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In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Military, Politics, Social commentary on June 24, 2025 at 12:16 am
On November 14, 2019, the CNN website showcased an opinion piece by Jane Carr and Laura Juncadella entitled: “Fractured States of America.”
And it opened:
“Some worry that it’s already too late, that we’ve crossed a threshold of polarization from which there is no return. Others look toward a future where more moderate voices are heeded and heard, and Americans can find better ways to relate to each other. Still others look back to history for a guide—perhaps for what not to do, or at the very least for proof that while it’s been bad before, progress is still possible.”
A series of sub-headlines summed up many of the comments reported.
- “I was starting to hate people that I have loved for years.”
- “Voting for Trump cost me my friends.”
- “I feel like I’m living in hostile territory.”
- “Our children are watching this bloodsport.”
- “A student’s Nazi-style salute reflects the mate.”
- “Our leaders reflect the worst of us.”
- “I truly believe I will be assaulted over a bumper sticker.”
- “It already feels like a cold war.”
It’s natural to regret that the United States has become so self-destructively polarized. And to wish that its citizens could somehow reach across the chasm that divides them and find common cause with one another.
But that is to ignore the brutal truth that America now faces a choice:
- To submit to the tyrannical aggression of a ruthless political party convinced that they are entitled to power to manipulate and undermine the country’s democratic processes; or
- To fiercely resist that aggression and the destruction of those democratic processes.
In a November 14, 2019 column, “Republicans Can’t Abandon Trump Now Because They’re All Guilty,” freelance journalist Joel Mathis warned: “Trump’s abuses of power mirror those of the GOP as a whole. Republicans can’t turn on him, because doing so would be to indict their party’s entire approach to politics.”
For example:
- At the state level, GOP legislatures have passed numerous voter ID laws over the last decade. Officially, the reason has been to prevent non-citizens from voting. In reality, the motive is to depress turnout among Democratic constituencies.
- When Democrats have won elections, Republicans have tried to block them from carrying out their policies. In Utah, voters approved Medicaid expansion at the ballot box—but Republicans nullified this.
- In North Carolina, Republican legislators prevented voters from choosing their representatives. Instead, Republican representatives chose voters through partisan sorting. In August, 2018, the state’s Supreme Court ruled the legislative gerrymandered district map unconstitutional.
The upshot of all this: “The president and his party are united in the belief that their entitlement to power allows them to manipulate and undermine the country’s democratic processes….”
At the time of the January 6, 2021 coup attempt, even Republicans admitted Donald Trump’s responsibility for it.
House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy frantically phoned Trump, insisting that the rioters—who were breaking into his office through the windows—were the President’s supporters. He begged Trump to call them off.
“Well, Kevin, I guess these people are more upset about the election than you are,” Trump said.
But on January 28, 2021, “My Kevin” groveled before Trump at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, Florida, while they discussed how to win a House majority in the 2022 midterm elections.
Kevin McCarthy
And Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said on January 12: “The mob was fed lies. They were provoked by the president and other powerful people.”
But when the Senate met to try Trump for inciting an insurrection, McConnell voted to acquit him—and successfully urged his fellow Republicans to do the same.
* * * * *
The United States has indeed become a polarized country. But it’s not the polarization between Republicans and Democrats, or between conservatives and liberals.
It’s the polarization between
- Those intent on enslaving everyone who doesn’t subscribe to their Fascistic beliefs and agenda—and those who resist being enslaved.
- Those who believe in reason and science—and those who believe in an infallible “strong man” who rejects both.
- Those who cherish education—and those who celebrate ignorance.
- Those who believe in the rule of law—and those who believe in their right to act as a law unto themselves.
- Those who believe in treating others (especially the less fortunate) with decency—and those who believe in the triumph of intimidation and force.
Those who hoped that Republicans would choose patriotism over partisanship got their answer on February 5, 2020. That was when the Republican-dominated Senate—ignoring the overwhelming evidence against him—acquitted Donald Trump on impeachment articles: Obstruction of Congress and Abuse of Power.
And they got their answer again on February 13, 2021, when Senate Republicans voted to acquit him of Incitement of Insurrection.
It’s natural to regret that the United States has become a sharply divided nation. But those who lament this should realize there is only one choice:
Either non-Fascist Americans will destroy the Republican party and its voters that threaten to enslave them—or they will be enslaved by Republicans and their voters who believe they are entitled to manipulate and undermine the country’s democratic processes.
There is no middle ground.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Military, Politics, Social commentary on June 19, 2025 at 12:10 am
On May 19, CBS correspondent Scott Pelley delivered a commencement address to graduating students at Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. Much of it noted ominous moves toward dictatorship by President Donald J. Trump—whose name went unmentioned.
Among those moves:
- Making truth-seekers live in fear
- Attacking universities
- Attacking journalists
- Attacking law firms that stand up for the rights of others
And his counsel: “The country needs you, and it needs you today.”
* * * * *
Why attack universities? Why attack journalism? Because ignorance works for power.
First, make the truth seekers live in fear.
Sue the journalists. For nothing.
Then, move to destroy law firms that stand up for the rights of others.
With that done, power can rewrite history. With grotesque, false narratives, they can make heroes criminals and criminals heroes.
And they can change the definition of the words we use to describe reality. “Diversity” is now described as “illegal.” “Equity” is to be shunned. “Inclusion” is a dirty word.
This is an old playbook, my friends. There is nothing new in this. George Orwell – who we met on the street in London – in 1949, he warned of what he called “new speak.” He understood that ignorance works for power.
George Orwell
But it is ignorance that you have repudiated every single day here at Wake Forest University.
Who are you? I think we know.
In 1962, the year after Dr. King’s letter –1964 – the Civil Rights Act is passed. And the year after that – 1965 – the Voting Rights Act is passed. Now today both of those are under attack.
But can the truth win? My friends, nothing else does.
It may be a long road, but the truth is coming.
Did you hear the other phrase in the declaration that was signed by President Wente and Provost Gillespie? “Without fear.”
That does not mean there’s nothing to be afraid of. It’s an affirmation that you know who you are. That you know what you stand for. And that you know in the end – the long end – the Constitution will defend you even in the face of fearsome times.
In the words of one of your former Wake Forest professors:
“You may write me down in history with your bitter, twisted lies.
You may tread me into the very dirt, but like dust, I’ll rise.
Leaving behind nights of terror and fear, I rise.
Into a daybreak that’s wonderfully clear, I rise.
Bringing the gifts my ancestors gave me, I am the dream and the hope of the slave.
I rise.
I rise.
I rise.”
The poet Maya Angelou taught at Wake Forest. She saw the fear that power sought to impose, yet in her famous phrase, she still knew why the caged bird sings.
Maya Angelou
York College ISLGP, CC BY 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0>, via Wikimedia Commons
This university, old and wise, has seen worse. It has overcome existential threats before to our country. You are not alone. A legion has gone before you. And now it is the Class of 2025 that is called in another extreme time.
Will you permit me another word of advice?
Do not settle. You only get one pass at this. This world is going to tell you no a thousand times, but listen to the song in your heart. If they can’t hear it, that’s on them and not on you.
In the 1980s, I was rejected by CBS News over and over and over again over the years. They told me at one point, “Please stop applying.” They really did. And at the time, I thought “What’s wrong with these people?”
They couldn’t hear the song in my heart. Maybe they were smarter. Every time I was rejected, I got better. Maybe that was the plan. But I finally made them hear the music in my heart.
You only lose if you quit. Do not settle.
What is the meaning of life?
Who are you?
You are the educated. You are the compassionate. You are the fierce defenders of democracy, the seekers of truth, the vanguards against ignorance.
You are millions strong across our land. You might be sorry that you were picked by history for this role. But maybe that was the plan. Hard times are going to make you better and stronger.
In a few minutes, when that diploma hits your hand, it’s not a piece of paper you’re holding. We’re handing you a baton. Run with it.
Why am I here today? I’m 50 years farther down the trail than you are, and I have doubled back this morning to tell you the one thing I have learned from Volodymyr Zelenskyy and Nadia Murad and Samer Attar and a thousand others:
In a moment like this, when our country is in peril, don’t ask the meaning of life. Life is asking, “What’s the meaning of you?”
With great admiration for your achievements and with confidence that you will rise to this occasion, I thank you very humbly for the honor of being with you.
Thank you very much.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Military, Politics, Social commentary on June 18, 2025 at 12:12 am
On May 19, CBS correspondent Scott Pelley delivered a commencement address to graduating students at Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. Much of it noted ominous moves toward dictatorship by President Donald J. Trump—whose name went unmentioned.
And his counsel: “The country needs you, and it needs you today.”
* * * * *
The Wake Forest Class of 1861 did not choose their time of calling. The Class of 1941 did not choose. The Class of 1968 did not choose. History chose them. And now history is calling you, the Class of 2025.
You may not feel prepared, but you are. You are not descended of fearful people. You brought your values to school with you and now Wake Forest has trained you to seek the truth, to find the meaning of life.
Let me tell you briefly about three people I have recently met who discovered the meaning of their lives in moments of crisis not unlike what we have today.
Volodymyr Zelenskyy, president of Ukraine, spent his entire career as an entertainer on television. His first elected office was president of Ukraine. And three years ago, the Russian army came at him from three directions. He had a decision to make. And so he reached for the most lethal weapon in the Ukrainian arsenal: his cell phone.
He walked out of front of the presidential offices in Kyiv and made a video selfie. He told his people, “I’m still here and your army is still here, and we are going to fight.” He galvanized 44 million people instantly. Today, three years later, he is all that stands between a murderous dictator in Russia and the rest of free Europe.
Volodymyr Zelenskyy
I asked him, “Where did that come from?” And he said, “Well, you look in the mirror and you ask, ‘Who are you’”?
Nadia Murad, a woman whom we at 60 Minutes found in a refugee camp in Iraq. Her family was murdered by ISIS and she had been sold for money into slavery. We convinced her to tell her story on 60 Minutes, which she did and she found her voice.
Then she began to write, and then she began to speak about the crimes that women suffer in war. And a few years later, this young woman who we had found in a refugee camp won the Nobel Peace Prize.
Who are you?
Finally, Dr. Samer Attar, an orthopedic surgeon in Chicago and a professor of surgery at Northwestern who volunteers to do surgery in war zones. In Gaza. In Ukraine. To save lives of innocent people by using whatever meager supplies he has at hand.
I asked him, “Where does this come from?” He told me, “It’s not much, but it beats burying your head in fear and ignorance.”
Who are you?
What is the meaning of life?
Today, great universities are threatened with ruin. So what did President Wente and Provost Gillespie do? They spoke out. They joined other institutions signing the call for constructive engagement, a declaration of the relationship between government and higher education.
It reads in part, “Institutions of higher education share a commitment to serve as centers of open inquiry where, in their pursuit of truth, faculty, students, and staff are free to exchange ideas and opinions across a full range of viewpoints without fear of retribution, censorship, or deportation.”
Who are you? What does this make Wake Forest in this moment? Well, I think we know.
Did you hear that phrase in the Declaration? “Pursuit of truth?” Why attack universities? Why attack journalism? Because ignorance works for power.
First, make the truth seekers live in fear.
Sue the journalists. For nothing.
Then send masked agents to abduct a college student, a writer of her college paper who wrote an editorial supporting Palestinian rights, and send her to a prison in Louisiana and charge her with nothing.
Then, move to destroy law firms that stand up for the rights of others.
With that done, power can rewrite history. With grotesque, false narratives, they can make heroes criminals and criminals heroes.
And they can change the definition of the words we use to describe reality. “Diversity” is now described as “illegal.” “Equity” is to be shunned. “Inclusion” is a dirty word.
This is an old playbook, my friends. There is nothing new in this. George Orwell – who we met on the street in London – in 1949, he warned of what he called “new speak.” He understood that ignorance works for power.
But it is ignorance that you have repudiated every single day here at Wake Forest University.
Who are you? I think we know.
Can just speaking the truth actually work? Well, consider this day. This day. May 19. May 19, 1963. Martin Luther King Jr.’s “Letter from Birmingham Jail” was published for the first time.
In that letter, Dr. King says, “The first thing that has to be done in the pursuit of justice is collecting the facts.” Power was telling him in a jail cell, “Do not speak the truth because power will crush you.”
But consider that just months before that letter was published, Wake Forest University became the first major private institution of higher education in the South to integrate.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Military, Politics, Social commentary on June 17, 2025 at 12:10 am
On May 19, CBS correspondent Scott Pelley delivered a commencement address to graduating students at Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. Much of it noted ominous moves toward dictatorship by President Donald J. Trump—whose name went unmentioned.
Among those moves:
- Making truth-seekers live in fear
- Attacking universities
- Attacking journalists
- Attacking law firms that stand up for the rights of others
At the outset of his address, Pelley declared: “I fear there are some people in the audience who don’t want to hear what I have to say today.”
Scott Pelley
CBS News, CC BY-SA 3.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0>, via Wikimedia Commons
And he was right: Trump’s fanatical followers hated this public denunciation of such attacks on democratic institutions by their Dear Leader.
“This self-important, sermonizing propagandist is what passes for a legacy media ‘journalist,’” wrote the Western Lensman X on X.
“Pompous CBS journalist Scott Pelley closed his commencement address at Wake Forest by telling graduates they ‘are the fierce defenders of democracy, the seekers of truth,’ and ‘the vanguard against ignorance’ that’s taken over the country (i.e. Trump),” wrote Curtis Houck, managing editor of the right-wing site NewsBusters.
“His speech at Wake Forest graduation was a national disgrace in my opinion. He is not informed and talks only for the liberals… this makes me want to hurl,” wrote a third MAGAt.
“Does he hate half the country as much as he hates President Trump?” asked Fox News anchor Harris Faulkner.
“He never mentions anything about the 76 million people who voted for Trump as being valuable and loved in the country. He goes after the man they voted for.”
During World War II, Nazi leaders like Adolf Hitler and his propaganda minister, Joseph Goebbels, hurled insults at British Prime Minister Winston Churchill. Among these: “Warmonger” (for resisting Hitler’s conquest of Europe) and “drunkard” (based on his well-known love of whiskey and brandy).
Such insults, however, did not impair Churchill’s leadership—nor win the war for Germany.
SPEECH BY CBS CORRESPONDENT SCOTT PELLEY AT WAKE FOREST UNIVERSITY AT WINSTON-SALEM, NORTH CAROLINA ON MAY 19, 2025
You know, if we were in London, we might be walking past Portman Square on a beautiful spring day. We would encounter the headquarters of the British Broadcasting Corporation, a nearly 100-year-old building from which Edward R. Murrow, the original CBS News correspondent, stood on the roof and broadcast back to America word of the falling bombs of fascism that fell on that free city month after month.
Edward R. Murrow
If we walk a little bit further past the BBC, we will encounter another hero in the fight against fascism, George Orwell. He’d be standing there, frozen in bronze with his words carved in the side of a building: “If liberty means anything at all, it means something worth saying that some people don’t want to hear.”
I fear there are some people in the audience who don’t want to hear what I have to say today. But I appreciate your forbearance in this small act of liberty.
I’m a reporter so I won’t bury the lead. Your country needs you.
The country that has given you so much is calling you, the Class of 2025. The country needs you, and it needs you today.
As a reporter, I have learned to respect opinions. Reasonable people can differ about the life of our country. America works well when we listen to those with whom we disagree and when we listen and when we have common ground and we compromise.
And one thing we can all agree on – one thing at least – is that America is at her best when everyone is included.
To move forward, we debate, not demonize. We discuss, not destroy. But in this moment – this moment, this morning – our sacred rule of law is under attack.
Journalism is under attack.
Universities are under attack.
Freedom of speech is under attack.
An insidious fear is reaching through our schools, our businesses, our homes and into our private thoughts. The fear to speak.
In America?
If our government is – in Lincoln’s words – “of the people, by the people and for the people” – then why are we afraid to speak?
The Wake Forest Class of 1861 did not choose their time of calling. The Class of 1941 did not choose. The Class of 1968 did not choose. History chose them. And now history is calling you, the Class of 2025.
You may not feel prepared, but you are. You are not descended of fearful people. You brought your values to school with you and now Wake Forest has trained you to seek the truth, to find the meaning of life.
Let me tell you briefly about three people I have recently met who discovered the meaning of their lives in moments of crisis not unlike what we have today.
Volodymyr Zelenskyy, president of Ukraine, spent his entire career as an entertainer on television. His first elected office was president of Ukraine. And three years ago, the Russian army came at him from three directions. He had a decision to make. And so he reached for the most lethal weapon in the Ukrainian arsenal: his cell phone.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Medical, Politics, Social commentary on May 13, 2025 at 12:11 am
“I’ve chosen this life. I know what it is. There are things about it that sometimes are disturbing. But you just focus on the job you have to do. And just put all that other stuff aside.”
The speaker wasn’t a longtime Mafia enforcer turned-State’s-witness. He was Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.
And he was speaking with an NBC News reporter about death threats he had received.
At 83, Fauci was getting the sort of protection reserved for organized crime witnesses through the Justice Department’s Witness Security Program.
Dr. Anthony Fauci
Cmichel67, CC BY-SA 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons
In 2020, the U.S. Marshals Service deputized nine officers from the Department of Health and Human Services as bodyguards for Fauci.
After leaving government service as Chief Medical Advisor to the President in 2022, he continued to receive protection from the U.S. Marshals Service—until January 16, 2025.
That was when re-elected President Donald Trump revoked his security detail.
Speaking to reporters in North Carolina, Trump said that he wouldn’t feel any responsibility if Fauci were harmed.
“You can’t have a security detail for the rest of your life because you worked for government,” Trump said—ignoring the truth that he has had one since he ran for President in 2015.
On August 28, 2024, Trump had shared a picture of Fauci in an orange jumpsuit, during a hate-filled rant on his website, Truth Social.
In that same post he called for the death or imprisonment of his enemies—former President Barack Obama, Bill Gates, Vice President Kamala Harris and Hillary Clinton.
Fauci’s “crime”: Speaking the hard medical truth about Coronavirus—and thus contradicting then-President Donald Trump’s ignorance- and lie-riddled statements.
For example: Trump loudly touted hydroxychloroquine, used for treating malaria, as a miracle cure for the Coronavirus.
Yet Fauci dared to point out there had been no scientific trials of the drug for its effectiveness against Coronavirus. Moreover, given the medical condition of some patients, it could even prove fatal.
Nor is Fauci the only former government official Trump has marked for vengeance. He stripped the security detail assigned to former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley.
Milley’s “crime”: Rightly criticizing Trump as a wannabe dictator:
“We don’t take an oath to a king, or a queen, or to a tyrant or dictator, and we don’t take an oath to a wannabe dictator. We don’t take an oath to an individual. We take an oath to the Constitution, and we take an oath to the idea that is America, and we’re willing to die to protect it.”
Such statements have infuriated Trump’s base of—at best—half-educated followers.
During the 2016 Presidential race, after winning the Nevada primary, Trump infamously celebrated his victory: “We won the evangelicals. We won with young. We won with old. We won with highly educated. We won with poorly educated. I love the poorly educated.”
A February 24, 2016 USA Today story covering this event carried the headline: “Donald Trump loves the poorly educated—and they love him.”
An August 20, 2019 story in Forbes noted that a Pew Research survey, conducted in July, had found that “67% of Democrats and Democrat-leaning respondents say higher education is having a positive effect on the country compared to only 33% of Republicans and Republican-leaning participants.”
Furthermore, “The percentage of Republicans attributing a positive effect to higher education has steadily eroded from 58% (2010), 53% (2012), 54% (2015), 43% (2016), and 36% (2017). Among Republicans, 59% now say higher education has a negative effect on the U.S., compared to just 18% of Democrats.”
In March, 2020, an NBC News poll found that only 30% of Republicans said that they would actually listen to the advice of doctors to stay away from large, crowded areas to avoid Coronavirus.
These are the same people who get their version of reality from Right-wing sources like Fox News Network and Rush Limbaugh.
Rush Limbaugh
On his March 27, 2020 show, Limbaugh dismissed Coronavirus as “the common cold,” then added: “We didn’t elect a president to defer to a bunch of health experts that we don’t know.”
This is the same Rush Limbaugh who said, in 2015: “Firsthand smoke takes 50 years to kill people, if it does. Not everybody that smokes gets cancer. Now, it’s true that everybody who smokes dies, but so does everyone who eats carrots.”
In February, 2020, Limbaugh—a longtime and heavy cigar smoker—announced that he had Stage Four lung cancer. He died on February 17, 2021.
And then there is President Trump—and his chorus of cheerleaders.
Among these: Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA). At a House subcommittee hearing about the country’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic, Greene screeched at Fauci: “You know what this committee should be doing? We should be recommending you to be prosecuted.
“We should be writing a criminal referral because you should be prosecuted for crimes against humanity. You belong in prison, Dr. Fauci!”
Later, on X, she posted: “No one should get death threats and I get them ALL THE TIME.”
By daring to contradict such blatant ignorance—if not outright lies—Dr. Anthony Fauci has made himself a target for Right-wing hatred and death threats.
By the time Trump left office—on January 20, 2021—more than 400,000 Americans had died of COVID-19.
" 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
Пресс-служба Президента РФ, CC BY 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons
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.
2020 PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION, ABC NEWS, ALTERNET, AMERICABLOG, AP, BABY BOOMER RESISTANCE, BBC, BLOOMBERG NEWS, BUZZFEED, CBS NEWS, CHRIS STIREWALT, CNN, CROOKS AND LIARS, DAILY KOS, DOMINION VOTING SYSTEMS, DONALD TRUMP, FIVETHIRTYEIGHT, FOX NEWS NETWORK, HARPER’S MAGAZINE, HUFFINGTON POST, JACQUI HEINRICH, JOE BIDEN, LAURA INGRAHAM, LIBEL, MEDIA MATTERS, MOTHER JONES, MOVEON, MSNBC, NBC NEWS, NEW REPUBLIC, NEW YORK TIMES V. SULLIVAN, NEWSDAY, NEWSMAX, NEWSWEEK, NPR, PBS NEWSHOUR, POLITICO, POLITICUSUSA, RAW STORY, REPUBLICANS, REUTERS, RUDOLPH GIULIANI, RUPERT MURDOCH, SALON, SEAN HANNITY, SEATTLE TIMES, SIDNEY POWELL, SLANDER, 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 VILLAGE VOICE, THE WASHINGTON POST, THINKPROGRESS, TIME, TRUTHDIG, TRUTHOUT, TUCKER CARLSON, U.S. NEWS & WORLD REPORT, UPI, USA TODAY, X
In Bureaucracy, Business, History, Law, Politics, Social commentary on April 11, 2025 at 12:16 am
Greed—among evil men—will always find a way.
It did in 1939.
Germany’s Fuhrer, Adolf Hitler, had spent most of the year threatening Poland with invasion. He had even set a secret timetable—September 1—for his attack.
Yet he faced a dangerous obstacle on his road to war: The Soviet Union.
Since the early 1920s Hitler had railed against the Soviet Union as Germany’s greatest threat. He intended, in fact, to destroy it at the first opportunity.
But his still-untested army, the Wehrmacht, wasn’t ready for that yet.
Adolf Hitler
And if he attacked Poland, there was a real danger that the Soviet Union might declare war on Germany.
Hitler wanted a nonaggression treaty with England, with which he had a love/hate relationship. But the British government didn’t trust him.
The Soviet government—headed by Premier Joseph Stalin—also wanted a pact with Great Britain. But the British didn’t trust him, either.
In mid-August, 1939, with the September 1 deadline quickly approaching, Hitler made an unprecedented decision: He humbled himself before his arch-enemy, Stalin, and requested the signing of a Russia-German nonaggression pact.
To sweeten the deal, Hitler offered something that he knew the British would never give Stalin: The eastern half of Poland.
On August 23, the Treaty of Non-Aggression between Nazi Germany and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics was signed in Moscow by German Foreign Minister Joachim von Ribbontrop and Soviet Foreign Minister Vyacheslav Molotov.
Joseph Stalin
Nine days later, World War II erupted.
In 2020, greed—among evil men—again found a way.
On November 3, 81,255,933 Democratic voters elected former Vice President Joseph Biden the 46th President of the United States. Donald Trump, running for a second term as President, got 74,196,153 votes.
But having repeatedly “joked” about how wonderful it would be if the United States—like China—had a “President-for-Life,” Trump wasn’t ready to concede office.
He immediately 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.
Donald Trump
Dominion—charged Trump and his attorneys—had rigged its vote-tabulating machines to replace votes for Trump with votes for Biden.
And soon Trump had the help of a major propaganda megaphone to carry his lie nationwide: The Fox News Network.
Just as Hitler and Stalin each had something to gain from their nonaggression pact, so did Trump and Fox.
Trump wanted at least another four unearned years in the White House. And Fox wanted to retain—if not expand—its viewing audience.
In 2022, for its seventh consecutive year, Fox News stood as the top-rated cable news network in the United States. Fox averaged 1.4 million total day viewers.
By contrast, 733,000 watched MSNBC and 568,000 watched CNN.
In prime time, Fox came in first with an average of 2.3 million viewers in 2022.
MSNBC came in second with 1.2 million and CNN ranked third with an average of 730,000.
As for profits: Fox’s net income for the twelve months ending December 31, 2022 was $1.507B, a 4.94% increase year-over-year.
Yet just as Trump couldn’t bear losing the intoxicating power of the Presidency, Rupert Murdoch, the CEO of Fox, couldn’t bear losing any part of his audience.
In a March 1, 2023 opinion piece, Jack Shafer, Politico’s senior media writer, vividly describes the dilemma Murdoch faced after the 2020 election:
“In Murdoch’s own words, delivered in Dominion suit depositions, he describes himself as frightened by the power Donald Trump holds over the Fox audience….Far from being a media superpower, as his foes would describe him, Murdoch comes off as trapped by the craven choices he made to serve as Trump’s supplicant and protector.
“…The Trump-Fox feedback loop benefited both parties as Fox ran interference for Trump throughout his presidency and Trump filled Fox’s schedule with the strong meat of his persona. By July 2019, Trump had given 61 interviews to Fox channels compared to 17 for ABC, CBS, CNN, and NBC/CNBC combined.”
But after Trump incited a deadly riot against the United States Capitol Building on January 6, 2021, Murdoch feared the next Trump explosion would be aimed at Fox.
The reason: On Election Night, Chris Stirewalt, the political editor of Fox News Channel, was the first to project Biden’s victory in Arizona. This turned out to be right—and brought a furious attack upon Stirewalt by Fox host Tucker Carlson.
Putting the truth bluntly, Murdoch said in a deposition: “Nobody wants Trump as an enemy. We all know that Trump has a big following. If he says, ‘Don’t watch Fox News, maybe some don’t.’”
Twenty days after Trump’s attempted coup—on January 26—Murdoch allowed Mike “My Pillow” Lindell to appear on the network’s Tucker Carlson Tonight Show.
Lindell was a longtime Fox advertiser—and a vocal purveyor of the lie that Dominion had enabled the Democrats to steal the 2020 election.
Two months later, in March, 2021, Dominion filed a $1.6 billion defamation suit against Fox News.
The Hitler-Stalin pact ultimately ravaged the Soviet Union through German invasion and left Germany conquered and divided by Russia for 44 years.
The Trump–Fox pact ultimately left Trump enraged at Fox and left Fox facing financial ruin for its lies on Trump’s behalf.
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In Bureaucracy, Business, History, Military, Politics on April 10, 2025 at 12:13 am
At one time, Americans believed that the wholesale rewriting of history happened only in the Soviet Union.
“The problem with writing about history in the Soviet Union,” went a popular joke among Russians, “is that you never know what’s going to happen yesterday.”
A classic example of this occurred in the Great Soviet Encyclopedia.
Lavrentiy Beria had been head of the NKVD, the dreaded predecessor to the KGB, from 1938 to 1953. On June 26, 1953, three months after the death of Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin, Beria was arrested on orders of his fellow Communist Party leaders, who feared he intended to purge them.
Beria was executed on December 23.
Lavrentiy Beria
But the Great Soviet Encyclopedia had just gone to press with a long article singing Beria’s praises.
What to do?
The editors of the Encyclopedia wrote an equally long article about “the Bering Straits,” which was to be pasted over the article about Beria, and sent this off to its subscribers. An unknown number of them decided it was safer to paste accordingly.
Similarly, Joseph Stalin was depicted in Soviet “history” texts as the architect of Russia’s victory over Nazi Germany during World War II.
No “historian” dared mention that Stalin’s wholesale purges of the Red Army in the 1930s had made the country vulnerable to the German attack in 1941. As had Stalin’s “nonaggression” pact with Germany in 1939, where he and Adolf Hitler secretly divided Poland between them.
Joseph Stalin
But Russians no longer have a monopoly on rewriting history.
During the 2016 Presidential election, the Republican party furiously rewrote history in a desperate attempt to win the White House.
Specifically, its members tried to convince Americans that:
- President George W. Bush “kept us safe” (excluding, of course, the terror attacks of September 11, 2001, which slaughtered 3,000 Americans); and/or
- President Bush wasn’t to blame for 9/11—it was his predecessor, Bill Clinton (who left office on January 20, eight months earlier).
on J
World Trade Center – September 11, 2001
In 2015, Jeb Bush entered the “Rewriting History for Americans” sweepstakes.
On October 16, 2015, during an interview on Bloomberg TV, Donald Trump, the leading Republican candidate for President in 2016, dared speak (for Republicans) the unspeakable:
“When you talk about George Bush, I mean, say what you want, the World Trade Center came down during his time. He was President, OK? Blame him, or don’t blame him, but he was President. The World Trade Center came down during his reign.”
Bush was quick to respond on Twitter: “How pathetic for @realdonaldtrump to criticize the president for 9/11. We were attacked & my brother kept us safe.”
Jeb Bush
Trump replied:
“At the debate you said your brother kept us safe—I wanted to be nice & did not mention the WTC came down during his watch, 9/11.”
And: “No @JebBush, you’re pathetic for saying nothing happened during your brother’s term when the World Trade Center was attacked and came down.”
Suddenly, on February 13, another Republican Presidential candidate rushed to rewrite 9/11: Florida United States Senator Marco Rubio.
According to Rubio: “The World Trade Center came down because Bill Clinton didn’t kill Osama bin Laden when he had the chance to kill him.”
And on the following day, on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” he again made the charge: “If you’re going to ascribe blame, don’t blame George W. Bush, blame a decision that was made years earlier, not to take out bin Laden when the opportunity presented itself.”
All of which ignored such embarrassing truths as:
- During the first eight months of the Bush Presidency, Richard Clarke, the counter-terrorism adviser on the National Security Council, was not permitted to brief President Bush, despite mounting evidence of plans for a new Al-Qaeda outrage.
- From January 20 to September 11, 2001, Bush was on vacation, according to the Washington Post, 42% of the time.
- National Security Adviser Condoleeza Rice initially refused to hold a cabinet-level meeting on the subject of terrorism. Then she insisted that the matter be handled only by a more junior Deputy Principals meeting.
- Paul Wolfowitz, the number-two man at the Department of Defense, said: “I don’t understand why we are beginning by talking about this one man, bin Laden.”
- Even after Clarke outlined the threat posed by Al-Qaeda, Wolfowitz-–whose real target was Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein—said: “You give bin Laden too much credit.”
- Finally, at a meeting with Rice on September 4, 2001, Clarke challenged her to “picture yourself at a moment when in the very near future Al-Qaeda has killed hundreds of Americans, and imagine asking yourself what you wish then that you had already done.”
- Seven days later, Al-Qaeda struck, and 3,000 Americans died horrifically—and needlessly.
- Neither Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney, Rice, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld nor Wolfowitz ever admitted their negligence. Nor has any of them been brought to account.
People who say the Republicans are “batshit crazy” for denying responsibility for 9/11 clearly haven’t read—or understood—George Orwell’s novel, 1984.
The unnamed Party’s slogan is: “He who controls the past controls the future. He who controls the present controls the past.”
The same holds true for Republicans: They hope to rewrite the past, as Joseph Stalin did, to wash away their crimes and errors–and pin these on their self-declared enemies.
And thus gain—and retain—absolute power over 300 million Americans.
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AMERICA’S CHOICE: FREEDOM–OR FASCISM
In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Military, Politics, Social commentary on June 24, 2025 at 12:16 amOn November 14, 2019, the CNN website showcased an opinion piece by Jane Carr and Laura Juncadella entitled: “Fractured States of America.”
And it opened:
“Some worry that it’s already too late, that we’ve crossed a threshold of polarization from which there is no return. Others look toward a future where more moderate voices are heeded and heard, and Americans can find better ways to relate to each other. Still others look back to history for a guide—perhaps for what not to do, or at the very least for proof that while it’s been bad before, progress is still possible.”
A series of sub-headlines summed up many of the comments reported.
It’s natural to regret that the United States has become so self-destructively polarized. And to wish that its citizens could somehow reach across the chasm that divides them and find common cause with one another.
But that is to ignore the brutal truth that America now faces a choice:
In a November 14, 2019 column, “Republicans Can’t Abandon Trump Now Because They’re All Guilty,” freelance journalist Joel Mathis warned: “Trump’s abuses of power mirror those of the GOP as a whole. Republicans can’t turn on him, because doing so would be to indict their party’s entire approach to politics.”
For example:
The upshot of all this: “The president and his party are united in the belief that their entitlement to power allows them to manipulate and undermine the country’s democratic processes….”
At the time of the January 6, 2021 coup attempt, even Republicans admitted Donald Trump’s responsibility for it.
House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy frantically phoned Trump, insisting that the rioters—who were breaking into his office through the windows—were the President’s supporters. He begged Trump to call them off.
“Well, Kevin, I guess these people are more upset about the election than you are,” Trump said.
But on January 28, 2021, “My Kevin” groveled before Trump at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, Florida, while they discussed how to win a House majority in the 2022 midterm elections.
Kevin McCarthy
And Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said on January 12: “The mob was fed lies. They were provoked by the president and other powerful people.”
But when the Senate met to try Trump for inciting an insurrection, McConnell voted to acquit him—and successfully urged his fellow Republicans to do the same.
* * * * *
The United States has indeed become a polarized country. But it’s not the polarization between Republicans and Democrats, or between conservatives and liberals.
It’s the polarization between
Those who hoped that Republicans would choose patriotism over partisanship got their answer on February 5, 2020. That was when the Republican-dominated Senate—ignoring the overwhelming evidence against him—acquitted Donald Trump on impeachment articles: Obstruction of Congress and Abuse of Power.
And they got their answer again on February 13, 2021, when Senate Republicans voted to acquit him of Incitement of Insurrection.
It’s natural to regret that the United States has become a sharply divided nation. But those who lament this should realize there is only one choice:
Either non-Fascist Americans will destroy the Republican party and its voters that threaten to enslave them—or they will be enslaved by Republicans and their voters who believe they are entitled to manipulate and undermine the country’s democratic processes.
There is no middle ground.
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