Posts Tagged ‘NUCLEAR WEAPONS’
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In Bureaucracy, History, Military, Politics, Social commentary on April 9, 2026 at 12:14 am
There are major similarities between Adolf Hitler’s 1941 invasion and intended conquest of the Soviet Union and Donald Trump’s 2026 attack and intended conquest of Iran.
Even as late as January 30, 1945, Hitler claimed that God firmly stood on the side of the Third Reich—and thus would guarantee its eventual victory.
PAST – HITLER: God the Almighty has made our nation. By defending its existence we are defending His work…Therefore, it is all the more necessary on this twelfth anniversary of the rise to power to strengthen the heart more than ever before and to steel ourselves in the holy determination to wield the sword, no matter where and under what circumstances, until final victory crowns our efforts.
Similarly, on March 22, 2026, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, hosting his monthly Christian worship service at the Pentagon, prayed:
PRESENT – HEGSETH: Let every round find its mark against the enemies of righteousness and our great nation. Give them wisdom in every decision, endurance for the trial ahead, unbreakable unity, and overwhelming violence of action against those who deserve no mercy.
“I pursued my enemies and overtook them, and did not turn back till they were consumed,” he read from Psalms 18:37. “Those who hated me I destroyed. They cried to the Lord, but He did not answer them.”
On December 31, 1939—more than three months into World War 11—Hitler made clear his ultimate war aims:
PAST – HITLER: We shall only talk of peace when we have won the war. The Jewish capitalist world will not survive the twentieth century.
PRESENT – PETE HEGSETH: Iran cannot outlast us. We are going to ensure through violence of action and our offensive capabilities and our defensive capabilities, as I said, that we set the tone and the tempo of this fight.
Hitler believed that German airpower could force Great Britain to submit to his will. The Battle of Britain and The Blitz proved him wrong.
He also believed that his mechanized Panzers—which had defeated French and British armies in May-June,1940—would succeed where Napoleon’s horse-driven Grand Army had failed in 1812. The final proof of his mistake appeared on April 30, 1945, as Russian forces were almost literally knocking at his Fuhrerbunker door.
PAST – HITLER: We have only to kick in the front door and the whole rotten structure will come crashing down.
Hegseth believes that American airpower can force Iran to submit to his will. But the Strait of Hormuz remains closed to world shipping (except for those nations that Iran regards as friendly or neutral). So long as this continues, Americans’ gas prices will continue to rise with no end in sight—and pose a threat to Republicans’ continued control of the House and Senate.
About 20% of the world’s total oil consumption—roughly 20-21 million barrels per day—passes through this, making it the world’s most crucial oil chokepoint.
PRESENT – HEGSETH: Iran will never possess a nuclear bomb, not on our watch, not ever. And this is why President Trump’s moral clarity on Iran today is so vital. Unlike the past, where vague red lines and endless negotiations let Iran fund terror and inch ever so slightly toward a bomb, this president sees the threat plainly and acts decisively, no more half measures, especially when Iran is at its weakest. No more letting Tehran play for time while our people pay the price.
PAST – HITLER: Russia is already broken and will never rise again.
PRESENT – HEGSETH: Iran’s senior leaders are dead, the so-called governing council that might have selected a successor, dead, missing or cowering in bunkers, too terrified to even occupy the same room. Senior generals, mid-level officers, enlisted ranks, they can’t talk or communicate, let alone mount a coordinated and sustained offensive. That’s not great for morale.
PAST – HITLER: Moscow must disappear from the earth’s surface as soon as its riches have been brought to shelter.
PRESENT – HEGSETH: The enemy can no longer shoot the volume of missiles they once did, not even close, and the chairman will lay out some of those percentages. So, our air defenses and that of our allies have plenty of runway. We can sustain this fight easily for as long as we need to. And as I said yesterday, we set the terms.
PAST – HITLER: Today I am at the head of the strongest Army in the world, the most gigantic Air Force and of a proud Navy. Behind and around me stands the Party with which I became great and which has become great through me. Our enemies must not deceive themselves—in the 2,000 years of German history known to us, our people have never been more united than today.
PRESENT – HEGSETH: And we know their ability to shoot versus our ability to defend. That difference gets wider and wider every day. Our defense gets better. Their offense capabilities diminish as we are going into ammunitions that we, as we said, have tens of thousands of and can drop unlimited supplies on, with even more effects than the stand-off munitions we have now, which is why, when we say the throttle’s going up, the throttle’s going up. And it’s going to stay on high.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Military, Politics, Social commentary on April 8, 2026 at 12:10 am
There are major similarities between Adolf Hitler’s 1941 invasion and intended conquest of the Soviet Union and Donald Trump’s 2026 attack and intended conquest of Iran.
But, for lack of courage and/or historical perspective, those similarities have not been featured during political and/or military commentaries on the ongoing conflict.
A good starting point: A comparison of the address given by German Fuhrer Adolf Hitler on the first day of “Operation Barbarossa” (June 22, 1941) and the one given by Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth (on May 4) four days after the start of “Operation Epic Fury.”
PAST – HITLER: German people! At this moment a march is taking place that, as regards extent, compares with the greatest the world hitherto has seen. United with their Finnish comrades, the fighters of the victory of Narvik are standing in the Northern Arctic. German divisions commanded by the conqueror of Norway, in cooperation with the heroes of Finnish freedom, under their marshal, are protecting Finnish soil.
PRESENT – HEGSETH: I stand before you today with one unmistakable message about Operation Epic Fury: America is winning decisively, devastatingly and without mercy. Under the direct command of President Trump, the War Department unleashed this operation early Saturday morning, just four days ago, which means we need to remember two things.
Second, we are only four days into this, and the results have been incredible, historic really. Only the United States of America could lead this, only us. But when you add the Israeli Defense Forces, a devastatingly capable force, the combination is sheer destruction for our radical Islamist Iranian adversaries. They are toast and they know it, or at least soon enough they will know it. And we have only just begun to hunt, dismantle, demoralize, destroy and defeat their capabilities just four days in.
PAST – HITLER: Formations of the German Eastern Front extend from East Prussia to the Carpathians. German and Rumanian soldiers are united under Chief of State Antonescu from the banks of the Pruth along the lower reaches of the Danube to the shores of the Black Sea. The task of this front, therefore, no longer is the protection of single countries, but the safeguarding of Europe and thereby the salvation of all.
PRESENT – HEGSETH: Starting last night and to be completed in a few days, in under a week, the two most powerful Air Forces in the world will have complete control of Iranian skies, uncontested airspace. I hope all the folks watching understand what uncontested airspace and complete control means.
It means we will fly all day, all night, day and night finding, fixing and finishing the missiles and defense industrial base of the Iranian military, finding and fixing their leaders and their military leaders, flying over Tehran, flying over Iran, flying over their capital, flying over the IRGC [Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps], Iranian leaders looking up and seeing only US and Israeli air power every minute of every day until we decide it’s over.
PAST – HITLER: I therefore decided today again to lay the fate and future of the German Reich and our people in the hands of our soldiers.
PRESENT – HEGSETH: And Iran will be able to do nothing about it. B-2s, B-52s, B-1s, Predator drones, fighters controlling the skies, picking targets, death and destruction from the sky all day long. We’re playing for keeps. Our warfighters have maximum authorities granted personally by the president and yours truly.
On August 22, 1939—nine days before he launched an unprovoked attack on Poland on September 1—Hitler summoned his top generals to Berchtesgaden. There he lectured:
PAST – HITLER: I shall give a propagandist reason for starting the war. Never mind whether it is plausible or not. The victor will not be asked afterward whether he told the truth or not. In starting and waging a war it is not right that matters but victory.
Close your hearts to pity! Act brutally! Eighty million people must obtain what is their right…The stronger man is right…Be harsh and remorseless! Be steeled against all signs of compassion!
The instructions Hitler issued for the conduct of war on Poland applied just as fervently when the Wehrmacht invaded the Soviet Union on June 22, 1941. And the Russians quickly responded with a campaign of vengeance.
As General Gotthard Heinrici noted: “The Russian soldiers are told by their commanders that they will be executed by us, so they are reluctant to surrender—and sometimes fire on our soldiers from the rear. This, of course, demands countermeasures on our side, which are harsh. So both sides step things up, and as a result there are masses of casualties.”
PRESENT – HEGSETH: Our rules of engagement are bold, precise and designed to unleash American power, not shackle it. This was never meant to be a fair fight, and it is not a fair fight. We are punching them while they’re down, which is exactly how it should be. Thus far, Operation Epic Fury has delivered twice the air power of shock and awe of Iraq in 2003, minus Paul Bremer and the Nation Building.
The campaign has seven times the intensity of Israel’s previous operations against Iran during the 12-day war, seven times. And as President Trump said, more and larger waves are coming; we are just getting started. We are accelerating, not decelerating. Iran’s capabilities are evaporating by the hour. While American strength grows, fiercer smarter and utterly dominant.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Military, Politics, Social commentary on April 1, 2026 at 12:17 am
Now, fast-forward 85 years—from 1941 to 2026. Substitute President Donald Trump for Fuhrer Adolf Hitler and Mojtaba Khamenei for Joseph Stalin—and Iran for the Soviet Union.
Just as Hitler launched his attack on the Soviet Union without warning, so did Trump launch his on Iran—on February 28.
Hitler—and numerous members of the Wehrmacht—believed that Germany’s mechanized panzers would quickly subdue Soviet armies.
“We were fast,” recalled Panzer Lieutenant Hans-Erdmann Schonbeck. “And our tank forces could cover huge distances. And once we broke through the enemy’s defenses, our orders were not to worry about threats to our right or left but to keep going, deep into Russian territory.”
Panzer tank
But the tanks soon faced unexpected difficulties. Most roads in Russia were unpaved, so the tanks raised huge dust clouds almost everywhere they went. The dust clogged their engines and brought many tanks to a halt. Repair crews worked themselves to exhaustion so that the lightning-fast advance could continue.
Another drawback not evident at the outset of the invasion: Summer uniforms. For a war that began on June 22, 1941, these were entirely appropriate. But as the months quickly passed, the notorious Russian winter season loomed ever closer.
Germans in summer uniforms
The German command underestimated the campaign’s duration, expecting a victory by autumn 1941, and prioritized ammunition and fuel over winter equipment. Although winter gear existed, it was stuck in supply depots in the West, and transport lines were too strained by the Soviets’ “scorched earth” tactics to move it to the front.
Without proper greatcoats or insulated boots, soldiers suffered from extreme cold, with temperatures dropping far below zero. Many resorted to stealing blankets from civilians or using blankets as makeshift clothing.
In its war with Iran, American’s air force completely dominated the skies. But then both American planes and ground forces faced an unexpected enemy: Mass-produced drones.
The same weapons—some of them supplied by Iran to Russia—have been used since 2022 in Ukraine. Unmanned and remotely-controlled, Ukrainian and Russian drones have transformed the battlefield. They’re estimated to inflict around 80% of combat casualties on both sides.
The technology—like that forged in Germany’s Blitzkrieg tactics—is revolutionizing warfare and evolving rapidly. To adapt to the new era, the U.S. military is learning lessons from Ukraine.
Iranian drone
Student News Agency, Attribution, via Wikimedia Commons
Not only are American military forces being targeted, so are those Gulf nations that have allied themselves with the United States: The United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar and Oman.
Primarily targeted: Energy infrastructure, airports and sites hosting American military personnel.
For Iran, the drones are relatively cheap. For the United States, the costs of countering this threat are steadily mounting. A typical Shahed-136 costs Tehran roughly $20,000 to $50,000, while interceptor missiles, such as the Patriot and Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD), cost millions.
On August 22, 1939—the eve of his invasion of Poland, which would ignite World War II—Adolf Hitler delivered a secret address to his supreme commanders and generals. Its climax:
“Close your hearts to pity. Act brutally. Eighty million people must obtain what is their right. Their existence must be made secure. The stronger man is right. The greatest harshness.”
Hitler urged his generals to act similarly toward the Russians, whom he regarded as subhumans.
The results of this policy soon became obvious when the Wehrmacht invaded Ukraine. Ukrainians, long suffering under the yoke of Stalin, greeted the invaders with bread and salt, the traditional greeting of comrades.
Within a month, they realized that the tyranny of Stalin had been replaced by an all-out extermination campaign of Hitler. For every Ukrainian the Germans killed, 10 more emerged to seek revenge.
Eighty-five years later, Donald Trump and officials of his administration are celebrating the indiscriminate slaughter of Iranians, whether civilian or military.
“We totally demolished Kharg Island, but we may hit it a few more times just for fun,” Trump said on NBC News.
On March 22, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, hosting his monthly Christian worship service at the Pentagon, prayed: “Let every round find its mark against the enemies of righteousness and our great nation.
“Give them wisdom in every decision, endurance for the trial ahead, unbreakable unity, and overwhelming violence of action against those who deserve no mercy.”
Pete Hegseth
“I pursued my enemies and overtook them, and did not turn back till they were consumed,” he read from Psalms 18:37. “Those who hated me I destroyed. They cried to the Lord, but He did not answer them.”
Former House speaker and Trump advisor Newt Gingrich posted on X: “Instead of fighting over a 21-mile-wide bottleneck [Strait of Hormuz] forever, we [could] cut a new channel through friendly territory. A dozen thermonuclear detonations and you’ve got a waterway wider than the Panama Canal, deeper than the Suez, and safe from Iranian attacks.”
This would produce countless numbers of casualties and cover the Middle East with radioactive fallout.
It remains to be seen if such exhortations will lead American soldiers to act as barbarically as those of the Wehrmacht and SS—and inspire similar barbarism in return.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Military, Politics, Social commentary on March 31, 2026 at 12:48 am
The city: Berlin.
The date: November 12–13, 1940.
The event: A meeting between German Fuhrer Adolf Hitler and Soviet Foreign Minister Vyacheslav Molotov.
The purposes: To discuss:
- Soviet expansion and control over Finland, Bulgaria, and the Turkish Straits; and
- Germany’s desire for the USSR to attack British interests in India and Iran.
Hitler wanted the USSR to join the Axis (Germany, Italy, and Japan) and expand “southward” toward the Indian Ocean to avoid conflict in Europe.
Adolf Hitler
Molotov ignored the talk of India and instead demanded control over Finland, Bulgaria, and the Turkish Straits.
Hitler adamantly opposed Soviet control over Finland, which he considered a strategic ally. He feared a Soviet expansion into Scandinavia would threaten German iron ore supplies from Sweden and northern interests.
And he deeply feared that the Soviet Union would cut off Germany’s vital Romanian oil supplies. Romania provided roughly 75% of German oil in 1941. A late 1940 Soviet attack on the Ploiești oil fields would render Germany helpless and force an end to the war.
On a personal level, Molotov and Hitler grated on each other’s nerves. Molotov was blunt in his remarks and didn’t spare Hitler at all. He seldom smiled and refused to compromises on Russia’s demands for control of Finland, Bulgaria, and the Turkish Straits.
At one point, Molotov asked: “Is last year’s agreement [between Germany and Russia] still valid?”
Hitler replied that it was.
“I asked this question,” said Molotov, “because of the Finns. You are on very friendly relations with the Finns. You invite people from Finland to Germany and you send missions there. And the Finns are very dangerous people. They undermine our security and we’ll have to do something about that and we are going to do something about that.”
Vyacheslav Molotov
“I understand you very well,” exploded Hitler. “You want to wage war against Finland and that is quite out of the question. Do you hear me? It’s impossible because my supplies of iron, nickel and other important raw materials would be cut.”
During the talks, British Royal Air Force (RAF) bombers appeared overhead, forcing the leaders to move to an air raid shelter.
German Foreign Minister Joachim von Ribbentrop had been trying to convince Molotov that Great Britain was “beaten” and that the British Empire was a “gigantic world-wide estate in bankruptcy” ready for partition.
Molotov sarcastically replied: “If England is beaten, why are we in this shelter and whose are the bombs that are falling?”
Even while Molotov was still in Berlin, Hitler ordered his generals to attack the Soviet Union on May 15, 1941.
Within a month they responded with a detailed plan code-named “Operation Barbarossa.”
Less than one year later—on June 22, 1941—with 134 divisions at full fighting strength and 73 more divisions for deployment behind the front, the German Wehrmacht invaded the Soviet Union.
Now the two most ruthless dictators on earth—Adolf Hitler and Joseph Stalin—were locked in a fight to the death.
At the outset, the odds clearly favored the Germans.
The invasion caught the Soviet Union by surprise. Joseph Stalin had received Intelligence reports from Great Britain that Germany was preparing to attack. But Stalin, who believed the British were trying to drive a wedge between him and Hitler, put his faith in Hitler, whose guarantees had long proved worthless.
German army units
From June to September, the Wehrmacht captured vast territories and encircled hundreds of thousands of Red Army troops. German forces quickly advanced toward Leningrad, Moscow, and Kiev, inflicting massive casualties.
The Luftwaffe destroyed much of the Soviet air force on the ground.
In June and July, German panzers quickly advanced, capturing over 300,000 Soviet prisoners in the Minsk-Bialystok pocket. By late September, Army Group South captured Kiev, resulting in the largest encirclement in history, with roughly 600,000 Soviet soldiers trapped.
By the end of 1941, more than three million Soviet soldiers were captured or killed. Still, the Soviet Union did not collapse and continued to commit new field armies to the conflict.
By December, the Wehrmacht, besieging Moscow, were literally freezing to death in their summer uniforms. Then, on December 5-6, the Soviets launched their decisive counter-offensive before Moscow, forcing German forces into a retreat.
It marked the first major land defeat for the Wehrmacht since its September 1, 1939 invasion of Poland, which ignited World War II.
Now, fast-forward 85 years. Substitute President Donald Trump for Fuhrer Adolf Hitler and Mojtaba Khamenei for Joseph Stalin—and Iran for the Soviet Union.
Donald Trump and Adolf Hitler
Just as Hitler launched his attack on the Soviet Union without warning, so did Trump launch his on Iran—on February 28.
Hitler’s attack didn’t kill Joseph Stalin, the all-powerful dictator of the Soviet Union. But Trump’s airstrikes killed Ali Hosseini Khamenei, who had ruled Iran as its supreme leader from 1989.
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei
Still, the Iranians quickly elevated his son, Mojtaba Khamenei, to the same position—and went on fighting.
Hitler—and numerous members of the Wehrmacht—believed that Germany’s mechanized panzers would succeed where Napoleon Bonaparte had failed in 1812. And that they could conquer the Soviet Union in only three months.
They were wrong.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Politics, Social commentary on March 26, 2026 at 12:17 am
Donald Trump’s unprovoked attack on Iran is separated from Adolf Hitler’s attack on the Soviet Union by a span of 84 years. Yet despite differences in geography and history, eerie similarities exist between the two.
Hitler launched his assault on the Soviet Union on June 22, 1941—after a series of quick military conquests: Poland (1939); Norway, Denmark, Holland, Belgium, France (1940); Greece and Yugoslavia (1941).
Similarly, before launching his assault on Iran on February 28, Trump had scored a number of triumphs–albeit of a non-military nature. A March 19, 2026 article in The New Republic offers a partial summary:
Donald Trump and Adolf Hitler
“In the first year since returning to power, Trump and his subordinates have pushed the country toward fascism and oligarchy. He has turned Washington into an orgy of corruption and self-dealing beyond even the most cynical observer’s imagination.
“He has transformed Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Border Patrol into a lawless paramilitary force that has besieged American cities and killed at least five U.S. citizens and 22 foreign nationals. He has abused Americans and their immigrant neighbors alike simply because he can.”
In his attempt to conquer the Soviet Union, Hitler made the fatal mistake of trying to conquer too much territory all at once.
In August 1941, Hitler diverted forces from the central push on Moscow to surround Leningrad and industrial regions in the South, which delayed the attack on Moscow. By the time Hitler decided to capture Moscow, the weather had turned cold and the Germans were exhausted and freezing.
As in the case of Hitler, Trump assumed that Iran could be forced to quickly surrender. But that effort has been handicapped by a series of shifting and contradictory goals:
- Preventing Iran from developing nuclear weapons.
- Destroying Iran’s missile capabilities.
- Annihilating the Iranian navy.
- Ensuring that Iran quit arming, funding and/or directing “terrorist armies” outside its borders.
In the opening day of the war, American and Israeli airstrikes killed Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. By March 17, Israel announced that it had killed two more top Iranian leaders in airstrikes. Still, Iranians chose new leaders to succeed dead ones and went on fighting.
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei
On March 19, Israeli airstrikes hit Iran’s largest gas field—South Pars, which is part of the world’s largest natural gas reserves. In retaliation, Iran launched drone and missile attacks against energy infrastructure in Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Qatar, and Kuwait.
Iran also targeted Israel and attacked U.S. military bases in the region, including in Bahrain and Jordan.
Trump said there would be no further attacks on South Pars unless Iran attacked Qatar again. In that case the U.S. “will massively blow up the entirety” of the gas field.
Hitler expected the Soviet Union to collapse in a matter of weeks. France, which supposedly had the strongest army in Europe, had collapsed in six weeks in 1940. He believed that General Winter, which had defeated Napoleon in 1812, would not be a problem for the mechanized Wehrmacht.
Yet the Wehrmacht was far less mechanized than portrayed by German propagandists. It relied heavily on horses for approximately 80% of its transport needs throughout World War II. During the winter of 1941 – 1942, the Wehrmacht lost over 179,000 horses. In the Army Group Center sector, losses reached roughly 1,000 per day.
In movies like “The Longest Day” and “Saving Private Ryan,” Americans celebrate the D-Day landings on France, on June 6, 1944. But for Nazi Germany, “the real war” was in the East. There the Wehrmacht concentrated the largest proportion of its forces—and suffered 85% of its casualties.
By March 19, the United States had spent $12 to over $12.7 billion on military operations against Iran, which began on February 28.
And by March 19, the Pentagon was asking for an additional $200 billion for the war. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth said “that number could move.” When asked why so much more funding was needed, he replied: “It takes money to kill bad guys.”
It also takes money—lots of it—to keep Pentagon brass well-supplied with luxuries denied to Americans forced to live on Food Stamps.
In September 2025, the Pentagon spent a record-breaking $93.4 billion in a single month. While most of this was for military grants and contracts, a significant portion was used for high-end furniture, luxury food and musical instruments.
This spending surge, often called a “use-it-or-lose-it” spree, occurs at the end of the fiscal year as agencies rush to exhaust their budgets to avoid future cuts. Examples:
- Luxury Food: Lobster tail, $15 million on ribeye steak, $9 million on Alaskan King Crab, $25 million+ on salmon
- Furniture: High-end office furniture: $225.6 million, including $60,000 for Herman Miller recliners
- Instruments: $1.8 million: Steinway & Sons grand piano ($98,329), a $21,750 custom handmade flute and a $26,000 violin
- IT/Devices: High-Spec Apple iPad Air M3s and Samsung 98-inch monitors – $5.3 million
- Goodies: Ice cream machines, doughnuts, fruit basket stands – $275,000+
Meanwhile, Trump has called for huge increases to the Pentagon’s budget. In January, he posted that the 2027 fiscal year budget should be $1.5 trillion—a 50% increase.
“This will allow us to build the ‘Dream Military’ that we have long been entitled to and, more importantly, that will keep us SAFE and SECURE, regardless of foe.”
Fasten your seatbelts. It’s going to be a bumpy—and expensive—nightmare.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Military, Politics, Social commentary on March 25, 2026 at 12:02 am
Adolf Hitler had a warning for Donald Trump on the eve of his launching airstrikes against Iran.
A warning Trump should have heeded—but didn’t.
It all started on June 22, 1941.
On that date, Hitler ordered his powerful Wehrmacht o 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 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 President Donald Trump and the United States.
On February 28, Trump—in concert with Israel—launched a series of devastating, unprovoked airstrikes against Iran. Since then, Trump and his Secretary of Defense, Pete Hegseth, have been all over the map with rosy predictions.
Donald Trump
- February 28: Trump posted on Truth Social that the bombing would continue “throughout the week or as long as necessary to achieve our objective of PEACE THROUGHOUT THE MIDDLE EAST AND, INDEED, THE WORLD!”
- March 1: In a video Trump declared that the war would continue “until all of our objectives are achieved.”
- March 2: Trump: “Right from the beginning, we projected four to five weeks, but we have capability to go far longer than that.”
- March 5: Hegseth to Pentagon reporters: “You can say four weeks [how long the war might last] but it could be six, it could be eight, it could be three. Ultimately, we set the pace and the tempo.”
- March 6: Trump: “There will be no deal with Iran except UNCONDITIONAL SURRENDER.”
- March 8: Hegseth: “We’re willing to go as far as we need to in order to be successful.”
- March 9: Trump: “No, but soon. I think so. Very soon” when asked by a reporter if the war would be over that week.
- March 11: “You know, you never like to say too early you won. We won. We won the, in the first hour, it was over.”
Hitler had been similarly optimistic about how long it would take to conquer the Soviet Union: Six to eight weeks, at the longest. And during the first three months of the war—July through September, 1941—that optimism seemed well-placed.
The Wehrmacht repeatedly lured Soviet armies into huge “cauldron battles,” then surrounded them, killing thousands and taking thousands of prisoners. By the end of September, German forces had captured or killed over 650,000 Russian troops in the Battle of Kiev alone, with total Soviet casualties reaching millions.
But then Hitler—and the Wehrmacht—paid a fatal price for their misplaced optimism.
The best—and most lethal—example of this hubris: The Wehrmacht went to war in summer uniforms on June 22—and were still wearing them in December.
Hitler placed infinite faith in the power of will to overcome all obstacles. When his soldiers were literally freezing to death before the gates of Moscow, Hitler believed that with “just one more push” the Soviet capital would fall.
When Heinz Guderian, his foremost expert on tank warfare, informed Hitler that German soldiers had no defense against the bitter cold, Hitler replied: They should dig foxholes.
Guderian replied that the icy ground was too solid to be punctured with spades.
Hitler’s reply: They should fire artillery shells into the ground to build foxholes.
This totally ignored the reality that, by December, 1941, the German army was dangerously short on munitions of all kinds.
Like Hitler, Trump seemed to consider himself omnipotent. Asked by a reporter how long the war would last, the President replied: “Any time I want it to end, it will end.”
Yet by the third week of the war, he began demanding—not asking—the assistance of NATO countries: We’ve had your back, now it’s our turn.
This totally ignored the fact that NATO exists to aid any of its members if it is attacked. After 9/11, NATO air force planes screened American airspace to prevent a repeat of similar carnage.
But NATO members are not obligated to join any nation in igniting a war. And that was precisely what Trump did on February 28—without consulting or even informing NATO of his plans to attack.
The only country that knew his intentions was Israel.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Medical, Politics, Social commentary on August 11, 2025 at 12:45 am
Donald Trump’s appearance at the Conservative Political Action Conference on March 2, 2019 was an occasion for rejoicing among his supporters.
But for those who prize rationality and decency in a President, it was a dismaying and frightening experience.
For two hours, Trump gave free reign to his anger and egomania.
Among his unhinged commentaries:
“We have people in Congress that hate our country.”
If you don’t agree 100% with Trump on everything, you’re a traitor.
“He called me up. He said, ‘You’re a great President. You’re doing a great job.’ He said, ‘I just want to tell you you’re a great President and you’re one of the smartest people I’ve ever met.'”
Trump attributed these remarks to California’s liberal governor, Gavin Newsom. On February 11, 2019, Newsom had announced he was withdrawing several hundred National Guardsmen from the state’s southern border with Mexico—defying Trump’s request for support from border states.
Donald Trump at CPAC
“You know if you remember my first major speech—you know the dishonest media they’ll say, ‘He didn’t get a standing ovation.’ You know why? Because everybody stood and nobody sat. They are the worst. They leave that out.”
Once again, he’s the persecuted victim of an unfair and totally unappreciative news media.
“And I love the First Amendment; nobody loves it better than me. Nobody. I mean, who use its more than I do? But the First Amendment gives all of us—it gives it to me, it gives it to you, it gives it to all Americans, the right to speak our minds freely. It gives you the right and me the right to criticize fake news and criticize it strongly.”
Trump has repeatedly called the nation’s free press “the enemy of the people”—a slander popularized by Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin. And while Trump brags about his usage of the First Amendment, he’s used Non-Disclosure agreements and threats of lawsuits to deny that right to others.
“For too long, we’ve traded away our jobs to other countries. So terrible.”
While this remark got rousing applause, he failed to mention that his own products are made overseas:
- Ties: Made in China
- Suits: Made in Indonesia
- Trump Vodka: Made in the Netherlands, and later in Germany
- Crystal glasses, decanters: Made in Slovenia
- And the clothing and accessories line of his daughter, Ivanka, is produced entirely in factories in Bangladesh, Indonesia and China.
“By the way, you folks are in here—this place is packed, there are lines that go back six blocks and I tell you that because you won’t read about it, OK.”
He’s obsessed with fear that the media won’t make him look popular.
“So we’re all part of this very historic movement, a movement the likes of which, actually, the world has never seen before. There’s never been anything like this. There’s been some movements, but there’s never been anything like this.”
Trump sees himself as the single greatest figure in history. So anything he’s involved with must be unprecedented.
“But I always say, Obamacare doesn’t work. And these same people two years ago and a year ago were complaining about Obamacare.”
In 2010, 48 million Americans lacked health insurance. By 2016, that number had been reduced to 28.6 million. So 20 million Americans now have access to medical care they previously couldn’t get.
“But we’re taking a firm, bold and decisive measure, we have to, to turn things around [with North Korea]. The era of empty talk is over, it’s over.”
- Trump has boasted that he and North Korean dictator Kim Jong-Un “fell in love.” Then he met with Kim in Vietnam—and got stiffed on a deal for North Korea to give up its nuclear weapons.
- On July 16, 2018, Trump attended a press conference in Helsinki, Finland, with Russian President Vladimir Putin. There he blamed American Intelligence agencies—such as the FBI and CIA—instead of Putin for Russia’s subversion of the 2016 Presidential election.
“I’ll tell you what they [agents of Immigration and Customs Enforcement] do, they came and endorsed me, ICE came and endorsed me. They never endorsed a presidential candidate before, they might not even be allowed to.”
Trump can’t stop boasting about how popular he is.
“These are hard-working, great, great Americans. These are unbelievable people who have not been treated fairly. Hillary called them deplorable. They’re not deplorable.”
On the contrary: “Deplorable” is exactly the word for those who vote their racism, ignorance, superstition and hatred of their fellow citizens.
A FINAL NOTE: Trump held himself up for adoration just three days after Michael Cohen, his longtime fixer:
- Damned him as a racist, a conman and a cheat.
- Revealed that Trump had cheated on his taxes and bought the silence of a porn “star” to prevent her revealing a 2006 tryst before the 2016 election.
- Estimated he had stiffed, on Trump’s behalf, hundreds of workers Trump owed money to.
And, only two days earlier, Trump had returned from a much-ballyhooed meeting in Vietnam with North Korean dictator Kim Jong-Un. Trump hoped to get a Nobel Peace Prize by persuading Kim to give up his nuclear arsenal.
Instead, Trump got stiffed—and returned empty-handed.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Medical, Politics, Social commentary on August 8, 2025 at 12:24 am
“Is Donald Trump simply crazy, or is he crazy like a fox?”
That was the question that Bandy X. Lee, an assistant clinical psychiatry professor at the Yale School of Medicine, wanted to answer.
And she tried to do so as the editor of The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump: 27 Psychiatrists and Mental Health Experts Assess a President.
“It doesn’t take a psychiatrist to notice that our president is mentally compromised,” she and colleague Judith Lewis Herman asserted in the book’s prologue.
According to Dr. Craig Malkin, a Lecturer in Psychology for Harvard Medical School and a licensed psychologist, Trump is a pathological narcissist:
“Pathological narcissism begins,” Malkin writes, “when people become so addicted to feeling special that, just like with any drug, they’ll do anything to get their ‘high,’ including lie, steal, cheat, betray and even hurt those closest to them.
“When they can’t let go of their need to be admired or recognized, they have to bend or invent a reality in which they remain special despite all messages to the contrary. In point of fact, they become dangerously psychotic. It’s just not always obvious until it’s too late.”
Lance Dodes, a retired psychiatry professor at Harvard Medical School, believes that Trump is a sociopath: “The failure of normal empathy is central to sociopathy, which is marked by an absence of guilt, intentional manipulation and controlling or even sadistically harming others for personal power or gratification.”
But an observer didn’t need to be a psychiatrist to feel frightened by Trump’s behavior at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) on March 2, 2019.
For two hours, in National Harbor, Maryland, Trump delivered the longest address (so far) of his first term as President—and of any American President.
“You know, I’m totally off script right now,” Trump said early on. “This is how I got elected, by being off script.”
And from the moment he embraced an American flag as though he wanted to hump it, it was clear: He was “totally off script.”
“How many times did you hear, for months and months, ‘There is no way to 270?’ You know what that means, right? ‘There is no way to 270.'”
Once again, Trump reveals his obsession with his win in 2016—as if no one else had ever been elected President.
“If you tell a joke, if you’re sarcastic, if you’re having fun with the audience, if you’re on live television with millions of people and 25,000 people in an arena, and if you say something like, ‘Russia, please, if you can, get us Hillary Clinton’s emails. Please, Russia, please.'”
Here he’s trying to “spin” his infamous invitation to hackers in Vladimir Putin’s Russia to intervene in an American Presidential election by obtaining the emails of his campaign rival. Which they did that same day.
“So now we’re waiting for a report [from the office of Special Counsel Robert Mueller] and we’ll find out whether or not, and who we’re dealing with. We’re waiting for a report by people that weren’t elected.”
It doesn’t matter to Trump that America’s foremost enemy—Russia—tried to influence a Presidential election. What matters to him is that the report might end his Presidency.
“Those red hats—and white ones. The key is in the color. The key is what it says. ‘Make America Great Again’ is what it says. Right? Right?”
Color matters. Words, ideas don’t.
“Now, Robert Mueller never received a vote, and neither did the person that appointed him. And as you know, the attorney general says, ‘I’m going to recuse myself.'”
Special Counsel Robert S. Mueller and Assistant Attorney General Rod Rosenstein were career Justice Department officials. They weren’t voted into office.
Robert Mueller
“Number one, I’m in love, and you’re in love. We’re all in love together. There’s so much love in this room, it’s easy to talk. You can talk your heart out. You really could. There’s love in this room. You can talk your heart out. It’s easy. It’s easy. It’s easy.”
Trump apparently finds it easy to fall in love—with Right-wing audiences and Communist dictators such as Kim Jong-Un.
“And from the day we came down the escalator, I really don’t believe we’ve had an empty seat at any arena, at any stadium. They did the same thing at our big inauguration speech. You take a look at those crowds.”
Once again, he must brag about how popular he is and how many people want to listen to him.
“A few days ago I called the fake news the enemy of the people. And they are. They are the enemy of the people. Because they have no sources, they just make ’em up when there are none.”
By January 20, 2020, The Washington Post found that Trump had made “16,241 ‘false or misleading claims” in his first three years in office. He is in no position to talk about integrity.
“But we’re going to have regulation. It’s going to be really strong and really good and we’re going to protect our environment and we’re going to protect the safety of our people and our workers, OK?”
To “protect our environment,” Trump appointed Andrew R. Wheeler, a former coal company lobbyist, to head the Environmental Protection Agency.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Medical, Politics, Social commentary on August 7, 2025 at 12:12 am
What would happen if the President of the United States went stark-raving mad?
That is the premise of the 1965 novel, Night at Camp David, by Fletcher Knebel.
At the time of its release, its plot was considered so over-the-top as to be worthy of science fiction:
Iowa Democratic Senator Jim MacVeagh is summoned to Camp David, the Presidential retreat, by President Mark Hollenbach. MacVeagh is expected to become Hollenbach’s next Vice President. But he becomes alarmed that Hollenbach is clearly suffering from intense paranoia.
Hollenbach wants to develop a closer relationship between the United States and Russia—while cutting ties with American allies in Europe. Moreover, he believes the American news media are conspiring against him with his political enemies.
Only one person possesses evidence that Hollenbach is losing his grip on sanity—his mistress, Rita. Desperate to retain his power, Hollenbach orders the FBI to investigate both MacVeagh and Rita.
So why was a 53-year-old novel re-released in 2018? The answer lay in two words: Donald Trump.
In a November 30, 2018 review of Night at Camp David, Tom McCarthy, national affairs correspondent for the British newspaper, The Guardian, wrote:
“The current president has seen crowds where none exist, deployed troops to answer no threat, attacked national institutions – the military, the justice department, the judiciary, the vote, the rule of law, the press – tried to prosecute his political enemies, elevated bigots, oppressed minorities, praised despots while insulting global allies and wreaked diplomatic havoc from North Korea to Canada.
“He stays up half the night watching TV and tweeting about it, then wakes up early to tweet some more, in what must be the most remarkable public diary of insecurity, petty vindictiveness, duplicity and scattershot focus by a major head of state in history.”
And the nightmare isn’t over.
Among the outrages Trump has committed since returning to power on January 20:
- Pardoned about 1,500 of his followers who violently tried to overturn the outcome of the 2020 Presidential election in the January 6, 2021 attack on Congress. Move than 250 of those pardoned had been convicted of assaulting police.
- Withdrew the United States from the World Health Organization (WHO).
- Withdrew the United States from the Paris climate agreement.
- Ordered the dismissal of 5,000 FBI agents who investigated his incitement of the January 6 riot and his illegal hoarding of classified documents at Mar-a-Lago.
- Declared “a national emergency” targeting migrants—legal and illegal.
- Tried to cancel birthright citizenship—enshrined within the United States Constitution— for U.S.-born children.
- Demanded a military parade for his 79th birthday, poorly disguised as a salute to the 250th anniversary of the United States Army.
- Fired without cause the director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.
- Angrily fired the Commissioner of the Bureau of Labor Statistics following a weak jobs report, triggering fears about his extortionate tariff policy.
Donald Trump
- Demanded that the media refer to the Gulf of Mexico as “the Gulf of America” and banned the Associated Press from the White House for refusing to do so.
- Ordered the closure of all Federal Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Accessibility offices.
- Fired the inspectors general from more than a dozen federal agencies.
- Demanded that Canada become the 51st state and aggressively raised tariffs on Canadian goods.
- Aggressively stated that he wanted the United States to acquire Greenland, its longtime ally.
- Issued executive orders revoking the security clearance of Chris Krebs, former director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency. Krebs’ “crime”: Preventing lies spread by Russians—and Americans—on social media platforms from swaying the 2020 Presidential election to Trump.
- Threatened Harvard University with the loss of billions of dollars in federal funding, claiming that 2023 student protests about Gaza violated the civil rights of Jewish students.
- Accepted a $400 million luxury jet from Qatar for his personal use, a violation of the Emoluments Clause of the Constitution.
Trump’s vindictiveness, his narcissism, his compulsive aggression, his complaints that his “enemies” in government and the press are trying to destroy him, have caused many to ask: Could the President of the United States be suffering from mental illness?
One who has dared to answer this question is John D. Gartner, a practicing psychotherapist.
John D. Gartner
Gartner graduated magna cum laude from Princeton University, received his Ph.D in clinical psychology from the University of Massachusetts, and served as a part-time assistant professor of psychiatry at Johns Hopkins University Medical School for 28 years.
During an interview by U.S. News & World Report (published on January 27, 2017), Gartner said: “Donald Trump is dangerously mentally ill and temperamentally incapable of being president.”
Gartner said that Trump suffers from “malignant narcissism,” whose symptoms include:
- anti-social behavior
- sadism
- aggressiveness
- paranoia
- grandiosity.
“We’ve seen enough public behavior by Donald Trump now that we can make this diagnosis indisputably,” says Gartner, who admits he has not personally examined Trump.
More of that behavior was on full display on March 2, 2019 at the annual Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), held at the Gaylord National Resort & Convention Center, National Harbor, Maryland.
For more than two hours, Trump delivered the longest speech (so far) of his first term as President to his fanatically Right-wing audience.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Medical, Politics, Social commentary on August 4, 2025 at 1:28 am
“Is Donald Trump simply crazy, or is he crazy like a fox?”
That was the question that Bandy X. Lee, an assistant clinical psychiatry professor at the Yale School of Medicine, wanted to answer.
And she tried to do so as the editor of The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump: 27 Psychiatrists and Mental Health Experts Assess a President.
“It doesn’t take a psychiatrist to notice that our president is mentally compromised,” she and colleague Judith Lewis Herman asserted in the book’s prologue.
According to Dr. Craig Malkin, a Lecturer in Psychology for Harvard Medical School and a licensed psychologist, Trump is a pathological narcissist:
“Pathological narcissism begins,” Malkin writes, “when people become so addicted to feeling special that, just like with any drug, they’ll do anything to get their ‘high,’ including lie, steal, cheat, betray and even hurt those closest to them.
“When they can’t let go of their need to be admired or recognized, they have to bend or invent a reality in which they remain special despite all messages to the contrary. In point of fact, they become dangerously psychotic. It’s just not always obvious until it’s too late.”
Lance Dodes, a retired psychiatry professor at Harvard Medical School, believes that Trump is a sociopath: “The failure of normal empathy is central to sociopathy, which is marked by an absence of guilt, intentional manipulation and controlling or even sadistically harming others for personal power or gratification.”
But an observer didn’t need to be a psychiatrist to feel frightened by Trump’s behavior at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) on March 2, 2019.
For two hours, in National Harbor, Maryland, Trump delivered the longest address (so far) of his first term as President—and of any American President.
“You know, I’m totally off script right now,” Trump said early on. “This is how I got elected, by being off script.”
And from the moment he embraced an American flag as though he wanted to hump it, it was clear: He was “totally off script.”
“How many times did you hear, for months and months, ‘There is no way to 270?’ You know what that means, right? ‘There is no way to 270.'”
Once again, Trump reveals his obsession with his win in 2016—as if no one else had ever been elected President.
“If you tell a joke, if you’re sarcastic, if you’re having fun with the audience, if you’re on live television with millions of people and 25,000 people in an arena, and if you say something like, ‘Russia, please, if you can, get us Hillary Clinton’s emails. Please, Russia, please.'”
Here he’s trying to “spin” his infamous invitation to hackers in Vladimir Putin’s Russia to intervene in an American Presidential election by obtaining the emails of his campaign rival. Which they did that same day.
“So now we’re waiting for a report [from the office of Special Counsel Robert Mueller] and we’ll find out whether or not, and who we’re dealing with. We’re waiting for a report by people that weren’t elected.”
It doesn’t matter to Trump that America’s foremost enemy—Russia—tried to influence a Presidential election. What matters to him is that the report might end his Presidency.
“Those red hats—and white ones. The key is in the color. The key is what it says. ‘Make America Great Again’ is what it says. Right? Right?”
Color matters. Words, ideas don’t.
“Now, Robert Mueller never received a vote, and neither did the person that appointed him. And as you know, the attorney general says, ‘I’m going to recuse myself.'”
Special Counsel Robert S. Mueller and Assistant Attorney General Rod Rosenstein were career Justice Department officials. They weren’t voted into office.
Robert Mueller
“Number one, I’m in love, and you’re in love. We’re all in love together. There’s so much love in this room, it’s easy to talk. You can talk your heart out. You really could. There’s love in this room. You can talk your heart out. It’s easy. It’s easy. It’s easy.”
Trump apparently finds it easy to fall in love—with Right-wing audiences and Communist dictators such as Kim Jong-Un.
“And from the day we came down the escalator, I really don’t believe we’ve had an empty seat at any arena, at any stadium. They did the same thing at our big inauguration speech. You take a look at those crowds.”
Once again, he must brag about how popular he is and how many people want to listen to him.
“A few days ago I called the fake news the enemy of the people. And they are. They are the enemy of the people. Because they have no sources, they just make ’em up when there are none.”
By January 20, 2020, The Washington Post found that Trump had made “16,241 ‘false or misleading claims” in his first three years in office. He is in no position to talk about integrity.
“But we’re going to have regulation. It’s going to be really strong and really good and we’re going to protect our environment and we’re going to protect the safety of our people and our workers, OK?”
To “protect our environment,” Trump appointed Andrew R. Wheeler, a former coal company lobbyist, to head the Environmental Protection Agency.
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HITLER’S HUBRIS = TRUMP’S FATE: PART TWO (END)
In Bureaucracy, History, Military, Politics, Social commentary on April 9, 2026 at 12:14 amThere are major similarities between Adolf Hitler’s 1941 invasion and intended conquest of the Soviet Union and Donald Trump’s 2026 attack and intended conquest of Iran.
Even as late as January 30, 1945, Hitler claimed that God firmly stood on the side of the Third Reich—and thus would guarantee its eventual victory.
PAST – HITLER: God the Almighty has made our nation. By defending its existence we are defending His work…Therefore, it is all the more necessary on this twelfth anniversary of the rise to power to strengthen the heart more than ever before and to steel ourselves in the holy determination to wield the sword, no matter where and under what circumstances, until final victory crowns our efforts.
Similarly, on March 22, 2026, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, hosting his monthly Christian worship service at the Pentagon, prayed:
PRESENT – HEGSETH: Let every round find its mark against the enemies of righteousness and our great nation. Give them wisdom in every decision, endurance for the trial ahead, unbreakable unity, and overwhelming violence of action against those who deserve no mercy.
“I pursued my enemies and overtook them, and did not turn back till they were consumed,” he read from Psalms 18:37. “Those who hated me I destroyed. They cried to the Lord, but He did not answer them.”
On December 31, 1939—more than three months into World War 11—Hitler made clear his ultimate war aims:
PAST – HITLER: We shall only talk of peace when we have won the war. The Jewish capitalist world will not survive the twentieth century.
PRESENT – PETE HEGSETH: Iran cannot outlast us. We are going to ensure through violence of action and our offensive capabilities and our defensive capabilities, as I said, that we set the tone and the tempo of this fight.
Hitler believed that German airpower could force Great Britain to submit to his will. The Battle of Britain and The Blitz proved him wrong.
He also believed that his mechanized Panzers—which had defeated French and British armies in May-June,1940—would succeed where Napoleon’s horse-driven Grand Army had failed in 1812. The final proof of his mistake appeared on April 30, 1945, as Russian forces were almost literally knocking at his Fuhrerbunker door.
PAST – HITLER: We have only to kick in the front door and the whole rotten structure will come crashing down.
Hegseth believes that American airpower can force Iran to submit to his will. But the Strait of Hormuz remains closed to world shipping (except for those nations that Iran regards as friendly or neutral). So long as this continues, Americans’ gas prices will continue to rise with no end in sight—and pose a threat to Republicans’ continued control of the House and Senate.
About 20% of the world’s total oil consumption—roughly 20-21 million barrels per day—passes through this, making it the world’s most crucial oil chokepoint.
PRESENT – HEGSETH: Iran will never possess a nuclear bomb, not on our watch, not ever. And this is why President Trump’s moral clarity on Iran today is so vital. Unlike the past, where vague red lines and endless negotiations let Iran fund terror and inch ever so slightly toward a bomb, this president sees the threat plainly and acts decisively, no more half measures, especially when Iran is at its weakest. No more letting Tehran play for time while our people pay the price.
PAST – HITLER: Russia is already broken and will never rise again.
PRESENT – HEGSETH: Iran’s senior leaders are dead, the so-called governing council that might have selected a successor, dead, missing or cowering in bunkers, too terrified to even occupy the same room. Senior generals, mid-level officers, enlisted ranks, they can’t talk or communicate, let alone mount a coordinated and sustained offensive. That’s not great for morale.
PAST – HITLER: Moscow must disappear from the earth’s surface as soon as its riches have been brought to shelter.
PRESENT – HEGSETH: The enemy can no longer shoot the volume of missiles they once did, not even close, and the chairman will lay out some of those percentages. So, our air defenses and that of our allies have plenty of runway. We can sustain this fight easily for as long as we need to. And as I said yesterday, we set the terms.
PAST – HITLER: Today I am at the head of the strongest Army in the world, the most gigantic Air Force and of a proud Navy. Behind and around me stands the Party with which I became great and which has become great through me. Our enemies must not deceive themselves—in the 2,000 years of German history known to us, our people have never been more united than today.
PRESENT – HEGSETH: And we know their ability to shoot versus our ability to defend. That difference gets wider and wider every day. Our defense gets better. Their offense capabilities diminish as we are going into ammunitions that we, as we said, have tens of thousands of and can drop unlimited supplies on, with even more effects than the stand-off munitions we have now, which is why, when we say the throttle’s going up, the throttle’s going up. And it’s going to stay on high.
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