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In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Military, Politics, Social commentary on May 12, 2026 at 12:05 am
On the April 10 edition of The PBS Newshour, David Brooks of The Atlantic and Jonathan Capehart of MS NOW—exchanged opinions on the mental health of President Donald Trump.
Although Brooks, a conservative, and Capehart, a liberal, usually find themselves on opposite sides of a subject, this time they reached a consensus: Trump is dangerously ill.
David Brooks: Last January, as we watched this spiral psychologically….I read Roman histories. And so you get Tacitus and Sallust and those old guys, because they had a front-row seat to tyranny. And they watched authoritarians, one after another, Caligula, all these guys. And the one thing they all said was that they deteriorate.
They create a situation around them, when the sycophants have to get more sycophant. Anybody who’s reasonable is either dead or gone. And then the urge to dominate, the lust for power becomes drunk. They become drunk on that. And they get more and more daring, more and more out of control, and then you get this spiral.
And our founding fathers, they understood this so well. They read Tacitus. They loved these guys. And John Adams said, if we get a leader like that, he will run through our Congress, our Constitution the way a whale goes through a net. And so they completely understood. And their worst nightmare is now happening.
The Constitution of the United States
Moderator Geoff Bennett: And, Jonathan, 61 percent of Americans, including 30 percent of Republicans, now say that President Trump has become erratic with age. That’s according to a recent Reuters-Ipsos poll.
The press corps — I guess we should hold up a mirror to ourselves. The press corps spent two years making President Biden’s mental fitness, his acuity the story. Why isn’t that same scrutiny now being applied to President Trump broadly?
Jonathan Capehart: Yes, exactly. That has been my question since January 20 of last year. We, the press, spent a lot of time talking about President Biden and his age because he looked old. He moved slowly. He wasn’t as vigorous and agile, supposedly, as the guy he pushed out of office and then the guy who was running against him.
And even little slips of the tongue were used to show, see, aha, he’s not all there. He’s losing his mind. How does that compare to what we’re going through right now? I wish people who have written books — people who have gone on air talking about President Biden nonstop, where are they now?
Where are those books now that we have a president who has given ample evidence, ample evidence that something is not right? Where are the people who are standing up and saying, you know what, something needs to be done?
And that goes back to some — you were talking about the founders. They were prepared for something like this. What they weren’t prepared for was the Article I branch just ceding all authority. What they weren’t prepared for were people from the president’s own party willing to either turn a blind eye or enable him to run roughshod over the Constitution.
Donald Trump
Even when you have got him out there threatening annihilation of a civilization, even when he’s started a war for no reason and the enemy is in a stronger position now than it was before he started this war of his own choosing?
At some point, Republicans writ large and those on Capitol Hill have to start standing up for the Article I prerogatives, but also start standing up for the country. I don’t know how much longer we as a nation can withstand this. And I know the world is beyond done with us, but I think they’re also frightened of us.
* * * * * * * * * *
This is not the first time the subject of Donald Trump’s mental instability has been raised. In 2018, during Trump’s first term as President, a 53-year-old novel was re-released: Night at Camp David, by Fletcher Knebel.
At the time of its 1965, 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.
Its paperback edition offered a sentence that went straight for the jugular: “What would happen if the President of the United States went stark-raving mad?”
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.”
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In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Military, Politics, Social commentary on May 11, 2026 at 12:10 am
On April 10, David Brooks of The Atlantic and Jonathan Capehart of MS NOW appeared—as they do every Friday—on the PBS Newshour to discuss the week’s political events.
Brooks is a conservative, Capehart, a liberal, but they exchange their often differing views in a calm, civil manner. But on this date, there was unanimity between them on the subject of President Donald Trump’s deteriorating mental state.
Moderator Geoff Bennett kicked off the exchange with this:
So, David, the president this week threatened to wipe out an entire civilization, and then he took a cease-fire deal 88 minutes before his own deadline. Is this maximum pressure or maximum chaos?
David Brooks: Maximum malevolence. We shouldn’t let that comment about the wiping out of civilization go by without saying what an antithesis it is of American history….We have always prided ourselves, whether — whatever stupid stuff we do, on not being a rapacious European-style imperial dominating power.
After World War II, we didn’t try to take over Germany and Japan. We gave them money so they could recover. Even George W. Bush, whatever you think of the war, the intentions were OK. But to threaten to wipe out a civilization is pure malevolence.
David Brooks
It’s an assertion of true evil. And it didn’t work. And so, if you want to know how the war is going, look at who’s moving. The U.S. used to have regime change. Now, today, Trump said just so we can stop the nuclear program. And the nuclear material have been unaffected by this war, by the way. So we’re pulling back our goals.
The Iranians, when they put forth their negotiating position, they’re sticking with the goals they had and then they’re adding more. We want to control the Straits of Hormuz. We want reparations. We want you to release all our money.
So they’re clearly on the offensive. And so if you…think America’s winning, why are we going backwards and why are we retreating?
Bennett: And, Jonathan, what does it mean for American foreign policy when the distance between the president saying on social media a whole civilization will die tonight and a cease-fire announcement is roughly eight hours?
Jonathan Capehart: It speaks to the chaos that….that characterizes the president himself, that characterizes how he is running his administration. I was on air Sunday morning….where he was demanding explicitly to open the Strait of Hormuz, you crazy bastards, from a president of the United States on Easter Sunday. To your point, this is not the America that we know.
The American president is supposed to be a statesman, supposed to be someone who is a reflection of our better selves or who we hope to be, who we project our image to be. And, right now, our image is so bad that we not only have the French leader calling out the American president, but the British prime minister called out the American president, basically lumping him with Vladimir Putin of Russia in terms of malevolent force on the world stage.
Jonathan Capehart
….This gets to the bigger question for me about….is the president all right? Because no American president ever has written the things, said the things, threatened the things that he did in the span of, what, 72 hours.
Bennett: Let’s talk more about that, because, last night, President Trump shared this graphic video of a woman being beaten to death. We’re not going to show that video, but you can see the screenshot of the social media message there on the screen.
And he used this video to attack former President Biden, Democrats, federal judges. A sitting president posting footage of a murder as political content, is there no line left?
Brooks: Apparently not. I think he is spiraling out of control. And I say that in part, and a little psychologically, narcissists tend to disinhibit as they age. And so they….just get more of themselves, which is not a good thing.
Donald Trump
But last January, as we watched this spiral psychologically….I read Roman histories. And so you get Tacitus and Sallust and those old guys, because they had a front-row seat to tyranny. And they watched authoritarians, one after another, Caligula, all these guys. And the one thing they all said was that they deteriorate.
They create a situation around them, when the sycophants have to get more sycophant. Anybody who’s reasonable is either dead or gone. And then the urge to dominate, the lust for power becomes drunk. They become drunk on that. And they get more and more daring, more and more out of control, and then you get this spiral.
And our founding fathers, they understood this so well. They read Tacitus. They loved these guys. And John Adams said, if we get a leader like that, he will run through our Congress, our Constitution the way a whale goes through a net. And so they completely understood. And their worst nightmare is now happening.
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In Bureaucracy, Business, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Military, Politics, Social commentary on April 30, 2026 at 12:18 am
Eighty-one years ago, on March 19, 1945, facing certain defeat, Adolf Hitler ordered a massive “scorched-earth” campaign throughout Germany.
All German agriculture, industry, ships, communications, roads, food stuffs, mines, bridges, stores and utility plants were to be destroyed.
If implemented, it would deprive the entire German population of even the barest necessities after the war.
Opposing him—at first openly, and later secretly—was Albert Speer, his former architect and now Minister of Armaments.
Albert Speer
Speer argued that there must be a future for the German people: “If our enemies wish to destroy us, why help them? We must leave the people something.”
But Hitler refused to back down: “I don’t want to hear any more.”
He gave Speer 24 hours to reconsider his opposition to the order.
Speer could not directly promise to carry out Hitler’s “scorched earth” order. So he gave Hitler a vague answer that essentially committed him to nothing: “My Fuhrer, I stand unconditionally behind you!”
“Then all is well,” said Hitler, suddenly with tears in his eyes.
Adolf Hitler addressing boy soldiers as the Third Reich crumbles
“If I stand unreservedly behind you,” said Speer, “then you must entrust me rather than the Gauleiters [district Party leaders serving as provincial governors] with the implementation of your decree.”
Filled with gratitude, Hitler signed the decree Speer had thoughtfully prepared before their fateful meeting.
By doing so, Hitler unintentionally gave Speer the power to thwart his “scorched earth” order.
Trained as an architect, Speer had joined the Nazi Party in 1931. He met Hitler in 1933, when he presented the Fuhrer with architectural designs for the Nuremberg rally scheduled for that year.
From then on, Speer became Hitler’s “genius architect” assigned to create buildings meant to last for a thousand years. “If Hitler had been capable of friendship,” Speer said after the war, “I would have been that friend.”
In 1943, Hitler appointed him Minister of Armaments, charged with revitalizing the German war effort.
Nevertheless, Speer now crisscrossed Germany, persuading military leaders and district governors to not destroy the vital facilities that would be needed after the war.
“No other senior National Socialist could have done the job,” writes Randall Hanson, author of Disobeying Hitler: German Resistance After Valkyrie.
“Speer was one of the very few people in the Reich—-perhaps even the only one—with such power to influence actors’ willingness/unwillingness to destroy.”
Despite his later conviction for war crimes at Nuremberg, Speer never regretted his efforts to save Germany from total destruction at the hands of Adolf Hitler.
* * * * * * * * * *
Why have Republicans almost unanimously stood by Donald Trump despite the wreckage he has made of American foreign and domestic policy?
Fear—that they will lose their privileged positions in Congress if they don’t.
This could happen by:
- Their being voted out of Congress by Trump’s fanatical base; or
- Their being voted out of Congress by anti-Trump voters fed up with Trump’s appalling behavior.
House and Senate Republicans’ support for Trump hinges on one question: “Can I hold onto my power and all the privileges that accompany it by sticking—or breaking—with him?”
The Original Nazis were guided by Hitler’s belief that the world was polluted by corruption and ugliness—and their mission was to remove that ugliness and corruption.
This meant removing those peoples they deemed inferior—Jews, Slavs (Poles, Serbs, Russians), Communists, liberals, gypsies, the physically and mentally handicapped.
Today’s Fascistic Republicans believe themselves to be the only legitimate political party. And so do their supporters.
No sin—or even crime—is intolerable if it’s committed by a Republican.
In his bestselling 1973 biography, The Life and Death of Adolf Hitler, British historian Robert Payne harshly condemned the German people for the rise of the Nazi dictator:
“[They] allowed themselves to be seduced by him and came to enjoy the experience….[They] followed him with joy and enthusiasm because he gave them license to pillage and murder to their hearts’ content. They were his servile accomplices, his willing victims.”
Like Hitler, Trump offered his Republican voters and Congressional allies intoxicating dreams: “I will enrich all of you. And I will humiliate and destroy those Americans you most hate.”
For his white, Fascistic, largely elderly audience, those enemies included blacks, atheists, Hispanics, non-Christians, Muslims, liberals, “uppity” women, Asians.
For most of the first three years of his first term, he faced little opposition. What cost Trump the White House wasn’t Democratic or Republican courage but a deadly disease—COVID-19—which Trump refused to take seriously.
Democrats cowered before Trump’s slanders—thereby ensuring more assaults.
Most of the press quailed before Trump. Only a few media outlets—notably The New York Times, CNN and The Washington Post––dared investigate his crimes and blunders.
In 1960, the Russian poet, Yevgeney Yevtushenko, published “Conversation With an American Writer”—a stinging indictment of the cowardly opportunists who had supported the brutal tyranny of Joseph Stalin:
“You have courage,” they tell me.
It’s not true. I was never courageous.
I simply felt it unbecoming
to stoop to the cowardice of my colleagues.
Too many Republicans know all-too-well how it feels to stoop to the cowardice of their colleagues.
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In Bureaucracy, Business, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Military, Politics, Social commentary on April 29, 2026 at 12:10 am
Since Donald Trump retook the office of President on January 20, 2025, Republicans have lustily supported or remained silent about his litany of criminal, if not treasonous, actions:
- Trump fired the inspectors general—who are charged with protecting the government from waste and corruption—from more than a dozen federal agencies.
- Several career lawyers who worked on the criminal investigations into Trump during the Biden administration were fired by Acting Attorney General James McHenry because he “do[es] not believe that the leadership of the Department can trust you to assist in implementing the President’s agenda faithfully.”
- Trump ordered a purge of about a half-dozen executive assistant directors at the FBI. These were some of the bureau’s top managers overseeing criminal, national security and cyber investigations.
- Their “crime”: Trump blamed them for investigating his inciting the January 6, 2021 coup attempt and his illegal holding of highly sensitive national security documents after leaving office.
- Without explanation, Trump fired Rohit Chopra, the director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which protects consumers from unfair, deceptive and fraudulent business practices.
- Following Trump’s executive orders, federal agencies deleted multiple federal web pages and data. Among the agencies: The Pentagon, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Census Bureau. The changes affected content related to diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI), gender identity, public health research, environmental policy and social programs.
- Following Trump’s anti-DEI executive order, the United States Department of Defense (DOD) deleted content that included the achievements of nonwhite groups, such as Navajo code talkers, black Tuskegee Airmen, Medal of Honor winners and women veterans. As in Joseph Stalin’s Soviet Union, those that Trump hates are made to disappear from history.
- Trump fired the board members at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts and appointed himself as chairman—just as Joseph Stalin made himself arbiter of what was permissible for artists in the Soviet Union.
- Trump held what amounted to an ambush meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky at the White House. Siding with Russian dictator Vladimir Putin, Trump blamed Zelensky for Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine.
- Trump demanded that Zelensky sign over mineral rights to the United States without America’s providing a security guarantee for Ukraine. Zelensky left without signing such an agreement.
- The Trump-authorized and illegitimate Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) led by billionaire Elon Musk, dismantled multiple agencies, invaded the privacy of untold millions by accessing sensitive data systems and fired tens of thousands of federal workers.
- Trump filed frivolous and extortionate lawsuits against major news networks CBS and ABC.
- Against CBS: Trump claimed that its news magazine, “60 Minutes” deceptively edited an interview with Kamala Harris to damage his presidential campaign and influence the election. He initially sought $10 billion in damages, then increased it to $20 billion. Paramount, the owner of CBS, agreed to pay $16 million in legal fees and a contribution to the future Trump Library.
- Against ABC: He claimed that its commentator, George Stephanopoulos, falsely stated he was found liable for “rape” in the case brought by columnist E. Jean Carroll. The jury found Trump liable for sexual abuse and defamation, but not rape. The judge later clarified that what the jury found Trump did was in fact rape, as commonly understood.
- Nevertheless, in December 2024, ABC News agreed to pay $15 million to a foundation for Trump’s presidential library and $1 million in legal fees to settle the lawsuit.
- Trump solicited and received a $400 million luxury jet from Qatar for use as Air Force One, in direct violation of the Emoluments Clause of the United States Constitution, which prohibits federal officials from accepting gifts from foreign countries.
- The jet will cost taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars to bring it up to presidential standards, including a security sweep of the entire aircraft and costly upgrades to ensure classified communications. After Trump leaves office, it will be transferred to his Presidential library.
Qatar’s donated plane
John Taggart from Claydon Banbury, Oxfordshire, CC BY-SA 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0>, via Wikimedia Commons
- On February 28, 2026, Trump—in concert with Israel—launched an unprovoked series of devastating airstrikes against Iran.
- On March 11, Trump told a reporter: “You know, you never like to say too early you won. We won. We won the, in the first hour, it was over.”
- But then—to Trump’s surprise and fury—Iran closed the narrow Strait of Hormuz, through which about 20%-25% of the world’s total liquid petroleum consumption (about 20–21 million barrels per day) flows.
- Overnight, gas prices rose. By late April, the national average for a gallon of regular gas reached $4.02 to $4.04, compared to roughly $2.98 before military operations began.
- On April 5—Easter Sunday, no less—Trump posted on his website, Truth Social: “Tuesday will be Power Plant Day, and Bridge Day, all wrapped up in one, in Iran. There will be nothing like it!!! Open up the Fuckin’ Strait, you crazy bastards, or you’ll be living in Hell – JUST WATCH! Praise be to Allah. President DONALD J. TRUMP”
- This was followed on April 7 by another post: “A whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again. I don’t want that to happen, but it probably will.”
- Legal experts and international organizations such as Amnesty International warned that attacking civilian infrastructure would constitute war crimes under international law.
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In Bureaucracy, Business, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Military, Politics, Social commentary on April 28, 2026 at 12:10 am
Albert Speer, Minister of Armaments for the Third Reich, was appalled.
His Fuhrer, Adolf Hitler—the man he had idolized for 14 years—had just passed a death sentence on Germany, the nation he claimed to love above all others.
On September 1, 1939, Hitler had triggered World War II with the invasion of Poland. This led to a series of quick, spectacular victories—over Poland, Norway, Denmark and France.
Then, on June 22, 1941, Hitler turned on his ally, the Soviet Union, with which he had signed a non-aggression pact in August, 1939.
It had taken the Wehrmacht six weeks to conquer France. Hitler believed that was how long it would take to defeat the Soviet Union.
German soldiers invading the Soviet Union
Again, a series of spectacular battlefield victories followed—before the Wehrmacht was halted at the gates of Moscow. A year later, still enmeshed in Russia, the turning point came at Stalingrad, with the loss of the elite Sixth Army and 800,000 soldiers.
Starting in 1943, the Red Army slowly but steadily regained ground it had lost—the western half of Russia—and began pushing back the Germans. By March, 1945, it was fighting inside Germany—and heading straight for its capital: Berlin.
And by March, 1945, so were American and British forces. After landing in Normandy on June 6, 1944, they had steadily pushed their way across Europe and into Germany.
On March 19, 1945, facing certain defeat, Hitler ordered a massive “scorched-earth” campaign throughout Germany.
All German agriculture, industry, ships, communications, roads, food stuffs, mines, bridges, stores and utility plants were to be destroyed.
If implemented, it would deprive the entire German population of even the barest necessities after the war. And he entrusted the campaign to Albert Speer, his favorite architect-turned-Minister-of-Armaments.
Albert Speer and Adolf Hitler pouring over architectural plans
Now living in a bunker 50 feet below bomb-shattered Berlin, Hitler gave full vent to his most destructive impulses.
“If the war is lost,” Hitler told Speer, “the nation will also perish. This fate is inevitable. There is no necessity to take into consideration the basis which the people will need to continue even a most primitive existence.
“On the contrary, it will be better to destroy these things ourselves, because this nation will have proved to be the weaker one and the future will belong solely to the stronger eastern nation.
“Besides, those who will remain after the battle are only the inferior ones, for the good ones have all been killed.”
* * * * *
During the 2024 Presidential campaign, Americans were repeatedly warned that Donald Trump intended to embrace Project 2025, a collection of policy proposals to fundamentally reshape the U.S. federal government.
Among these:
- The Department of Justice must be thoroughly “reformed” and tightly overseen by the White House.
- The director of the FBI must be personally accountable to the President—just as the head of the KGB is personally accountable to Vladimir Putin.
Seal of the Justice Department
- Federal employees could be instantly fired for not obeying illegal orders, or on mere whim—including the whim of the President.
- The Environmental Protection Agency would be stripped of its authority to protect the air, water and soil.
- The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) which the project calls “one of the main drivers of the climate change alarm industry” would be abolished.
- Fossil fuels—the leading cause of global warming—would be favored and environmental regulations to combat climate change abolished.
- Federal funding for all public transit systems across the country would be eliminated.
- Traditionally independent federal agencies such as the Department of Justice, Federal Communications Commission and the Federal Trade Commission would be placed under Presidential control.
- The wealthiest 1% would receive massive tax cuts at the expense of the poor and middle class.
- Conception would be designated as the point where life begins.
- Abortion would be outlawed.
- Access to birth control would be sharply restricted, if not banned.
All of these have since been vigorously implemented by the Trump administration. Yet almost no Republican members of Congress have dared to oppose this wholesale rejection of almost 250 years of American democracy.
Since Trump retook office on January 20, 2025, Republicans have lustily supported or remained silent about his following acts of criminality, if not treason:
- On January 20, 2025—his first day as re-elected President—Trump granted clemency to more than 1,500 people convicted of offenses related to the January 6, 2021 United States Capitol attack. This sends a clear message that his supporters can commit virtually any crime against his opponents with impunity.
Donald Trump
- Trump revoked the security clearances of 51 former Intelligence officials. Their “crime”: Signing a letter in 2020 stating that reports about a laptop allegedly belonging to Hunter Biden, son of then-presidential candidate Joe Biden, had “classic earmarks of a Russian information operation.”
- During a press conference in North Carolina, Trump reaffirmed his stance that Canada should become the 51st state. Rejecting the longtime friendship between the two countries, Trump took an increasingly aggressive stance toward Canada, imposing steep tariffs and even threatening military intervention.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Military, Politics, RELIGION, Social commentary on April 22, 2026 at 12:10 am
On April 12, President Donald Trump wrote on X: “Pope Leo is WEAK on Crime, and terrible for Foreign Policy. I don’t want a Pope who thinks it’s OK for Iran to have a Nuclear Weapon. We don’t like a pope who says it’s OK to have a Nuclear Weapon.”
Despite his escalating attacks on Pope Leo XIV over the pontiff’s opposition to the Iran war, Trump’s approval rating among Republicans has climbed to 86%. The poll was conducted by The Economist and YouGov on April 15.
This includes high-ranking Republican leaders like Speaker of the House Mike Johnson: “A pontiff or any religious leader can say anything they want, but obviously, if you wade into political waters, I think you should expect some political response, and I think the pope’s received some of that.”
Mike Johnson
And not to be outdone, Vice President JD Vance-–a Catholic convert who often calls himself deeply religious—said: “I think it’s very, very important for the Pope to be careful when he talks about matters of theology.”
So much for the current actions of a Right-wing dictator. Now for those of a past one.
In 2005, Avvenire (“Future”), a daily newspaper which is affiliated with the Catholic Church and based in Milan, Italy, carried a story about Adolf Hitler’s plots to kidnap Pope Pius XII in 1943 and 1944.
The plots were part of a wider plan to “abolish” Christianity and replace it with a religion in which Hitler would be worshipped as the savior of humankind.
But instead of kidnapping the Pope, SS General Karl Wolff, in charge of the SS in Italy, went to the Vatican to warn Pope Pius XII of the danger he faced.
Wolff, who survived World War II, revealed the affair in a March 24, 1972 written statement to Vatican officials weighing the case for setting Pope Pius on the road to sainthood.
Karl Wolff
Jmac66999, CC BY-SA 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons
Previously, Wolff testified at the Nuremberg trials that Hitler had talked of seizing the Pope in 1943. With Italy in ruins from Allied bombings and Italian armies defeated or in retreat everywhere, Italians were desperate for peace.
On July 25, Hitler’s fellow Fascist, Italian Prime Minister Benito Mussolini—who had held power since 1922—was overthrown. Summoned to the royal palace by King Victor Emmanuel III of Italy, he was arrested and taken to a police station in an ambulance.
He was eventually transferred to the Hotel Campo Imperatore, in Italy’s Gran Sasso mountain range.
On September 12, 1943, he was rescued through a daring German airborne operation. German paratroopers and Waffen-SS special forces landed to free him from his imprisonment.
Although he was officially restored to power, he remained strictly a puppet of Hitler. His symbolic reign came to an end on April 28, 1945, when he was executed by Italian partisans.
Benito Mussolini
Hitler exploded in rage at the news of Mussolini’s arrest—and ordered German troops in Italy to take over the country: “Drive into Rome and arrest the whole Italian government! Get the King and the whole bunch right away! Arrest the Crown Prince and the whole gang! Pack them into a plane and off with them!”
Several generals asked what should be done with the Vatican.
Hitler replied: “I’ll go right into the Vatican! Do you think the Vatican embarrasses me? We’ll take that over right away. The entire diplomatic corps are in there. That rabble! We’ll get that bunch of swine out of there! Later we can make apologies!”
In September, 1943, Hitler decided to occupy the Vatican, “secure the archives and the art treasures, which have a unique value, and transfer the pope, together with the curia [the papal bureaucracy], for their protection, so that they cannot fall into the hands of the allies and exert a political influence.”
Hitler feared the Pope would speak out against the Nazis’ deportation of Jews, and wanted to eliminate the Church as a political force in Italy.
Pope Pius XII
The plan allegedly involved 2,000 SS troops blocking all Vatican exits to seize the Pope and cardinals. Proposed destinations for the kidnapped Pope included Liechtenstein or Lichtenstein Castle in Württemberg, Germany.
Wolff talked the Fuhrer out of the scheme, warning that it would prove an international political disaster. But in 1944, Hitler returned to the subject.
By May, 1944, American forces were advancing northwards through Italy, so Wolff had to shed his SS uniform when appearing in public.
On May 10, Wolff, wearing civilian clothes, met with Pope Pius XII in secret and warned him that he was in danger. He also assured the pontiff that he would not carry out the order.
Pius asked Wolf to save the lives of two condemned prisoners, and this was arranged.
Nevertheless, fearing abduction, Pope Pius XII prepared a resignation letter to take effect immediately upon his arrest. The College of Cardinals would flee to neutral Portugal to elect a successor.
The Germans evacuated Rome on the night of June 4-5, 1944.
Eighty-two years after Pope Pius XII faced the threat of terror by Adolf Hitler, an American-born Pope—Leo XIV—faces the threat of terror by Donald Trump.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Military, Politics, RELIGION, Social commentary on April 21, 2026 at 12:10 am
It’s become commonplace for liberals to attack President Donald Trump as a reincarnated Adolf Hitler—and Republicans as Nazis.
And Republicans furiously deny this, even as they embrace many of the same tactics—if not the goals—of Nazi Germany’s onetime rulers.
Throughout his first term as President, Trump adopted Hitler’s method of “negotiation” “Do what I want—or I’ll destroy you!” And it has remained so since his re-taking office on January 20, 2025.
On February 28, Trump—in concert with Israel—launched a series of devastating, unprovoked airstrikes against Iran.
Asked by a reporter how long the war would last, Trump arrogantly replied: “Any time I want it to end, it will end.”
But then Iran closed the Strait of Hormuz, through which 20% to 30% of the world’s total daily oil supply passes.
Gas prices in the United States immediately rose. Analysts warned that if the disruption continued, gasoline prices could exceed $5 per gallon.
Strait of Hormuz
Facing an apparently unwinnable war that he had started, Trump found himself facing an unexpected opponent: Pope Leo X1V.
According to Christopher Hale, a political consultant and the editor of the popular Letters from Leo newsletter: Trump’s Pentagon has threatened to declare war on the Vatican.
“In January [2026], behind closed doors at the Pentagon, Under Secretary of War for Policy Elbridge Colby summoned Cardinal Christophe Pierre—-Pope Leo XIV’s then-ambassador to the United States—and delivered a lecture,” said Hale in an interview.
“America has the military power to do whatever it wants in the world,” Colby and his associates told the cardinal. “The Catholic Church had better take its side.”
One American official “reached for a fourteenth-century weapon and invoked the Avignon Papacy, the period when the French Crown used military force to bend the bishop of Rome to its will.”
Two weeks after the confrontation, the Vatican declined Trump’s invitation to host Pope Leo for the celebration of America’s 250th anniversary in July, 2026.
The Vatican obelisk in St. Paul’s Square
Livioandronico2013, CC BY-SA 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons
According to sources in the Vatican and Americans briefed on the Pentagon meeting: Colby’s team studied the Pope’s January state-of-the-world address. They decided it was an attack on Trump.
What “enraged them most” was Leo’s line: “A diplomacy that promotes dialogue and seeks consensus among all parties is being replaced by a diplomacy based on force.”
“The Pentagon read that sentence as a frontal challenge to the so-called ‘Donroe Doctrine’”— Trump’s self-named update of the Monroe Doctrine.
Issued by President James Monroe on December 2, 1823, it officially prohibited European colonization and interference in the Western Hemisphere. And it was backed by the threat of an armed response to any such attempt.
On April 12, 2026, Pope Leo said that praying for peace was a way to “break the demonic cycle of evil” to build instead the Kingdom of God where there are no swords, drones or “unjust profit.
Pope Leo XIV
“It is here that we find a bulwark against that delusion of omnipotence that surrounds us and is becoming increasingly unpredictable and aggressive,” he said. “Even the holy Name of God, the God of life, is being dragged into discourses of death.”
On April 12, in talking to reporters, Trump furiously attacked the Pope: “I’m not a fan of Pope Leo.” He charged that the Pope was not “doing a very good job” and that “he’s a very liberal person.” He suggested that the pontiff should “stop catering to the Radical Left.”
On X, Trump wrote: “Pope Leo is WEAK on Crime, and terrible for Foreign Policy. I don’t want a Pope who thinks it’s OK for Iran to have a Nuclear Weapon. We don’t like a pope who says it’s OK to have a Nuclear Weapon.”
This from a man who was convicted of 34 felonies on May 30, 2024. A New York jury found him guilty of falsifying business records in the first degree to conceal hush-money payments made to porn “star” Stormy Daniels before the 2016 election.
And he continued:
“Leo should get his act together as Pope, use Common Sense, stop catering to the Radical Left, and focus on being a Great Pope, not a Politician. It’s hurting him very badly and, more importantly, it’s hurting the Catholic Church!
“I don’t want a Pope who thinks it’s terrible that America attacked Venezuela, a Country that was sending massive amounts of Drugs into the United States.
Donald Trump
“I don’t want a Pope who criticizes the President of the United States because I’m doing exactly what I was elected, IN A LANDSLIDE, to do.
“Leo should be thankful because, as everyone knows, he was a shocking surprise. He wasn’t on any list to be Pope, and was only put there by the Church because he was an American, and they thought that would be the best way to deal with President Donald J. Trump. If I wasn’t in the White House, Leo wouldn’t be in the Vatican.”
Just as the majority of Nazis rallied around Adolf Hitler, so have Republicans rallied around Donald Trump.
Despite his escalating attacks on Pope Leo X1V over the pontiff’s opposition to the Iran war, Trump’s approval rating among Republicans climbed to 86%. The poll was conducted by The Economist and YouGov on April 15.
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In Bureaucracy, Business, History, Military, Politics, Social commentary on January 6, 2026 at 12:10 am
During a January 3 news conference, President Donald Trump told reporters the real reason why the United States had just attacked Venezuela and captured its president—actually dictator—Nicholas Maduro and his wife:
“We’re going to have our very large United States oil companies—the biggest anywhere in the world—go in, spend billions of dollars, fix the badly broken infrastructure, the oil infrastructure.”
Forget months of accusing Venezuela of being a major supplier of illicit drugs to the United States.
Venezuela has the world’s largest proven oil reserves, with over 303 billion barrels. That’s more than Saudi Arabia (second-largest) and Iran (third-largest). But after President Hugo Chávez nationalized much of the industry in 2007, its oil production sharply declined.
By 2018, Venezuela was producing 1.3 million barrels of oil each day, from a high of more than 3 million barrels each day in the late 1990s.
Trump intends to change that.
On September 7, 2016, at a forum hosted by NBC, Trump had flatly stated that seizing Iraqi oil fields could have paid for the 2003 Iraq war:
“We go in, we spend $3 trillion, we lose thousands and thousands of lives, and then … what happens is we get nothing. You know, it used to be to the victor belong the spoils.
“You’re not stealing anything. We’re reimbursing ourselves … at a minimum, and I say more. We’re taking back $1.5 trillion to reimburse ourselves.”
Unable to steal Iraqi oil, Trump has chosen to steal that of Venezuela—by turning the Armed Services into mercenary gangsters.
In 2011, bestselling author Steven Pressfield had made the seizing of Saudi Arabian oil fields the premise of his novel The Profession.
Pressfield made his literary reputation with a series of classic novels about ancient Greece.
In Gates of Fire (1998) he explored the rigors and heroism of Spartan society—and the famous last stand of its 300 picked warriors at Thermopylae.
In The Virtues of War (2004) he entered the mind of Alexander the Great, whose armies swept across the known world, destroying all who dared oppose them.
But in The Profession, Pressfield created a plausible world set into the future of 2032. The book’s dust jacket summarizes its plot-line:
“Everywhere military force is for hire. Oil companies, multi-national corporations and banks employ powerful, cutting-edge mercenary armies to control global chaos and protect their riches.
“Force Insertion is the world’s merc [mercenary] monopoly. Its leader is the disgraced former United States Marine General James Salter, stripped of his command by the president for nuclear saber-rattling with the Chinese and banished to the Far East.”
Steven Pressfield
Salter appears as a hybrid of World War II General Douglas MacArthur and Iraqi War General Stanley McCrystal.
Like MacArthur, Salter has butted heads with his President—and paid dearly for it. Now his ambition is no less than to become President himself—by popular acclaim. And like McCrystal, he is a pure warrior who leads from the front and is revered by his men.
Salter seizes Saudi Arabian oil fields, then offers them as a gift to America. By doing so, he makes himself the most popular man in the country—and a guaranteed occupant of the White House.
Douglas MacArthur
Stanley McCrystal
“The United States is an empire…but the American people lack the imperial temperament,” asserts Salter. “We’re not legionaries, we’re mechanics. In the end the American Dream boils down to what? ‘I’m getting mine and the hell with you.’”
Americans, says Salter, have come to like mercenaries: “They’ve had enough of sacrificing their sons and daughters in the name of some illusory world order. They want someone else’s sons and daughters to bear the burden….
“They want their problems to go away. They want me to to make them go away.”
Returning to the United States, he is acclaimed as a hero—and the next President.
He knows that his country is on a downward spiral toward oblivion: “Any time that you have the rise of mercenaries…society has entered a twilight era, a time past the zenith of its arc.”
And he doesn’t believe that his Presidency will arrest that decline: “But maybe in the short run, it’s better that my hand be on the wheel…rather than some other self-aggrandizing sonofabitch whose motives might not be as well intentioned….”
More than 500 years ago, Niccolo Machiavelli warned of the dangers of relying on mercenaries:
“Mercenaries…are useless and dangerous. And if a prince holds on to his state by means of mercenary armies, he will never be stable or secure; for they are disunited, ambitious, without discipline, disloyal; they are brave among friends; among enemies they are cowards.
Niccolo Machiavelli
“They have neither the fear of God nor fidelity to men, and destruction is deferred only so long as the attack is. For in peace one is robbed by them, and in war by the enemy.”
Centuries ago, Niccolo Machiavelli issued a warning against relying on men whose first love is their own enrichment.
Steven Pressfield, in a work of fiction, has given us a nightmarish vision of a not-so-distant America where “Name your price” has become the byward for an age.
Both warnings are well worth heeding.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Military, Politics, Social commentary on June 16, 2025 at 1:18 am
Once again, the Middle East is at war.
Since October 7, 2023, it’s been Israel vs. Gaza. But as of June 12, it’s now Israel vs. Iran.
And, once again, there’s an excellent chance the United States will be dragged into this latest blood feud.
But there can be peace—for the United States—in the Middle East.
That is, if Americans are willing to make radical changes in their approach to that part of the world.
First, the United States must embark on a crash program to develop alternatives to oil.
The Islamic world offers only one reason for American concern: oil.
Yet its consumption threatens the future of the world through global warming. And it keeps America tethered to regimes that are fundamentally unstable and hostile to the West.
Second, once the United States frees itself from its dependency on fossil fuels, it can safely end its relationship with such regimes.
That means putting an end to spending billions of dollars every year to prop up regimes like those in Iraq and Egypt. And it also means stopping the supply of big-ticket military hardware (like fighter planes and missiles) to Islamic regimes.
When the Shah of Iran was overthrown in 1979, he was probably the best-armed Islamic leader in the Middle East. His army and air force bristled with sophisticated American weaponry he had bought with billions of dollars in oil revenues.
Shah of Iran
But he had thoroughly alienated his people. Liberals thought him a tyrant, and conservatives thought him a traitor to Islam. So when Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini flew to Iran from his self-exile in Paris, no one in the Shah’s army and air force raised a hand in his defense.
Third, the United States should end its “Permanent Bodyguard” relationship with Israel.
Every nation—including Israel—has the absolute right to defend itself from aggression. But no nation—including Israel—has the right to expect another nation to act as its permanent bodyguard.
Millions of Americans believe they are morally obligated to defend Israel owing to the barbarism of the Holocaust—which ended 80 years ago. Yet America was never a party to this, and has nothing to atone for.
And millions of Americans feel committed to Israel but care nothing for the fates of Israelis.
As Christian fundamentalists, they believe that before Jesus Christ can awaken from his 2,000-year slumber, Israel must re-conquer all the territory it supposedly held during the reign of Kings David and Solomon.
There is absolutely no evidence that anyone has ever been resurrected, but this means nothing to them.
Right-wing Christian fantasy: Dead man hovering
After Christ returns, they believe, the Jews will face a choice: Become Christians or go to hell.
For evangelical Christians, Jews remain the eternal “Christ killers.”
And if Jews must assume temporary control of the Middle East to bring about the return of a man who died 2,000 years ago, so be it.
This is the view of many Right-wing members of the House of Representatives and Senate. Obviously, people holding such totally irrational views shouldn’t be allowed to hold public office.
Unfortunately, such unbalanced views are shared by millions of equally irrational evangelical Christians.
Fourth, the United States and its European allies should erect a “Sand Curtain” around the Middle East.
For 44 years—1947 to 1991—the United States and the Soviet Union were locked in a Cold War. Essentially, the United States drew a ring around the Soviet Union—including those nations its armies had seized following the defeat of Nazi Germany in 1945.
The United States said, in effect: “We can’t liberate the countries you’re now occupying”—because trying to do so would have triggered a nuclear World War III. “But we won’t allow you to occupy and enslave any other countries. And if you try to do so, it will mean total war.”
Thus, the United States should erect a “sand curtain” around the Middle East. This could be attained by withdrawing all of its forces but keeping a good portion stationed in Europe.
It would then publicly announce: “From now on, you are the masters of your own destinies—so long as what you do affects only those of you living in the Middle East.
“We recognize that barbarism and violence have always been a part of life in the Middle East. And we don’t expect this to change.
“So go ahead and destroy as many of your own citizens as you wish—either because they’re Jewish or Christians, or because Sunni Muslims hate Shiite Muslims and Shiite Muslims hate Sunni Muslims.
“Just don’t do anything that poses a threat to those living outside your barbaric lands. In short: Europe and the United States are strictly off-limits to you.
“And if you aim your aggression at either, we will consider this an act of war and use all the weapons at our disposal—including nuclear ones—to wipe you from the face of the Earth.“
The United States cannot enforce peace between Islamics and Israelis. Nor between Christians and Islamics. Nor between Islamics and Islamics.
But it can impose an embargo to confine such barbarism to only the Middle East.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Military, Politics, Social commentary on November 15, 2024 at 12:11 am
The time is long overdue for the United States to scrap its devil’s bargain relationship with Saudi Arabia.
Reason #1: The political assassination of Saudi dissident journalist Jamal Khashoggi, a key critic of Saudi King Mohammed bin Salman.
On October 2, 2018, Khashoggi walked into the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul to pick up a document allowing him to marry a Turkish woman. Video footage showed Khashoggi walking into the consulate; there is none of him leaving it.
He was never seen again.
According to Turkish government officials:
- Fifteen Saudi agents flew into Istanbul.
- They waited for Khashoggi inside the consulate and murdered him within two hours of his arrival.
- The assassins used a bone saw to dismember Khashoggi’s corpse.
Jamal Khashoggi A
April Brady / POMED, CC BY 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0>, via Wikimedia Commons
Reason #2: Saudi Arabia is a weak ally.
President Donald Trump claimed that Saudi Arabia served as a counter-weight to the growing regional influence of Iran. But Saudi Arabia was unable to defend itself against Saddam Hussein’s Iraq in 1990, after the invasion and takeover of Kuwait.
This was, in fact, why Saudi-born Osama bin Laden decided to declare war on the United States.
He petitioned Saudi King Fahd bin Abdulazis al-Saud to let Saudis oppose any invasion by Iraq. He argued that “infidel” American soldiers stationed in the Kingdom would “pollute” Islam’s two great holy sites: Mecca and Medina.
Having fought against the Soviet Union in Afghanistan during the 1980s, bin Laden offered to help defend Saudi Arabia with his Arab legion.
The king refused—because he knew that, despite all the sophisticated military hardware he had bought from the United States, the Saudis were too militarily weak to resist an invasion.
Bin Laden left the country to wage fulltime war against the United States.
Osama bin Laden
Reason #3: Saudi Arabia is filled with Islamics who hate the United States as “the Great Satan.”
Fifteen of the 19 September 11, 2001 highjackers came from Saudi Arabia.
And Saudi Arabia is the birthplace of Wahhabism, a radical brand of Islam dedicated to “purifying” the world of “unbelievers.”
Reason #4: The only reason the United States cares about Saudi Arabia is that it’s the second-largest oil-producing country (after Venezuela) n the world.
Yet oil consumption threatens the future of the world through global warming. And it keeps America tethered to a regime that is fundamentally unstable and hostile to the West.
Reason #5: The United States can end its dependence on Saudi oil by embarking on a crash program to develop alternatives to oil.
Had this happened during the 1973 Arab oil embargo, the United States would now be energy-independent. America has the technology to do so; it lacks only the will.
Reason #6: Once the United States no longer needs fossil fuels, it can quit financing Middle East dictatorships.
This will end spending billions of dollars every year to prop up dictatorial regimes like those in Saudi Arabia, Iraq and Egypt. America will no longer supply big-ticket military hardware (like fighter planes and missiles) to potentially hostile Islamic regimes.
Reason #7: By withdrawing from the Middle East, the United States can free itself of the burden of acting as Israel’s permanent bodyguard.
Millions of Americans believe they are morally obligated to defend Israel owing to the barbarism of the Holocaust. But America was never a party to this—and has nothing to atone for.
Yet, for decades, the United States has been repeatedly dragged into the never-ending religious conflicts between Israelis and Islamics. Since both sides believe they are doing “God’s will,” there can be no substantial compromise by either.
Reason #8: The United States and its European allies can defend themselves against Islamic terrorism by erecting a “Sand Curtain” around the Middle East.
For 44 years—1947 to 1991—the United States and the Soviet Union were locked in a Cold War stalemate. Essentially, the United States drew a ring around the Soviet Union—including those nations its armies had seized following the defeat of Nazi Germany in 1945.
The United States said, in effect: “We can’t liberate the countries you’re now occupying”—because that would have triggered a nuclear World War III. “But we won’t allow you to occupy and enslave any other countries. And if you try to do so, it will mean total war.”
America could withdraw all of its forces from the Middle East—but keep a good portion stationed in Europe.
It could then publicly announce: “From now on, you are the masters of your own destinies—so long as what you do affects only the Middle East.
“We recognize that barbarism and violence have always been a part of life in the Middle East. And we don’t expect this to change.
“We realize you will destroy as many of your own citizens as you can—because they’re Jewish or Christians, or because Sunni Muslims and Shiite Muslims hate each other.
“Just don’t threaten citizens living outside your territories. In short: Europe and the United States are strictly off-limits to you.
“And if you aim your aggression at either, we will consider this an act of war and use all the weapons at our disposal—including nuclear ones—to wipe you from the face of the Earth.“
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ABSOLUTE POWER = ABSOLUTE CORRUPTION: PART TWO (OF FOUR)
In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Military, Politics, Social commentary on May 12, 2026 at 12:05 amOn the April 10 edition of The PBS Newshour, David Brooks of The Atlantic and Jonathan Capehart of MS NOW—exchanged opinions on the mental health of President Donald Trump.
Although Brooks, a conservative, and Capehart, a liberal, usually find themselves on opposite sides of a subject, this time they reached a consensus: Trump is dangerously ill.
David Brooks: Last January, as we watched this spiral psychologically….I read Roman histories. And so you get Tacitus and Sallust and those old guys, because they had a front-row seat to tyranny. And they watched authoritarians, one after another, Caligula, all these guys. And the one thing they all said was that they deteriorate.
They create a situation around them, when the sycophants have to get more sycophant. Anybody who’s reasonable is either dead or gone. And then the urge to dominate, the lust for power becomes drunk. They become drunk on that. And they get more and more daring, more and more out of control, and then you get this spiral.
And our founding fathers, they understood this so well. They read Tacitus. They loved these guys. And John Adams said, if we get a leader like that, he will run through our Congress, our Constitution the way a whale goes through a net. And so they completely understood. And their worst nightmare is now happening.
The Constitution of the United States
Moderator Geoff Bennett: And, Jonathan, 61 percent of Americans, including 30 percent of Republicans, now say that President Trump has become erratic with age. That’s according to a recent Reuters-Ipsos poll.
The press corps — I guess we should hold up a mirror to ourselves. The press corps spent two years making President Biden’s mental fitness, his acuity the story. Why isn’t that same scrutiny now being applied to President Trump broadly?
Jonathan Capehart: Yes, exactly. That has been my question since January 20 of last year. We, the press, spent a lot of time talking about President Biden and his age because he looked old. He moved slowly. He wasn’t as vigorous and agile, supposedly, as the guy he pushed out of office and then the guy who was running against him.
And even little slips of the tongue were used to show, see, aha, he’s not all there. He’s losing his mind. How does that compare to what we’re going through right now? I wish people who have written books — people who have gone on air talking about President Biden nonstop, where are they now?
Where are those books now that we have a president who has given ample evidence, ample evidence that something is not right? Where are the people who are standing up and saying, you know what, something needs to be done?
And that goes back to some — you were talking about the founders. They were prepared for something like this. What they weren’t prepared for was the Article I branch just ceding all authority. What they weren’t prepared for were people from the president’s own party willing to either turn a blind eye or enable him to run roughshod over the Constitution.
Donald Trump
Even when you have got him out there threatening annihilation of a civilization, even when he’s started a war for no reason and the enemy is in a stronger position now than it was before he started this war of his own choosing?
At some point, Republicans writ large and those on Capitol Hill have to start standing up for the Article I prerogatives, but also start standing up for the country. I don’t know how much longer we as a nation can withstand this. And I know the world is beyond done with us, but I think they’re also frightened of us.
* * * * * * * * * *
This is not the first time the subject of Donald Trump’s mental instability has been raised. In 2018, during Trump’s first term as President, a 53-year-old novel was re-released: Night at Camp David, by Fletcher Knebel.
At the time of its 1965, 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.
Its paperback edition offered a sentence that went straight for the jugular: “What would happen if the President of the United States went stark-raving mad?”
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.”
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