Posts Tagged ‘SOVIET UNION’
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In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Politics, Social commentary on July 22, 2026 at 1:12 am
In the United States of Donald Trump, protecting the right to legitimate elections can get you investigated—if not indicted.
Case in point: Christopher Krebs, who prevented Russian trolls and hackers from sabotaging the 2020 Presidential election.
During the 2016 Presidential race, Russian propaganda played a major role in convincing millions of Americans to vote for Donald Trump. Social media platforms—especially Facebook and Twitter—were flooded with genuinely fake news to sow discord among Americans and create a pathway for Trump’s election.
And where Internet trolls left off, Russian computer hackers took over.
Hillary Clinton won the popular vote—65,853,514 to 62,984,828 for Trump. But in the United States, what counts in Presidential elections is the Electoral College vote.
And there Trump won: 304 to 227.
What put him over the top in the Electoral College was the help he got from Russian dictator Vladimir Putin.
Vladimir Putin
Пресс-служба Президента РФ, CC BY 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons
Putin had good reason to assist Trump: Putin wanted the United States to ditch the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) alliance, which has preserved Western Europe from Russian aggression since World War II. And Trump had often attacked America’s funding of NATO as a drain on the American economy.
As for Trump, he wanted something from Putin: He wanted to be President. For this, Putin could supply monies, Internet trolls to confuse voters with falsified news, and even the hacking of key voting centers.
So notorious was the role played by Russian trolls and hackers in winning Trump the 2016 election that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) was determined to prevent a repetition in 2020.
And the point man for this was Chris Krebs, the director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) run by DHS.
Born in Atlanta, Georgia, in 1977, Krebs had received a B.A. in environmental sciences from the University of Virginia in 1999, and a J.D. from the George Mason University School of Law in 2007.
Chris Krebs
Krebs had served as Senior Advisor to the Assistant Secretary of Homeland Security for Infrastructure Protection, and later worked in the private sector as Director for Cybersecurity Policy for Microsoft.
In preparation for the 2020 Presidential election, Krebs launched a massive effort to counter lies spread by Russians—and Americans—on social media platforms. As he explained to Scott Pelley during a “60 Minutes” interview aired on November 29, 2020:
“So we spent something on the order of three and a half years of gaming out every possible scenario for how a foreign actor could interfere with an election. Countless, countless scenarios.”
At his command lay the resources of a series of powerful Federal investigative agencies:
“We had the Department of Defense Cyber Command. We had the National Security Agency. We had the FBI. We had the Secret Service. We also had representatives from the Election Assistance Commission, which is the federal independent agency that supports the actual administration of elections.”
As a result, Krebs was widely praised for revamping the department’s cybersecurity efforts and increasing coordination with state and local governments.
The November 3, 2020 election went very smoothly. Deprived of his expected support from Russian trolls and hackers, Trump lost.
On November 12, to counter the growing chorus of lies from Trump and his Right-wing allies that the election had been stolen, Krebs put out the following statement:
“The November 3rd election was the most secure in American history. There is no evidence that any voting system deleted or lost votes, changed votes, or was in any way compromised.”
On November 17, Trump fired Chris Krebs.
Too cowardly to confront Krebs, Trump fired him by tweet—and accompanied the outrage with yet more lies:
“The recent statement by Chris Krebs on the security of the 2020 election was highly inaccurate, in that there were massive improprieties and fraud, including dead people voting, poll watchers not allowed into polling locations, glitches in the voting machines which changed votes from Trump to Biden, late voting, and many more.”
Five years later, on April 9, 2025, a re-elected Trump issued a MEMORANDUM FOR THE HEADS OF EXECUTIVE DEPARTMENTS AND AGENCIES.
Its target: Chris Krebs.
Among other charges, Trump accused Krebs of suppressing “conservative or dissenting voices and distort[ing] public opinion.”
The two biggest and most influential social media platforms—Twitter (now X) and Facebook—are owned by avowedly Right-wing billionaires: Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg. And they massively supported Trump in the 2016 and 2020 elections.
After he incited a treasonous riot against Congress on January 6, 2021, both platforms briefly banned him from posting. But then both—fearing “retribution” if he became President again—once again gave him access to their audiences.
Immediately after losing the 2020 Presidential election, Trump began spreading “The Big Lie”: That he had been defeated by massive voter fraud made possible through Dominion Voting Systems.
In this he was backed by a major Right-wing propagandist: The Fox News Network.
On April 18, 2023, Fox News agreed to pay Dominion Voting Systems $797 million to avert a wrongful defamation trial. Dominion’s lawsuit would have exposed how the network promoted lies about the 2020 presidential election—all the while knowing they were lies.
So much for Trump’s claims of “widespread election malfeasance and serious vulnerabilities with voting machines.”
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In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Politics, Social commentary on July 21, 2026 at 12:10 am
On the evening of July 16, President Donald Trump delivered a primetime television speech on election security—and the dangers of foreign interference. Specifically, he claimed that the country’s voting systems were vulnerable to being “rigged and stolen.”
But he provided no new evidence of a single fraudulent vote cast in any election:
“For many years I’ve called for bold, swift and decisive action to protect the integrity of America’s elections. Every American deserves to know that, when they cast their vote, that vote will be counted accurately in a system, and that is to make that system secure.
“Unfortunately, the system we have today falls catastrophically short of that standard. Tonight, I’m announcing the immediate declassification and release of critical intelligence, revealing shocking vulnerabilities in our election infrastructure.”
Trump claimed he was declassifying Intelligence documents that included allegations of Chinese efforts to influence American elections, concerns over voting machine security, and that noncitizens are found on certain states’ voter rolls.
“Allegations”—accusations—are not evidence. And the United States has never accused China of tainting or deleting voter records.
Donald Trump
“This evidence shows that the election system we have dangerously exposes and really exposes, like levels never thought possible, to hacking, exploitation, and foreign interference.
“Just as disturbingly, this vital information has for many years been covered up and hidden from you, the American people — our beautiful, our great American people.”
Yet “vulnerabilities” are different than actual evidence of election interference. And Trump provided none.
As usual, no Trump speech is complete without a boast of his own greatness:
“in mid-2018, China was working to influence the results of the US midterm elections and later the results of the 2020 presidential election itself. Separately, in mid-2019, the Chinese government’s strategy against the United States was focused on undermining domestic confidence in the US president.
“They wanted to just make you sound like your president wasn’t so hot, when actually your president has done a great job.”
Toward the end of his speech, Trump gave his reason for giving it:
“But most importantly, addressing this crisis of election security demands that Congress must pass the SAVE America Act. How easy is that to do, unless you want to cheat.
“And hopefully there will be no corrupt mail-in ballots, which, if you watched California and so many other places, mail-in ballots are inherently corrupt. So, you would have no mail-in ballots except for illness, disability, military deployment, or travel if you’re going away on business or vacation.”
All 50 states allow mail-in voting (often referred to as absentee voting). However, the rules and requirements for who can access a mail-in ballot vary significantly by state. There’s no evidence of widespread fraud in mail balloting.
It’s important to remember that, for all Trump’s stated concerns about preserving election integrity, on July 9, he fired the three remaining members of the Election Assistance Commission, which was created by Congress to help states administer secure elections.
The House passed the Save Act (Safeguard American Voter Eligibility Act) but it does not have the support of all Republicans in the Senate. Thus, it has no chance of becoming law this year.
So why is Trump so fired up about the SAVE Act? As Jonathan Capehart of MS NOW stated on the July 17 edition of The PBS Newshour:
“He’s very scared about what could happen if Democrats retake the House and retake the Senate. He has said as much on the record. If they take over, I will be investigated. And, quite frankly, there are reasons to investigate him and members of his administration.”
According to the Center for American Progress, a public policy research and advocacy organization, the SAVE Act would:
- Disenfranchise millions of now-eligible—and mostly Democratic—voters.
- Require all Americans to prove their citizenship status by presenting documentation—in person—when registering to vote or updating their voter registration information.
- Require the vast majority of Americans to rely on a passport or birth certificate to prove their citizenship.
- Force more than 140 million American citizens to pay for a passport.
- Force up to 69 million women who have taken their spouse’s name to obtain a birth certificate matching their legal name.
- Prevent Americans from registering to vote by mail by requiring documentation to be presented in person would prevent Americans from registering to vote by mail.
- Requite voters to appear in person, with original documentation, to even simply update their voter registration information for a change of address or change in party affiliation.
- These restrictions would be especially hard for more than 60 million Americans living in rural areas. (Ironically, millions of Right-wing Trump supporters living in rural areas would also be affected.)
- Drivers licenses—including REAL IDs—and military or tribal IDs would not be sufficient forms of documentation to prove citizenship.
Despite the disastrous changes this legislation would inflict on American elections, leadership in the U.S. House of Representatives—specifically, Speaker Mike Johnson—has declared that passing the SAVE Act is one of their top priorities this year.
So how did Donald Trump reward Chris Krebs, the man who prevented Russian interference in the 2020 Presidential election?
Trump fired him.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Military, Politics, Social commentary on July 13, 2026 at 12:10 am
Frank Brandenburg had just turned 16 in 1979 when he saw the NBC mini-series Holocaust, depicting the Third Reich’s extermination of six million Jewish men, women and children.
He was stunned. Had such atrocities really taken place?
His parents, friends and teachers refused to talk about Adolf Hitler and his Nazi party that had tyrannically ruled Germany for 12 years.
“No one wants to talk today about that! Let the past sleep,” he was repeatedly told.
Frank Brandenburg had a deeply personal reason for pursuing the truth. He was a citizen of West Germany, growing up in a country that was still divided in two for having lost World War II—a war Hitler had started.
He started reading such books about the Holocaust as:
- Inside the Third Reich, by former Reichminister for Armaments Albert Speer, which stated that it had happened.
- David Irving’s Hitler’s War, on the other hand, seemed inconclusive on the subject.
- The Auschwitz Lie, by Thies Chrostophersen, flatly asserted that the victorious Allies had concocted this slander to blacken the good name of Germany.
So Brandenburg did something no other teenager had dared attempt: He set out to meet and interview as many former members of the Third Reich as possible.
Among those he interviewed:
- Lina Heydrich, the widow of Reinhard Heydrich, the man who designed the “Final Solution.”
- Otto Remer, who crushed the July 20, 1944 generals’ plot against Hitler.
- SS General Karl Wolff, a close lieutenant of SS Reichsfuhrer Heinrich Himmler.
- The widow and sons of Deputy Fuhrer Rudolf Hess.
- Hans Baur, Hitler’s personal pilot.
These interviews ultimately became a 1990 book: Quest: Searching for Nazi Germany’s Past, co-authored by Brandenburg and Ib Melchior. It is a book that can never be duplicated, because those interviewed by Brandenburg are now dead.
Of his encounters with so many former Nazis, Brandenburg reflected:
“Today I know that in some cases…I was confronted with defensive statements, evasion, self-exoneration and prejudiced portrayals of the facts.
“But when I began my project, at the age of 16, I—naively—had no conception that this might be the case. Not one of the people I talked to expressed any kind of guilt or remorse. Not one of them had regrets or concern for their victims.
“Yet, it is easier for me to understand that. Who, in his old age, wants to admit having committed such misdeeds? To admit that everything one had believed in, worked for and lived for, had been corrupt?”
Nazi SS soldiers marching
Which helps explain the reaction future historians will receive when they interview supporters of Donald Trump.
The 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.
Today’s Republicans are guided by Trump’s belief that their party should be the only legitimate one in the United States. And that any crime is justifiable if it’s committed by a Republican.
On October 7, 2916, The Washington Post leaked a video of Republican Presidential nominee Donald Trump making sexually predatory comments about women:
“You know I’m automatically attracted to beautiful—I just start kissing them. It’s like a magnet. Just kiss. I don’t even wait. And when you’re a star they let you do it. You can do anything. Grab ’em by the pussy. You can do anythinig.”
Donald Trump
Right-wingers rushed to excuse Trump’s misogynist comments as mere “frat boy” talk.
- Corey Lewandowski, a former Trump campaign manager and now CNN commentator: “We are electing a leader to the free world. We’re not electing a Sunday school teacher.”
- Jerry Falwell, Jr., president of Liberty University: “When they ask [if Trump’s personal life is relevant] I always talk about the story of the woman at the well who had had five husbands and she was living with somebody she wasn’t married to, and they wanted to stone her. And Jesus said he’s—he who is without sin cast the first stone. I just see how Donald Trump treats other people, and I’m impressed by that.”
- Ralph Reed, founder and chairman of the Faith & Freedom Coalition: “People of faith are voting on issues like who will protect unborn life, defend religious freedom, grow the economy, appoint conservative judges and oppose the Iran nuclear deal.”
In 2017, Roy Moore, the twice-ousted former chief justice of the Alabama Supreme Court, ran for the state’s U.S. Senator.
Four women, in a Washington Post story, accused Moore of seeking romantic relationships with teenage girls while he was in his 30s, and even trolling malls for such dates.
Kay Ivey, the state’s Republican Governor, offered the real reason why Republicans supported Moore:
“I believe in the Republican party, what we stand for, and, most important, we need to have a Republican in the United States Senate to vote on things like the Supreme Court justices, other appointments the Senate has to confirm and make major decisions. So that’s what I plan to do, vote for Republican nominee Roy Moore.”
Roy Moore received 48% of the vote but lost to Democratic nominee Doug Jones, a former United States attorney.
In short: Republicans lust to attain absolute power. Compared to that, electing even accused sexual predators is entirely justified.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Medical, Politics, Social commentary on July 10, 2026 at 12:22 am
The 2024 Presidential election has raised serious issues about the office which demand addressing.
And there’s still time for such remedies to be in place by the time the 2028 election occurs.
Reform #1: Institute mandatory FBI background investigations on all declared Presidential candidates.
Donald Trump’s trial for hush money payments to porn “star” Stormy Daniels has highlighted an issue that should have been addressed long ago: Americans don’t know as much about their candidates for President as they think they do.
- As the trial testimony of former National Enquirer publisher David Pecker revealed: In August, 2015, he met with Trump at Trump Tower and offered to use the Enquirer to catch and kill any allegations of extramarital affairs against Trump.
- Later he personally facilitated a $150,000 payment to former Playboy Playmate Karen McDougal to keep her affair with Trump hushed up.
- This came in addition to Trump’s paying $130,000 in hush money to Daniels to ensure his 2006 tryst with her didn’t emerge during the campaign.
Donald Trump and Stormy Daniels
- Similarly, in 1960, Senator John F. Kennedy successfully ran for President while concealing his affliction with Addison’s Disease—an insufficiency of the Adrenal glands that can prove fatal.
Thus, all future candidates for President should be required to submit to full FBI background investigations at least one year before election time—with the results released before the election. Any candidate refusing to participate should be barred from competing.
You’re not allowed to become an FBI agent or Cabinet Secretary without passing a background investigation. You shouldn’t be allowed to become President without one, either.
Reform #2: No Presidential candidate can be over 70 at the time s/he leaves office.
The Federal Aviation Administration mandates that commercial airlines cannot employ pilots after they reach the age of 65.
FBI agents have a mandatory retirement age of 57.
Commissioned officers of the Army, Navy, Air Force and Marine Corps must retire by 64.
Yet Donald Trump was 78 when he was elected to his second term in 2024. Six months after he was inaugurated on January 20, 2025, he was 79.
Trump will be 82 in 2028, his last year in office (assuming he doesn’t stage another—and successful—coup attempt).
The Presidency is notorious for prematurely ageing its occupants: “The typical president ages two years for every year they are in office,” said Dr. Michael Roizen. He used presidential medical records from the 1920s through today to reach this conclusion.
The United States Presidency is becoming a mirror-image of the geriatric former Soviet Union:
- In 1982, General Secretary Leonid Brezhnev died at age 75.
- He was succeeded by Yuri Andropov—who died, in 1984, at age 69.
- He, in turn, was followed by Konstantin Chernenko—who died in 1985 at age 73.
Finally, the Politburo—tired of replacing the General Secretary every two years—elected 54-year-old Mikhail Gorbachev, who lived to leave office six years later at age 60.
Funeral for Soviet dictator Leonid Brezhnev – 1982
In 2024, having two geriatric candidates for President—Trump and Joseph Biden—become comic fodder for late-night TV hosts. Yet voters feared that neither candidate could handle the strains of another four years as President—or even survive a full term.
Reform #3: Abolish the honorific title of “Mr. President” for ex-Presidents.
This used to be offered as a tribute to a former President for having won the support of the majority of Americans.
But Donald Trump corrupted this phrase, as he has so much else in American life. After losing the 2020 Presidential election, he continued to insist that he was the legitimate President of the United States, and Biden was a usurper.
When his fanatical followers referred to him as “President Trump,” that was what they meant—thus trying to de-legitimize Biden’s Presidency and elevate Trump as the rightful victor.
The 2005 Stolen Valor Act makes it a federal misdemeanor for anyone to falsely claim to have received any U.S. military decoration or medal—such as the Medal of Honor or Purple Heart. Violating the law can lead to fines, up to a year in prison, or both.
Thus, Congress should mandate that only the current holder of the Presidency has the legal right to call himself “Mr. President”—and that right ends when he no longer occupies the White House.
Reform #4: Require millionaire ex-Presidents to pay for their Secret Service protection.
Every ex-President since Dwight D. Eisenhower—even Jimmy Carter—has been a multi-millionaire.
Assigning a platoon of elite Secret Service agents to watch over every ex-President 24/7 is a huge expense.
The case of Ronald Reagan is instructive: At a cost to the government of $10 million annually, Reagan—while living in a 7,200 square-foot mansion overlooking Beverly Hills—received lifetime Secret Service protection from 40 fulltime agents.
United States Secret Service
It’s also an unnecessary expense. There has never been an attack on an ex-President in all of American history.
Still, if the powers-that-be consider this essential, then millionaire ex-Presidents should be required to pay for their protection—just as moguls and Hollywood celebrities do.
As the situation now exists, the government is simply providing welfare for the rich. Whereas the poor face strict limits on how high their income can be and still receive welfare.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Military, Politics, Social commentary on July 2, 2026 at 12:05 am
“Neither peace nor war—nor a policy” accurately describes the current state of relations between the United States and Iran.
On February 28, 2026, President Donald Trump—in concert with Israel—launched an unprovoked series of devastating airstrikes against Iran. Suddenly he faced an enemy he could neither bribe nor intimidate.
And, by late May, definite parallels had formed between Adolf Hitler’s disastrous attack on the Soviet Union and Donald Trump’s attack on Iran.
Operation Barbarossa erupted on June 22, 1941, swallowing at least two million dead and wounded Soviet soldiers and another three million POWs (most of whom died in captivity under barbarous conditions).
The Wehrmacht occupied the western half of the Soviet Union. But then the seemingly unstoppable Blitzkrieg ground to a halt—owing to unexpected and increasingly fierce resistance by Russians and the advent of the infamous Russian winter.
Adolf Hitler
Jonathan Trigg, in his vividly-written nonfiction book, The Battle of Stalingrad Through German Eyes, observes that when Hitler’s prediction of a six-week victory turned sour, he didn’t have a fallback strategy to win the war.
Nor did the General Staff have a solution. Every country they had invaded—Poland, Denmark, Norway, Belgium, France, Greece, Yugoslavia—-had capitulated. Its government had sued for peace or gone into exile. When Great Britain refused to surrender, Hitler had no answer, and he had none for the Soviet Union.
Panzer commander Ewald von Kleist admitted: “There were no plans for a prolonged struggle. Everything was based on the idea of a decisive result before the end of autumn 1941.”
Like Hitler, Trump had believed that:
- He could force Iran’s leaders to submit to his demands: Surrender their uranium stockpiles and promise to never build a nuclear bomb.
- His war would end successfully in four to six weeks at most.
Finally, like Hitler, Trump had no alternative plan for a prolonged struggle.
True, he could turn Iran into a radioactive pile of rubble by using nuclear weapons. Or he could order an all-out invasion of Iran—a country 2.4 to 2.5 times larger than Texas—requiring tens of thousands of troops.
But both options would be hugely unpopular among Americans—especially in an election year when Republicans were threatened with the loss of the House of Representatives and/or the Senate.
As a result, Trump could only threaten or deliver more impotent airstrikes.
Donald Trump
After a two-week ceasefire was announced on April 8, the following diplomatic activities occurred:
- April 11–12: Vice President JD Vance met with Iranian delegates in Islamabad for the highest-level diplomatic engagement between the two nations since 1979. The talks stalled over Iran’s nuclear enrichment capabilities.
- April 13: The United States launched a naval blockade on Iranian ports, suspending oil shipments.
- April 20–21: Trump warned that a lack of an extended deal would result in the resumption of bombing. The deadline was extended indefinitely while waiting for a unified Iranian proposal.
- June 17: Trump and Iranian President Pezeshkian signed a 14-point interim Memo of Understanding (MoU). The agreement established a 60-day negotiation window regarding Iran’s nuclear program and lifted the U.S. port blockade in exchange for the safe passage of commercial vessels.
- June 26: Trump announced that Iran violated the newly signed ceasefire after launching four one-way attack drones at cargo ships in the Strait of Hormuz.
- June 26–27: The U.S. military executed strikes against Iranian sites in response to the drone attacks, placing the future of the diplomatic agreement in jeopardy.
On June 28, Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) said it launched missiles and drones at United States bases in Kuwait and Bahrain.
Following the exchange of fire, the United States and Iran accused each other of violating the ceasefire agreement.
The IRGC said that the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) signed gave Iran the right to control passage and navigation in the Strait of Hormuz, and from now on, violating ships would be dealt with more forcefully than in the past.
Strait of Hormuz
The Strait of Hormuz had operated freely as an international waterway before the 2026 war. An estimated 110 to 160 commercial and oil vessels had safely transited the 21-mile passageway on an average day.
The Trump administration is demanding that it remain freely open to all ships. Iran, having discovered that controlling the Strait gives it leverage over the world’s oil-based economy, is determined to exact tolls from ships that pass through it.
After the latest American strikes on Iran were announced, Trump wrote on Truth Social: “There may come a point when we are no longer able to be reasonable, and will be forced to militarily complete the job that we very successfully started. If that happens, the Islamic Republic of Iran will no longer exist!”
Given the conditions cited above, that is highly unlikely.
So long as Iran continues to exert its will against the world’s greatest superpower, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz’ unguarded statement will prove highly accurate:
“The Iranians are obviously very skilled at negotiating, or rather, very skillful at not negotiating, letting the Americans travel to Islamabad and then leave again without any result.
“An entire nation is being humiliated by the Iranian leadership, especially by these so-called Revolutionary Guards. And so, I hope that this ends as quickly as possible.”
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In Bureaucracy, History, Military, Politics, Social commentary, Uncategorized on July 1, 2026 at 12:10 am
On August 1, 1914, Germany declared war on Russia. It did so after Russia mobilized its military to protect Serbia after Austria-Hungary declared war on the Serbian nation.
Four years later, Russia was devastated. After suffering massive casualties, its armies were in full retreat. Czar Nicholas II capitulated on March 15, 1917, after bread riots broke out in St. Petersburg, then the nation’s capital.
And the newly-installed Bolshevik government was faring no better in repelling the German invaders. Moreover, Vladimir Lenin, leader of the Bolsheviks, had made pulling Russia out of a disastrous war a major selling point of their propaganda campaign to win support.
Vladimir Lenin
Fortunately for them, the government of Kaiser Wilhelm II was equally anxious to end to its war with Russia. Doing so would allow it to transfer huge numbers of soldiers to the Western Front—hopefully before the United States could intervene on behalf of France and England.
On March 3, 1918, Russia and Germany signed the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, withdrawing Russia from World War 1.
Under the terms of the treaty, Russia lost control of Ukraine, Poland, Belarus, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, and its Caucasian provinces of Kars and Batum. The lands comprised 34% of the former empire’s population, 54% of its industrial land, 89% of its coalfields, and 26% of its railways.
(The treaty was annulled when Germany signed the Armistice of November 11, 1918 when surrendering to the victorious Allies.)
The treaty was a humiliation for the new Soviet government. Leon Trotsky, leading the Russian delegation, at first refused to sign the agreement. But he also offered an end to hostilities, hoping to spark a proletarian revolution in Germany. He referred to this tactic as “neither peace nor war.”
The Germans were having none of it. Neither was Joseph Stalin, then a rising figure in the Communist government. Stalin’s scathing description of Trotsky’s phrase: “Neither peace nor war—nor a policy.”
Joseph Stalin in 1917
“Neither peace nor war—nor a policy” also describes the current state of relations between the United States and Iran.
Resuming the Presidency on January 20, 2025, Donald Trump threatened military invasions of Canada and Greenland and attacked Venezuela to snatch its dictator/president Nicolás Maduro. He ordered military strikes on suspected drug smuggling boats and cartel operations in the Caribbean, the Pacific and Ecuador.
Domestically he attacked such major universities as Columbia, Brown and Cornell for their Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) polices and/or alleged antisemitism. To restore their frozen federal funding, Columbia agreed to pay $200 million; Brown paid $50 million and Cornell paid $30 million.
But on February 28, 2026, Trump—in concert with Israel—launched an unprovoked series of devastating airstrikes against Iran. Suddenly he faced an enemy he could neither bribe nor intimidate.
Bombing of Tehran
To Trump’s surprise and dismay, Iran closed the 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 surged. By late May, the national average for a gallon of regular gas reached $4.56, compared to roughly $2.98 before military operations began.
On March 11, Trump had 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.”
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.”
Donald Trump
But then Trump backed down after experts and international organizations such as Amnesty International warned that attacking civilian infrastructure would constitute war crimes under international law.
On April 8, Trump and Iranian leaders agreed to a two-week ceasefire—less than two hours before Trump’s deadline.
But then Trump ordered the United States Navy to blockade Iran’s ports—even after Iran officially declared the Strait of Hormuz open again.
In response, Iran declared the Strait closed as long as the U.S. blockade of Iranian ports remained in place.
This left Trump with two unpalatable choices: Expand his unpopular war and watch gas prices continue to rise, or remove the naval blockade and appear weak.
By late May, the Strait of Hormuz remained closed and crude oil prices continued to rise throughout the world. And so did the prices of all goods transported to market.
And, by late May, definite parallels had formed between Adolf Hitler’s disastrous attack on the Soviet Union and Donald Trump’s attack on Iran.
Hitler, confident in a swift victory over the Soviet Union in 1941, told his Chief of Staff, General Alfred Jodl, “We have only to kick in the door and the whole rotten structure will come crashing down.”
Adolf Hitler
Operation Barbarossa erupted on June 22, 1941, swallowing at least two million dead and wounded Soviet soldiers and another three million POWs (most of whom died in captivity under barbarous conditions). The Wehrmacht occupied the western half of the Soviet Union.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Politics, Social commentary on June 18, 2026 at 12:10 am
Most Americans believe that Nazi Germany was defeated because “we were the Good Guys and they were the Bad Guys.”
Not so.
The United States—and its allies, Great Britain and the Soviet Union—won the war for reasons that had nothing to do with the righteousness of their cause. These included:
- Nazi Germany—–i.e, its Fuehrer, Adolf Hitler—made a series of disastrous decisions. Chief among these: Attacking its ally, the Soviet Union, and declaring war on the United States.
- The greater material resources of the Soviet Union and the United States.
- The Allies waged war as brutally as the Germans.
On this last point:
- From D-Day to the fall of Berlin, captured Waffen-SS soldiers were often shot out of hand.
- When American troops came under fire in the German city of Aachen, Lt. Col. Derrill Daniel brought in a self-propelled 155mm artillery piece and opened up on a theater housing German soldiers. After the city surrendered, a German colonel labeled the use of the 155 “barbarous” and demanded that it be outlawed.
- During the battle of Stalingrad in 1942, Wilhelm Hoffman, a young German soldier and diarist, was appalled that the Russians refused to surrender. He wrote: “You don’t see them at all, they have established themselves in houses and cellars and are firing on all sides, including from our rear—barbarians, they used gangster methods….”
German soldiers in Stalingrad
In short: The Allies won because they dared to meet the brutality of a Heinz Guderian with that of a George S. Patton.
This is a lesson long ignored by the liberals of the Democratic Party. That’s why Republicans now hold both houses of Congress and the Presidency.
An example of this occurred on March 25, 2017: On CBS’ “Sunday Morning,” former President Jimmy Carter said that even if Special Counsel Robert Mueller found evidence that President Donald Trump had broken the law, “my own preference would be that he not be impeached.”
Instead, Carter would want Trump to “be able to serve out his term, because I think he wants to do a good job. And I’m willing to help him, if I can help him, and give him the benefit of the doubt.
“You know, I have confidence in the American system of government. I think ultimately the restraints on a president from the Congress and from the Supreme Court will be adequate to protect our nation, if he serves a full term.”
Jimmy Carter
After becoming President on January 20, 2017, Trump:
- Fired FBI Director James Comey for refusing to pledge his personal loyalty—and for investigating documented ties between Russian Intelligence agents and the 2016 Trump Presidential campaign.
- Threatened to fire Special Counsel Robert Mueller, who was assigned to take over that investigation after the Comey firing.
- Repeatedly attacked the nation’s press as “fake news” and “the enemy of the American people.”
- Contemptuously dismissed the warnings of American Intelligence agencies that Russia tried to subvert the 2016 Presidential campaign—and planned to do the same for the mid-term elections in November, 2018.
Trump, in short, was not going to be “helped” by the humility of a Jimmy Carter.
Donald Trump
Former President Barack Obama believes in rationality and decency. He felt more comfortable responding to attacks on his character than attacking the character of his enemies.
As a graduate of Columbia University and Harvard Law School, Obama was one of the most academically gifted Presidents in American history.
Yet he failed—like Carter—to grasp and apply a fundamental lesson taught by Niccolo Machiavelli, the father of modern political science.
In The Prince, Machiavelli warns:
From this arises the question whether it is better to be loved than feared, or feared more than loved.
The reply is, that one ought to be both feared and loved, but as it is difficult for the two to go together, it is much safer to be feared than loved….
And men have less scruple in offending one who makes himself loved than one who makes himself feared; for love is held by a chain of obligations which, men being selfish, is broken whenever it serves their purpose; but fear is maintained by a dread of punishment which never fails.
Niccolo Machiavelli
Obama’s failure to recognize the truth of Machiavelli’s lesson allowed Republicans to thwart many of his Presidential ambitions—such as picking a replacement for deceased Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia.
Throughout 2016, liberals celebrated on Facebook and Twitter the “certain” Presidency of Vermont U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders or former First Lady Hillary Clinton.
They fully expected to win the White House again, and even retake the Senate and House of Representatives.
But Donald Trump had a different plan—to subvert the 2016 election by Russian Intelligence agents and millions of Russian trolls flooding the Internet with legitimately fake news.
Former Kentucky U.S. Senator Henry Clay famously said: “I’d rather be right than be President.” Trump’s attitude can be summed up as: “I’m always right, so I want to be President.”
For Democrats to win elective victories and enact their agenda, they must find their own George Pattons to take on the Waffen-SS generals among Republican ranks.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Medical, Politics, Social commentary on June 12, 2026 at 12:22 am
Democrats want to believe a day will come when all races, colors and creeds will live together in harmony. Their policies aim at creating that sort of society.
Republicans have turned “illegal alien” into a battle cry.
This is especially true when inflation is high, jobs and housing are scarce, and local schools and hospitals are crammed with illegal aliens—who, by law, shouldn’t even be in the country.
Moreover, the “illegal alien” tagline often allows Republicans to sidestep criticism on even the most outrageous of their actions.
Example: The case of a 10-year-old Ohio girl who was raped—and had to travel to Indiana to obtain an abortion after the Supreme Court overturned Roe. v. Wade.
Ohio has a “heartbeat” law making abortion a crime after a fetal heartbeat is determined—usually within the first six weeks.
For Ohio’s Republican legislators and governor, the “rights” of a fetus far outweigh those of an actual human being—even if she is a child.
Ari Fleischer, former press secretary for President George W. Bush, said on Fox News that the girl’s illegal alien rapist from Guatemala was the villain, not the fetal heartbeat law.
“The agenda is to allow people to come into America without having to come here legally. If you start pointing things out like this, it makes it a moral question. And that’s why the press doesn’t want to face up to the fact it’s a moral issue that people should not be allowed in America unless they come here legally.”
If she had been raped by a legal American citizen, the Ohio “fetal heartbeat” law would have still forced her to carry the fetus to term.
Democrats believe—or want to believe—that voters are creatures of rationality.
Republicans learned long ago that most voters aren’t moved by appeals to their rationality. Instead, what counts with them is emotions—such as fear.
From the end of World War II in 1945 to the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, the Enemy of Choice for Republicans was the Communists.
Millions of Americans were so pathologically frightened by “The Red Menace” that any Democratic politician libeled as a “Communist,” “Comsymp,” “fellow traveler” was considered at least a potential traitor, if not an actual one.
Among the Republican politicians who rode to victory on a wave of Red hysteria: Richard Nixon and Joseph McCarthy
Even as late as 1992, President George H.W. Bush and the Republican establishment charged that Arkansas Governor Bill Clinton might be a KGB plant. Their evidence: During his tenure at Oxford University in 1969-70, Clinton had briefly visited Moscow—and thus might have been turned into a “Manchurian Candidate.”
After the collapse of the Soviet Union, Right-wingers had to settle for attacking their opponents as “liberals” and “soft on crime.” But these charges didn’t carry the same weight as “Communists” and “traitors.”
Then, on September 11, 2001, Republicans—and their Right-wing supporters—at last found a suitable replacement for the Red Menace: The Maniacal Muslim.
The World Trade Center on September 11, 2001
Led by President George W. Bush, Republicans used fear of Muslims to con and bully the nation into a needless, bloody, budget-busting war on Iraq.
The most immediate danger facing Democratic candidates: Their unwillingness to fight fire with fire.
Example 1: Republicans are organizing a nationwide effort to suppress voter turnout among blacks, Hispanics and liberals.
Yet Democrats are not making any similar effort to suppress Right-wing turnout. Nor did the Biden Justice Department indict those Republicans responsible for their anti-democratic efforts.
Example 2: On January 6, 2021, President Donald Trump—supported by at least 144 Republicans in the House and Senate—incited a treasonous coup to remain in office. This despite the overwhelming evidence that he had lost the 2020 election to Joseph Biden.
By the end of the Biden administration, not one major Republican supporting such treason had been indicted for that infamy. Let alone tried, convicted and imprisoned.
The single biggest reason for the Democrats loss in 2024 lay in the Biden administration’s toleration of Donald Trump’s continuing campaign of lies.
Trump continued to spread The Big Lie that he was robbed by a vast conspiracy—although not one of the more than 60 cases his lawyers brought before Federal judges proved this true.
Trump should have been indicted for treason by no later than mid-2021. Even then, the evidence was overwhelming that he had instigated the coup attempt. He was clearly preparing to run again for President in 2024.
An indictment for treason would cast a heavy—if not fatal—blow to that decision. At the very least, Trump would have been forced to mount a feverish—and expensive—defense.
And even many of his most fanatical supporters would have questioned the wisdom of voting for a man who might well become a Federal prison inmate.
In 2024, America stood at the point where the German Weimar Republic stood in 1932: With an aged President (Paul von Hindenburg) unable—or unwilling—to cope with a surging Fascistic movement (led by Adolf Hitler).
The results of that collective failure destroyed Germany and left 60 million dead around the world.
The 2024 Presidential election proved that history can repeat itself, albeit in different countries.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Medical, Politics, Social commentary on June 11, 2026 at 12:14 am
There are many reasons why Democrats consistently lose elections.
A major one: Democrats believe that people can be better than they are—and, given the chance, want to become better than they are.
Republicans realize that most people like themselves as they are—and don’t want to change. At least, not in the altruistic ways Democrats envision.
If they want to change anything about themselves, it’s strictly at the materialistic level: More money, lower prices, more big-ticket toys.
Susan Page, Washington Bureau Chief for USA TODAY, summed up the popularity of the “Greed Appeal” to voters on the March 13, 2020 edition of “Washington Week in Review”:
Susan Page
“USA Today has conducted a poll about the economic concerns that are out there….And Congress—you’re seeing fear in this country about the economy.
“In fact, when we did this poll this week about how Americans’ lives have been affected by the Coronavirus, people expressed more concern about the economic and financial effect than they did about the health effect. And you know, that goes to why this matters so much to President Trump.
“How many voters have you talked to who said, you know, I don’t really like President Trump’s tweets, but I like what I see happening in my 401(k). And when they look at their 401(k) this week, it may not look quite as bright as it did before.”
Democrats expect people to rise above their worst selves and embrace a higher, altruistic cause—civil rights, abortion rights, healthcare for all.
Republicans look for those who are comfortable in their racism, their greed, their hatred for women. They don’t try to reform them—they encourage them in their racism, greed and misogyny.
This began long before Donald Trump became a Presidential candidate in 2016.
When Richard Nixon announced his candidacy for President in 1968, he pursued what was euphemistically termed “a Southern strategy.”
Ricard Nixon
In reality, this was aimed to exploit whites’ fear and hatred of blacks.
In a now-infamous 1981 interview, Right-wing political consultant Lee Atwater explained how this worked.
“You start out in 1954 by saying, ‘Nigger, nigger, nigger.’ By 1968 you can’t say ‘nigger’—that hurts you, backfires.
“So you say stuff like, uh, forced busing, states’ rights, and all that stuff, and you’re getting so abstract.
“Now, you’re talking about cutting taxes, and all these things you’re talking about are totally economic things and a byproduct of them is, blacks get hurt worse than whites….
“‘We want to cut this,’ is much more abstract than even the busing thing, uh, and a hell of a lot more abstract than ‘Nigger, nigger.’
“So anyway you look at it, race is coming on the back burner.”
Lee Atwater
But blacks have by no means been the only targets—and victims—of Republican hate campaigns. A partial list of these would include:
- Liberals
- Women
- Socialists
- Secularists
- Disabled
- Environmentalists
- Hispanics
- Gays
- Lesbians
And now transgenders.
Republicans are experts at inciting hatred—and reaping huge gains in power as a result.
There can be no better example of a politician who has played successfully on the hatred of American voters than Donald Trump. If Barack Obama was the 2008 candidate of “Hope and Change,” then Trump was the 2016 candidate of “Hate and Fear.”
From June 15, 2015, when he launched his Presidential campaign, until October 24, 2016, Trump fired almost 4,000 angry, insulting tweets at 281 people and institutions that had somehow offended him.
Donald Trump
The New York Times needed two full pages of its print edition to showcase them.
Among his targets:
- Secretary of State Hillary Clinton
- The New York Times
- President Barack Obama
- CNN
- Actress Meryl Streep
- The Washington Post
- Singer Neil Young
- Democrats
- Actor Arnold Schwarzenegger
- Republicans
- Comedian John Oliver
- The State of New Jersey
- Beauty pageant contestants
Others he clearly delighted in insulting during the campaign included:
- Women
- Blacks
- Hispanics
- Asians
- Muslims
- The disabled
- Prisoners-of-war
Democrats want to believe a day will come when all races, colors and creeds will live together in harmony. Their policies aim at creating that sort of society.
Republicans know that most people instinctively feel comfortable with those who most resemble themselves. And they don’t seek out those who differ from themselves.
That’s why—in schools and prisons—whites sit mostly with whites, blacks sit mostly with blacks, and Hispanics sit mostly with Hispanics.
And if most Americans feel uncomfortable with fellow Americans who don’t resemble themselves, they are even more intolerant toward foreigners who don’t.
This is especially true when inflation is high, jobs and housing are scarce, and local schools and hospitals are crammed with illegal aliens—who, by law, shouldn’t even be in the country.
For these Americans, the Democrats’ “Kumbaya” message of love and tolerance falls on deaf ears. By contrast, Republicans’ cries of “Get rid of the illegal aliens!” ring loud and clear.
Illegal aliens crossing into the United States
Moreover, the “illegal alien” tagline often allows Republicans to sidestep criticism on even the most outrageous of their actions.
Example: The case of a 10-year-old Ohio girl who was raped—and had to travel to Indiana to obtain an abortion after the Supreme Court overturned Roe. v. Wade.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Medical, Politics, Social commentary on June 10, 2026 at 12:17 am
If you’re wondering why Democrats lost the Presidential election of November 5, 2024—you can stop wondering.
Here are the reasons. And they are the reasons why Democrats will likely lose the 2028 Presidential election as well.
Democrats believe that people can be better than they are—and, given the chance, want to become better than they are.
Republicans understand the darker sides of human nature far better than Democrats—and don’t hesitate to take full advantage of them.
Republicans realize that most people like themselves as they are—and don’t want to change. At least, not in the altruistic ways Democrats envision.
If they want to change anything about themselves, it’s strictly at the materialistic level: More money, lower prices, more big-ticket toys.
They may claim concern for others, but if given a choice between their pocketbook and a higher goal, most will vote for their pocketbook.
A first-rate example of this appeared on The PBS Newshour on July 15, 2022, during an exchange between conservative New York Times columnist David Brooks and Jonathan Capehart, associate editor for the Washington Post.
David Brooks (left) and Jonathan Capehart (right) on the PBS Newshour
Host William Brangham led off the exchange:
“I want to switch, Jonathan, to this issue of the continued fallout of the Supreme Court overturning Roe v. Wade. And Democrats seem to believe that this could be one of the things that might give them at least some trace of a fighting chance in the midterms.
“And we saw we this week this sort of horrendous case of a young 10-year-old girl who had been raped. She got pregnant. She then had to leave her state [Ohio] and go to another state [Indiana] where abortion would still be allowed.
“And GOP officials tried to make hay of it. They doubted that that story really existed. The local [Attorney General] said, we’re going to go after the doctor that performed this.
“Do you think that—that issue and the extremity of the way that this is being handled will actually benefit Democrats?”
Capehart: “It should. The idea that we’re talking about violence against a child, and then being forced by the state to give birth to this child, going to another state so she can terminate that pregnancy, and then being persecuted and prosecuted by the state for doing that….
“We are in “Handmaid’s Tale” territory here. We are turning into Gilead. And if there are people out there who are upset by the Supreme Court decision, by what Republican legislators around the country in states and localities are doing to further restrictions and bans on abortion.
“I don’t know what else could push people to the polls more than not just being stripped of a constitutional right, but having your right to — right to freedom, right to privacy, right to liberty not just taken away, but local officials doing everything they can to ensure that you don’t have autonomy over your own body.
“If that doesn’t get people out to the polls, I don’t know what will.”
Brangham then turned to Brooks:
“I mean, David, this was an incredibly extreme case, in some ways crystallized the sharpness and the horribleness of this division in this country.
“Do you think it will redound to the Democrats’ benefit?”
Brooks: “A little, but, frankly, not much.
“Now, abortion rights defenders, they should pursue their cause with the passion that they’re bringing to it….
“But there’s just a giant gap between what a lot of Democrats want to talk about and what the whole rest of the country wants to talk about. And if you ask people, what’s the most important issues, progressives want to talk about abortion and guns.
“The entire rest of the country, independents, conservatives, unaffiliated people, they want talk about the economy. And, for them, the economy is way up here. Jobs are number one. Inflation is number two.
“And so why is Joe Biden at 33 percent approval in the latest Times poll? It’s the economy. Why in the same poll do half of Hispanics support the Republicans now? The economy. These are earthquake numbers for Democrats…..
“But if Democrats, if they’re not talking about economic policy every day, then they’re just not talking about the policy that is clearly ranking number one with a vast majority of voters.”
No Republican has appealed more directly to greed as a motivator than Donald Trump.
On August 23, 2018, Trump, as President, offered additional evidence that he’s “not like other people.” He did so by giving an unprecedented reason why he shouldn’t be impeached: “I tell you what, if I ever got impeached, I think the market would crash, I think everybody would be very poor.”
White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders doubtless spoke for millions of Trump supporters when she said, on June 4, 2018:
“Since taking office, the President has strengthened American leadership, security, prosperity, and accountability. And as we saw from Friday’s jobs report, our economy is stronger, Americans are optimistic, and business is booming.”
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DONALD TRUMP: ELECTION INTEGRITY MEANS I WIN EVERY TIME: PART TWO (OF THREE)
In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Politics, Social commentary on July 22, 2026 at 1:12 amIn the United States of Donald Trump, protecting the right to legitimate elections can get you investigated—if not indicted.
Case in point: Christopher Krebs, who prevented Russian trolls and hackers from sabotaging the 2020 Presidential election.
During the 2016 Presidential race, Russian propaganda played a major role in convincing millions of Americans to vote for Donald Trump. Social media platforms—especially Facebook and Twitter—were flooded with genuinely fake news to sow discord among Americans and create a pathway for Trump’s election.
And where Internet trolls left off, Russian computer hackers took over.
Hillary Clinton won the popular vote—65,853,514 to 62,984,828 for Trump. But in the United States, what counts in Presidential elections is the Electoral College vote.
And there Trump won: 304 to 227.
What put him over the top in the Electoral College was the help he got from Russian dictator Vladimir Putin.
Vladimir Putin
Пресс-служба Президента РФ, CC BY 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons
Putin had good reason to assist Trump: Putin wanted the United States to ditch the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) alliance, which has preserved Western Europe from Russian aggression since World War II. And Trump had often attacked America’s funding of NATO as a drain on the American economy.
As for Trump, he wanted something from Putin: He wanted to be President. For this, Putin could supply monies, Internet trolls to confuse voters with falsified news, and even the hacking of key voting centers.
So notorious was the role played by Russian trolls and hackers in winning Trump the 2016 election that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) was determined to prevent a repetition in 2020.
And the point man for this was Chris Krebs, the director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) run by DHS.
Born in Atlanta, Georgia, in 1977, Krebs had received a B.A. in environmental sciences from the University of Virginia in 1999, and a J.D. from the George Mason University School of Law in 2007.
Chris Krebs
Krebs had served as Senior Advisor to the Assistant Secretary of Homeland Security for Infrastructure Protection, and later worked in the private sector as Director for Cybersecurity Policy for Microsoft.
In preparation for the 2020 Presidential election, Krebs launched a massive effort to counter lies spread by Russians—and Americans—on social media platforms. As he explained to Scott Pelley during a “60 Minutes” interview aired on November 29, 2020:
“So we spent something on the order of three and a half years of gaming out every possible scenario for how a foreign actor could interfere with an election. Countless, countless scenarios.”
At his command lay the resources of a series of powerful Federal investigative agencies:
“We had the Department of Defense Cyber Command. We had the National Security Agency. We had the FBI. We had the Secret Service. We also had representatives from the Election Assistance Commission, which is the federal independent agency that supports the actual administration of elections.”
As a result, Krebs was widely praised for revamping the department’s cybersecurity efforts and increasing coordination with state and local governments.
The November 3, 2020 election went very smoothly. Deprived of his expected support from Russian trolls and hackers, Trump lost.
On November 12, to counter the growing chorus of lies from Trump and his Right-wing allies that the election had been stolen, Krebs put out the following statement:
“The November 3rd election was the most secure in American history. There is no evidence that any voting system deleted or lost votes, changed votes, or was in any way compromised.”
On November 17, Trump fired Chris Krebs.
Too cowardly to confront Krebs, Trump fired him by tweet—and accompanied the outrage with yet more lies:
“The recent statement by Chris Krebs on the security of the 2020 election was highly inaccurate, in that there were massive improprieties and fraud, including dead people voting, poll watchers not allowed into polling locations, glitches in the voting machines which changed votes from Trump to Biden, late voting, and many more.”
Five years later, on April 9, 2025, a re-elected Trump issued a MEMORANDUM FOR THE HEADS OF EXECUTIVE DEPARTMENTS AND AGENCIES.
Its target: Chris Krebs.
Among other charges, Trump accused Krebs of suppressing “conservative or dissenting voices and distort[ing] public opinion.”
The two biggest and most influential social media platforms—Twitter (now X) and Facebook—are owned by avowedly Right-wing billionaires: Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg. And they massively supported Trump in the 2016 and 2020 elections.
After he incited a treasonous riot against Congress on January 6, 2021, both platforms briefly banned him from posting. But then both—fearing “retribution” if he became President again—once again gave him access to their audiences.
Immediately after losing the 2020 Presidential election, Trump began spreading “The Big Lie”: That he had been defeated by massive voter fraud made possible through Dominion Voting Systems.
In this he was backed by a major Right-wing propagandist: The Fox News Network.
On April 18, 2023, Fox News agreed to pay Dominion Voting Systems $797 million to avert a wrongful defamation trial. Dominion’s lawsuit would have exposed how the network promoted lies about the 2020 presidential election—all the while knowing they were lies.
So much for Trump’s claims of “widespread election malfeasance and serious vulnerabilities with voting machines.”
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