making it that March afternoon in the Chancellery in Berlin during a moment of convulsive rage he tossed away his last golden opportunity to win the war and to make of the Third Reich, which he had created with such stunning if barbarous genius, the greatest empire in German history and himself the master of Europe.”
It’s still too early to foresee if Trump will make such a single catastrophic decision. But he has clearly planted the seeds for this. Among these:
- Wholesale purgings of the federal workforce—especially in agencies responsible for national security and health;
- Turning America’s longtime allies—like Canada, Mexico, Greenland, Panama and the EU—into mortal enemies;
- Appointing incompetents to office—like alcoholic Pete Hegseth Secretary of Defense and 14-year heroin addict Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Secretretary of Health and Human Services.
As historian Barbara W. Tuchman warned in her book, The March of Folly: “A great empire and little minds go ill together.”
Bureaucracybuster's Blog 
ABC NEWS, ABORTION, ADOLF HITLER, ALTERNET, AMERICABLOG, AP, BABY BOOMER RESISTANCE, BBC, BLOOMBERG, BLOOMBERG NEWS, BLUESKY, BUZZFEED, CBS NEWS, CNN, CROOKS AND LIARS, DAILY KOS, FACEBOOK, FIVETHIRTYEIGHT, GAYS, HARPER’S MAGAZINE, HOMOSEXUALITY, HUFFINGTON POST, INDIANA, ISLAM, JOSEPH STALIN, MEDIA MATTERS, MIKE PENCE, MOTHER JONES, MOVEON, MSNBC, NBC NEWS, NEW REPUBLIC, NEWSDAY, NEWSWEEK, NPR, PBS NEWSHOUR, POLITICO, POLITICUSUSA, RAW STORY, RELIGION, RELIGIOUS FREEDOM RESTORATION ACT, REPUBLICAN PARTY, REUTERS, SALON, SCIENCE, SEATTLE TIMES, SHARIA, SLATE, SOVIET UNION, 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 VILLAGE VOICE, THE WASHINGTON POST, THINKPROGRESS, TIME, TRUTHDIG, TRUTHOUT, TWO POLITICAL JUNKIES, U.S. NEWS & WORLD REPORT, UPI, USA TODAY, WOMEN'S RIGHTS, WONKETTE, X
A DARK, UNSEEN ROOM
In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Politics, Social commentary on May 8, 2025 at 12:17 amAdolf Hitler had a warning for the Indiana legislators who passed the Religious Freedom Restoration Act.
A warning they should have heeded—but didn’t.
It all started on June 22, 1941.
On that date, Hitler ordered his powerful Wehrmacht to invade the Soviet Union.
Less than two years earlier, on August 23, 1939, he had signed a “non-aggression” pact with his longtime arch-enemy, Joseph Stalin, dictator of the Soviet Union.
Since then, his army had conquered Poland, Norway, Denmark, Holland, Belgium and France.
Adolf Hitler with his generals
Now, he believed, it was time to “settle accounts” with the Soviet Union.
Only there could Germany obtain the “living space” it “needed” for its expanding population.
So at 3 a.m. on June 22, 1941, Hitler once again launched an invasion.
At first, Hitler—no doubt like the Indiana legislators—felt giddy with excitement.
Turning to Alfred Jodl, his chief of operations for the Wehrmacht, he said: “We have only to kick in the door and the whole rotten structure will come crashing down.”
German soldiers marching through Russia
But soon afterward—almost as if he had just looked into the future and seen that he had none—he told an aide: “At the beginning of each campaign, one pushes a door into a dark, unseen room. One can never know what is hiding inside.”
That certainly proved true for Hitler.
Within four years, he was dead and the Red Army occupied Berlin.
And now the law of unintended consequences may be coming true for Indiana.
On March 26, 2015, its then-governor, Mike Pence, signed into law the Religious Freedom Restoration Act.
This allows any individual or corporation to cite its religious beliefs as a defense when sued by a private party.
In short, a bakery that doesn’t want to make a cake to be used at a gay wedding or a restaurant that doesn’t want to serve lesbian patrons can legally refuse to do so.
Officially, its intent is to prevent the government from forcing business owners to act in ways contrary to strongly held religious beliefs.
Unofficially, its intent is to appease the hatred of gays and lesbians by the religious Right, a key constituency of the Republican party.
The bill was passed overwhelmingly by both chambers of the Republican-controlled state legislature. And signed into law by a Republican governor.
Indiana Governor Mike Pence
“Today I signed the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, because I support the freedom of religion for every Hoosier of every faith,” Mike Pence said in a statement on the day he signed the bill.
“The Constitution of the United States and the Indiana Constitution both provide strong recognition of the freedom of religion but today, many people of faith feel their religious liberty is under attack by government action.”
Bill-signing ceremonies are usually highly public events. Governors—and presidents—normally want their constituents to see them creating new legislation.
Yet for all his praise for the bill, Pence signed it in a ceremony closed to the public and the press. The media were asked to leave even the waiting area of the governor’s office.
It’s almost as if Pence sensed—like Hitler—that he was about to push open “a door into a dark, unseen room.”
And this may well be the case.
Through that door has marched the First Church of Cannabis.
The day after Pence signed the Act, church founder Bill Levin announced on his Facebook page that he had filed paperwork with the office of the Indiana Secretary of State.
Its registration had been approved—and Levin was ecstatic: “Now we begin to accomplish our goals of Love, Understanding, and Good Health.
“Donate $100 or more and become a GREEN ANGEL.
“Donate $500 or more and become a GOLD ANGEL.
“Donate $1000 or more and become a CHURCH POOHBA.”
And Levin had a personal comment for the governor who had made it all possible:
“Dear Mikey Pence…
“DUDE!.. keep crapping all over the state.. and I will plant a seed of LOVE, UNDERSTANDING and COMPASSION in each pile you leave.. and it will grow into a big skunky cannabis tree. Crap away Mikey.. Crap Away…”
According to Levin, the church was granted IRS tax-exempt status less than 30 days after he applied.
No doubt many Indiana legislators are furious that their effort to attack gays may have brought legal marijuana to their highly conservative state.
But worse may yet come.
Since 9/11, Right-wingers such as Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity have warned that Muslims are trying to impose Sharia (Islamic law) on America.
And now Indiana’s legislators, in elevating religion above the law, may have pushed upon that door “into a dark, unseen room.”
What will happen when Indiana Muslims
And when they cite the Religious Freedom Restoration Act as the basis for their demands?
Fasten your seatbelts. It’s going to be a bumpy nightmare.
Share this: