Posts Tagged ‘STRAIT OF HORMUZ’
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In Entertainment, History, Military, Politics, Social commentary on June 3, 2026 at 12:23 am
On May 11, 2026, for three hours, President Donald Trump posted over 50 messages on his website, Truth Social. The posts mainly consisted of:
- Reposting;
- Attacking political opponents;
- Calling for prosecution of enemies;
- Posting AI-generated images of himself; and
- References to foreign policy, including the war in Iran.
The posts occurred just before a scheduled trip to China and amid rising economic pressures in the United States. These, in turn, stem from Iran’s blocking the Strait of Hormuz, through which 20% to 25% of the world’s oil passes, after Trump ordered a naval blockade of Iranian ports.
The Wall Street Journal reported that between 10:14 p.m. and 1:12 a.m., Trump posted 55 times, with other reports citing over 50-54 posts within that timeframe.
He posted a 400-word attack against The New York Times at 1:12 a.m. on May 12. His complaint: It had revealed that his renovation of the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool would cost more than $10 million over what he had previously said.
Donald Trump
He also falsely claimed the Times of losing subscribers. On the contrary: On May 6, the company reported:
“The Times has added an average of 330,000 total subscribers a quarter, including print, since the start of last year” and “now has 13.1 million subscribers…after adding about 310,000 digital-only subscribers in the first quarter of the year.”
Most of his venom was aimed at Barack Obama. Trump reposted messages from his supporters, who accused the former president of sedition, wiretapping Trump Tower and creating the “Russia Hoax” to steal the 2016 Presidential election.
It’s clear that Trump—a lifelong racist—harbors jealousy of the black, still-handsome, articulate, witty and beloved former president. When Trump was being assailed in 2016 for his “grab-em-by-the-pussy” comment, he complained that no one was accusing Obama of sexual infidelities.
Barack Obama
For good reason: Unlike Trump—who bedded a porn “star” while married to his third wife, Melania—there has never been a hint of scandal about Obama.
In one post, Trump—who incited a deadly attack on Congress on January 6, 2021, to overturn the legitimate results of the 2020 Presidential election—accused Obama of plotting a coup against him.
As always with Trump, he offered no evidence to back up his slander.
He also lied that:
- Obama profited $120 million from Obamacare;
- Obama wiretapped Trump Tower;
- Dominion voting machines changed votes in 2024; and
- Neither Joe Biden nor Kamala Harris was running the previous administration.
Obama was not the only public figure Trump attacked. Others included:
- Former presidential opponent Hillary Clinton;
- Arizona Senator Mark Kelly, who has urged members of the military to disobey illegal orders;
- Former FBI director and Trump critic James Comey;
- Former independent counsel Jack Smith, who investigated Trump’s inciting the January 6 coup attempt
Trump is clearly still hung up on his 2020 re-election loss to Joe Biden, lying that Dominion voting machines “DELETED 2.7 MILLION TRUMP VOTES NATIONWIDE. INCLUDING OVER 1 MILLION PENNSYLVANIA VOTES SWITCHED FROM PRESIDENT TRUMP TO BIDEN.”
He can’t accept that a majority of voters would prefer anyone else to him—even though his loss largely stemmed from his refusal to tackle the mushrooming COVID-19 crisis.
Trump’s tweeting rampage echoes the theme of a 1962 episode of The Twilight Zone: “One More Pallbearer.” The central character in it is millionaire Paul Radin (played by Joseph Weisman) who nurses decades-old grudges against three people.
With a few slight alterations, he could be Trump himself.
Radin invites three people to the bomb shelter that he has built in New York City. But they aren’t family or friends. He holds deep grudges against all of them.
One is high-school teacher Mrs. Langsford, who gave him a failing grade when he was caught cheating on a test. The second is Colonel Hawthorne, who had him court-martialed when Radin endangered lives by disobeying orders. The third is Reverend Hughes, who made a public scandal out of a young woman who later committed suicide over Radin.
Radin has equipped his shelter with sound effects and fake radio messages to convince the trio that nuclear war will occur in just moments. He offers them refuge in the shelter if they beg his forgiveness for their treatment of him. They refuse his offer, making it clear they would rather die with loved ones than survive with him.
A TV screen playing footage of a nuclear explosion—and the accompanying sound effects—convince Radin that his fantasy is in fact real.
When he emerges from the shelter, the city is intact. But the sheer intensity of the illusion he created has led Radin to lose his mind. He sobs helplessly at the foot of a fountain outside his intact building—a victim of his own overweening pride and hatred.
And, as happens at the close of every Twilight Zone episode, Rod Serling, the series’ host and narrator, is on hand to offer his moving commentary:
“Mr. Paul Radin, a dealer in fantasy, who sits in the rubble of his own making and imagines that he’s the last man on Earth, doomed to a perdition of unutterable loneliness because a practical joke has turned into a nightmare. Mr. Paul Radin, pallbearer at a funeral that he manufactured himself in the Twilight Zone.”
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In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Politics, Social commentary on May 28, 2026 at 12:12 am
On August 23, 2018, President Donald Trump appearing on “Fox and Friends,” said: “I tell you what, if I ever got impeached, I think the market would crash, I think everybody would be very poor.”
Donald Trump
Thus, he appealed to the greed and fear of his voting base—and no doubt hoped to reach beyond it: “Keep me in power or you’ll all suffer for it.”
Then-White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders bragged, 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.”
Many Congressional Republicans echoed this: The American people care only about the economy—and how well-off they are.
And in 2024, a major reason why 77 million Americans re-elected a 34-times convicted felon and the inciter of the January 6 coup attempt was to get cheap eggs.
For eight years, Nazi Germany underwent such an epoch. Germans called it “The Happy Time.”
It began on January 30, 1933, when Adolf Hitler became Chancellor—and lasted until June 22, 1941, when Hitler invaded the Soviet Union.
Germans knew about the Nazis’ cruelty to the Jews, the conquests of Austria and Czechoslovakia, the mass arrests and concentration camps.
They didn’t care.
Frenzied Germans greet Adolf Hitler
The Gestapo didn’t have to watch everyone: German “patriots” gladly reported their fellow citizens—especially Jews—to the secret police.
As far as everyday Germans were concerned:
- The streets were clean and peaceful.
- Employment was high.
- The trouble-making unions were gone.
- Germany was once again “taking its rightful place” among ruling nations, after its catastrophic defeat in World War 1.
The height of “The Happy Time” came in June, 1940. In just six weeks, the Wehrmacht accomplished what the German army hadn’t in four years during World War 1: The total defeat of its longtime enemy, France.
Suddenly, French clothes, perfumes, delicacies, paintings and other “fortunes of war” came pouring into the Fatherland.
Most Germans believed der Krieg—“the war”—was over, and only good times lay ahead.
Then, on June 22, 1941, three million Wehrmacht soldiers slashed their way into the Soviet Union. The Third Reich was now locked in a death-struggle with a nation even more powerful than itself.
German soldiers in the Soviet Union
And then, on December 11, 1941—four days after Germany’s ally, Japan, attacked Pearl Harbor—Hitler declared war on the United States.
“The Happy Time” for Germans was over. Only prolonged disaster lay ahead.
Resuming the Presidency on January 20, 2025, Trump has threatened military invasions of Canada and Greenland and attacked Venezuela to snatch its dictator/president Nicolás Maduro. He has ordered military strikes on suspected drug smuggling and cartel operations in the Caribbean, the Pacific and Ecuador.
Domestically he has 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 Terhan
To Trump’s surprise and dismay, Iran closed the Strait of Hormuz—through which 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 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.”
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 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.”
By late May, it was not over; 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.
Like Adolf Hitler, Trump had believed his war would end successfully in four to six weeks at most. And, like Hitler, Trump had no plan for a prolonged struggle.
Short of using nuclear weapons or ordering an all-out invasion of Iran—both hugely unpopular among Americans—Trump could only threaten or deliver more impotent airstrikes.
The Germans made a devil’s-bargain with Adolf Hitler—and paid dearly for it.
Millions of greedy and hate-filled Americans have embraced Donald Trump—another would-be tyrant—as America’s economic savior.
By supporting Trump—or at least not opposing him—they also made a devil’s-bargain. And such bargains always end with the devil winning.
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In Bureaucracy, Business, History, Law, Military, Politics, Social commentary on May 19, 2026 at 12:10 am
On April 29, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth appeared before Congress for the first time since President Donald Trump-–in concert with Israel—launched a series of devastating airstrikes against Iran.
During the hearing, the Pentagon revealed that the war so far had cost $25 billion. The fighting is on hold, but the military maintains its blockade of the Strait of Hormuz.
Early on in his testimony, Hegseth said the threat of Iran paled in comparison to one posed by Democrats: “The biggest challenge, the biggest adversary we face at this point are the reckless, feckless and defeatist words of congressional Democrats and some Republicans.”
Pete Hegseth
Forget that:
- Iran had effectively closed the Strait of Hormuz—through which 20% to 25% of the world’s oil consumption (about 20–21 million barrels per day) flows.
- As a result, gas prices rose overnight. 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”
- When this threat failed to impress the Iranians, Trump posted on April 7: “A whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again. I don’t want that to happen, but it probably will.”
- This implied threat of a nuclear holocaust led legal experts and international organizations such as Amnesty International to warn that attacking civilian infrastructure would constitute war crimes under international law.
Donald Trump
Implicit in Hegseth’s charge—and attitude—was the message: “It’s Democrats’ fault that we’re not winning the war that we—and Israel—started on February 28. And that a war that was supposed to last six weeks at most has now dragged on for two months—with no end in sight.”
It’s possible that the highly combative Hegseth had a specific remedy in mind for such criticism—one that had been applied by Nazi Germany to those who who doubted the “final victory” of the war that Adolf Hitler had started.
Those who did so—or openly criticized the need for the war or the genocidal way it was being fought—faced two ways of dying: Beheading or hanging.
So long as the Third Reich was winning—or at least in possession of actual German territory—the punishment of beheading was carried out upon conviction by kangaroo courts.
But when the Reich was immediately facing invasion—from the West by American and British forces, and from the East by Russian ones—there often wasn’t time for pseudo-legal folderol. Roving bands of Schutzstaffel (SS) or Wehrmacht troops openly shot or literally strung up such “traitors” from lamp posts.
Certainly Hegseth’s attitude reflected that mentality, as this exchange with Rep. John Garamendi (D-CA) revealed:
GARAMENDI: The president has got himself and America stuck in a quagmire of another war in the Middle East. He’s desperately trying to extricate himself from his own mistakes.
HEGSETH: You call it a quagmire, handing propaganda to our enemies? Shame on you for that statement. And statements like that are reckless to our troops.
During the Vietnam war (1965 – 1975) the administrations of Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon lied repeatedly about the “progress” being achieved. The polite term used to describe this was “credibility gap.”
As a result, “grunts” often sported buttons reading: “Ambushed at Credibility Gap.”
When a nation’s armed forces are winning easy—or even hard-won—victories over an enemy, word quickly spreads through their ranks. When facing defeat—or stalemate—soldiers are equally quick to sense the truth of this.
So Hegseth’s accusation that Garamendi’s accurately calling the war “a quagmire”—at least so far—could not prove a morale-buster for the soldiers fighting it.
Throughout his testimony, Hegseth acted like a man in charge of an inquisition, rather than a public official called on by Congress to answer questions.
A typical exchange between him and Rep. Ro Khanna (D-CA):
KHANNA (D-CA): Do you know how much it will cost Americans in terms of their increased cost in gas and food over the next year because of the Iran war?
HEGSETH: I would simply ask you what the cost is of an Iranian nuclear bomb.
KHANNA: I’m going to give you that opportunity.
HEGSETH: I would simply ask you what the — you’re playing gotcha questions about domestic things.
KHANNA: No, it’s not. You’re asking — you’re saying it’s a gotcha question to ask what it’s going to be in terms of the increased cost of gas?
HEGSETH: Why won’t you answer what it costs to prevent Iran from getting a nuclear bomb?
KHANNA: I give you that, sir. You don’t know what we’re paying in terms of gas. You don’t know what we’re paying in terms of food. Your $25 billion number is totally off. It’s the incompetence. It’s the incompetence.
What she should have said was: “You’re here to answer questions, not ask them.”
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In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Military, Politics, Social commentary, Uncategorized on May 14, 2026 at 12:05 am
Among the outrages President Donald Trump has committed since returning to power on January 20:
- Launched an unprovoked attack on Iran on February 28, believing that in six weeks he could force its Islamic rulers to abandon their plans to develop nuclear weapons.
- When Iran closed the Strait of Hormuz—through which about 20%-25% of the world’s oil flows—Trump threatened: “A whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again. I don’t want that to happen, but it probably will.”
- He backed off—at least temporarily—only after legal experts and organizations such as Amnesty International warned that attacking civilian infrastructure would constitute war crimes under international law.
Trump’s vindictiveness, his narcissism, his compulsive aggression, his complaints that his “enemies” in government and the press are trying to destroy him, have caused many to ask: Could the President of the United States be suffering from mental illness?
One who has dared to answer this question is John D. Gartner, a practicing psychotherapist.
John D. Gartner
Gartner graduated magna cum laude from Princeton University, received his Ph.D in clinical psychology from the University of Massachusetts, and served as a part-time assistant professor of psychiatry at Johns Hopkins University Medical School for 28 years.
During an interview by U.S. News & World Report (published on January 27, 2017), Gartner said: “Donald Trump is dangerously mentally ill and temperamentally incapable of being president.”
Gartner said that Trump suffers from “malignant narcissism,” whose symptoms include:
- anti-social behavior
- sadism
- aggressiveness
- paranoia
- grandiosity.
“We’ve seen enough public behavior by Donald Trump now that we can make this diagnosis indisputably,” says Gartner, who admits he has not personally examined Trump.
Another psychiatrist who’s determined that Trump is “mentally compromised” is Bandy X. Lee, an assistant clinical psychiatry professor at the Yale School of Medicine.
And she offered her reasons for doing so as the editor of The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump: 27 Psychiatrists and Mental Health Experts Assess a President.
“It doesn’t take a psychiatrist to notice that our president is mentally compromised,” she and colleague Judith Lewis Herman asserted in the book’s prologue.
According to Dr. Craig Malkin, a Lecturer in Psychology for Harvard Medical School and a licensed psychologist, Trump is a pathological narcissist:
“Pathological narcissism begins,” Malkin writes, “when people become so addicted to feeling special that, just like with any drug, they’ll do anything to get their ‘high,’ including lie, steal, cheat, betray and even hurt those closest to them.
“When they can’t let go of their need to be admired or recognized, they have to bend or invent a reality in which they remain special despite all messages to the contrary. In point of fact, they become dangerously psychotic. It’s just not always obvious until it’s too late.”
Lance Dodes, a retired psychiatry professor at Harvard Medical School, believes that Trump is a sociopath:
“The failure of normal empathy is central to sociopathy, which is marked by an absence of guilt, intentional manipulation and controlling or even sadistically harming others for personal power or gratification.”
* * * * * * * * * *
Americans have long believed that they—and especially their leaders—are an “exceptional” people. As a result, they consider themselves immune from the threats of corruption and dictatorship that have plagued other nations.
Millions of Americans—including many Trump supporters—have been shaken by the revelations of the Epstein Files, which chronicle the sexual depravities of convicted pedophile Jeffrey Epstein. Even more disturbing has been the knowledge that he and Donald Trump maintained a friendship for 15 to 17 years.
The Files so far released are replete with names of celebrities such as Michael Jackson, Mick Jagger, Kevin Spacey, Alec Baldwin, Woody Allen, George Stephanopoulos, Elon Musk, Richard Branson, former President Bill Clinton and Prince Andrew.
This has added to the shock and revulsion felt by millions of Americans. Yet they might have been less shocked had they read Gore Vidal’s 1959 essay, “The Twelve Caesars.”
Gore Vidal
Mark Coggins from San Francisco, CC BY 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0>, via Wikimedia Commons
Vidal’s essay is an ode to The Twelve Caesars, a classic work of ancient biography by Gaius Suetonius Tranquillus—known as Suetonius.
Suetonius, a Roman citizen and historian, chronicled the lives of the first twelve Caesars of imperial Rome: Julius Caesar, Augustus, Tiberius, Caligula, Claudius, Nero, Galba, Otho, Vitellius, Vespasian, Titus and Domitian.
Vidal sought to show the relevance of Suetonius’ work to present-day America: “It would be wrong, however, to dismiss, as so many commentators have, the wide variety of Caesarean sensuality as simply the viciousness of twelve abnormal men. They were, after all, a fairly representative lot.
“They differed from us – and their contemporaries – only in the fact of power, which made it possible for each to act out his most recondite sexual fantasies. This is the psychological fascination of Suetonius. What will men so placed do? The answer, apparently, is anything and everything.”
Thus the lesson taught by the celebrities—including Trump—who glommed onto Jeffrey Epstein: They differed from ordinary citizens only in the power they held over themselves—and others. And, reveling in that power, they felt free to indulge the most depraved fantasies, sexual and otherwise.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Military, Politics, Social commentary, Uncategorized on May 13, 2026 at 12:33 am
Night at Camp David is a 1965 novel about the danger of a President of the United States going insane.
In a November 30, 2018 review of the book, Tom McCarthy, national affairs correspondent for the British newspaper, The Guardian, wrote of President Donald Trump:
“The current president has seen crowds where none exist, deployed troops to answer no threat, attacked national institutions – the military, the justice department, the judiciary, the vote, the rule of law, the press – tried to prosecute his political enemies, elevated bigots, oppressed minorities, praised despots while insulting global allies and wreaked diplomatic havoc from North Korea to Canada.
“He stays up half the night watching TV and tweeting about it, then wakes up early to tweet some more, in what must be the most remarkable public diary of insecurity, petty vindictiveness, duplicity and scattershot focus by a major head of state in history.”
And the nightmare isn’t over.
Among the outrages Trump has committed since returning to power on January 20:
- Pardoned about 1,500 of his followers who violently tried to overturn the outcome of the 2020 Presidential election in the January 6, 2021 attack on Congress. Move than 250 of those pardoned had been convicted of assaulting police.
- Signed 26 executive orders reversing climate change initiatives, eliminating DEI programs, changing the federal designation for the Gulf of Mexico to the “Gulf of America” and initiating a federal hiring freeze.
- Fired the inspectors general—who are charged with protecting the government from waste and corruption—from more than a dozen federal agencies.
- Following Trump’s anti-DEI executive order, the Department of Defense deleted content that included the achievements of nonwhites—such as Navajo code talkers, black Tuskegee Airmen, Medal of Honor winners and women veterans.
- Fired Rohit Chopra, the director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which protects consumers from unfair, deceptive and fraudulent business practices.
Donald Trump
- Withdrew the United States from the World Health Organization (WHO).
- Withdrew the United States from the Paris climate agreement.
- Fired the non-partisan board members at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. His toadies illegally renamed it the Trump-Kennedy Center and appointed him as its chairman—just as Joseph Stalin made himself arbiter of what was permissible for artists in the Soviet Union.
- When artists and audiences—outraged by the takeover—boycotted the Center, an embarrassed Trump ordered its closure, claiming a two-year repair renovation was necessary
- Purged 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”: Investigating Trump’s inciting the January 6, 2021 coup attempt and illegally holding highly sensitive national security documents after leaving office.
- Ordered the Justice Department to indict his critics such as New York Attorney General Letitia James and former FBI Director James Comey.
- Declared “a national emergency” targeting migrants—legal and illegal.
- Tried to cancel birthright citizenship—enshrined within the United States Constitution— for U.S.-born children.
- Demanded a military parade for his 79th birthday, poorly disguised as a salute to the 250th anniversary of the United States Army.
- Pardoned favored political allies and loyalists. Among these: Seventy-seven people associated with the Trump fake electors plot to overturn the results of the 2020 U.S. presidential election, including Trump’s personal attorney Rudy Giuliani and former chief of staff Mark Meadows.
- Angrily fired the Commissioner of the Bureau of Labor Statistics following a weak jobs report, triggering fears about his extortionate tariff policy.
- Demanded that the media refer to the Gulf of Mexico as “the Gulf of America” and banned the Associated Press from the White House for refusing to do so.
- Ordered the closure of all Federal Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Accessibility offices.
- Demanded that Canada become the 51st state and aggressively raised tariffs on Canadian goods.
- Shut down the Federal Government on October 1, when Democrats refused to agree to his gutting Medicaid, Medicare and the Affordable Care Act (ACA), causing 10-15 million Americans to lose health insurance coverage.
- Among those not getting paid: Air traffic controllers for the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA). Owing to many controllers’ refusing to work, the FAA reduced air traffic by 10% at many airports.
- Shut off the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) for the poor to pressure Democrats to support his gutting of healthcare programs.
- Issued executive orders revoking the security clearance of Chris Krebs, former director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency. Krebs’ “crime”: Preventing lies spread by Russians—and Americans—on social media platforms from swaying the 2020 Presidential election to Trump.
- Flooded the streets of Los Angeles, Washington, D.C., Chicago with federalized National Guard troops against state governors’ wishes during immigration crackdowns and civil unrest.
- Flooded Minneapolis and St. Paul, Minnesota, with 3,000 Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents who terrorized (and in two cases murdered) both American citizens and illegal aliens.
- Threatened Harvard University with the loss of billions of dollars in federal funding, claiming that 2023 student protests about Gaza violated the civil rights of Jewish students.
- Threatened Greenland—an autonomous territory within the Kingdom of Denmark—with invasion unless it agreed to acquisition by the United States. Since Denmark is a member of NATO, such an invasion would pit the United States against its own alliance.
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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, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Politics, Social commentary on May 4, 2026 at 12:43 am
When Donald Trump—as a businessman and President—has been confronted by men and women who can’t be bribed or intimidated, he has reacted with rage and frustration.
- Trump boasted that he “never” settled cases out of court. But New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman pressed fraud claims against the real estate mogul’s counterfeit Trump University in 2013—and in 2016 Trump settled the case out of court rather than take the stand.
- “Today’s $25 million settlement agreement is a stunning reversal by Donald Trump,” said Schneiderman on November 18, 2016, “and a major victory for the over 6,000 victims of his fraudulent university.”
Donald Trump
- On May 17, 2017, Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein appointed former FBI Director Robert S. Mueller to investigate links between Russian Intelligence agents and the 2016 Trump Presidential campaign.
- At the news, Trump wailed: “Oh my God. This is terrible. This is the end of my Presidency. I’m fucked.” He threatened to fire Mueller, but aides talked him out of it by warning it could lead to his impeachment.
- On February 28, 2026, Trump—and Israel—launched devastating 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—to Trump’s surprise—Iran closed the Strait of Hormuz, through which 20% to 30% of the world’s total daily oil supply passes.
- By May 1, the national average for a gallon of regular gas in the United States reached $4.30, compared to $2.98 before the war.
Strait of Hormuz
- On April 7, Trump threatened: “A whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again. I don’t want that to happen, but it probably will.”
- When the Iranians stood firm and world leaders condemned him for threatening genocide, Trump backed off.
- 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 again open.
- 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.
* * * * * * * * * *
Perhaps the key to Trump’s innermost fear can be found in a work of fiction—in this case, the 1996 historical novel, The Friends of Pancho Villa, by James Carlos Blake.
The book depicts the Mexican Revolution (1910 – 1920) and its most famous revolutionary, Francisco “Pancho” Villa. it’s told from the viewpoint of Rodolfo Fierro, Villa’s most feared executioner. In one day, for example, Fierro—using two revolvers—executed 300 captured Federale soldiers.
As in history, Blake’s Fierro presides over the execution of David Berlanga, a journalist who had dared criticize the often loutish behavior of Villa’s men.
On Villa’s command, Fierro approaches Berlanga in a Mexico City restaurant and orders: “Come with me.”
Standing against a barracks wall, Berlanga lights a cigar and requests permission to finish it. He then proceeds to smoke it with such a steady hand that its unbroken ash extends almost four inches.
The cigar finished, the ash still unbroken, Berlanga drops the butt to the ground and says calmly: “I’m ready.”
Then the assembled firing squad does its work.
Later, Fierro is so shaken by Berlanga’s sheer fearlessness that he seeks an explanation for it. Sitting in a cantina, he lights a cigar and tries to duplicate Berlanga’s four-inch length.
But the best he can do is less than three inches. He concludes that Berlanga used a trick—but he can’t figure it out.
Rodolfo Fierro
It had to be a trick, Fierro insists, because, if it wasn’t, there were only two other explanations for such a calm demeanor in the face of impending death.
The first was insanity. But Fierro rules this out: He had studied Berlanga’s eyes and found no madness there.
That leaves only one other explanation (other than a trick): Sheer courage.
And Fierro can’t accept this, either—because it’s disturbing.
“The power of men like me does not come solely from our ability to kill….No, the true source of our power is so obvious it sometimes goes unnoticed for what it is: Our power comes from other men’s lack of courage.
“There is even less courage in this world than there is talent for killing. Men like me rule because most men are faint of heart in the shadow of death.
“But a man brave enough to control his fear of being killed, control it so well that no tremor reaches his fingers and no sign shows in his eyes…well. Such a man cannot be ruled, he can only be killed.”
* * * * *
Throughout his life, Trump has relied on bribery and intimidation. He well understands the power of greed and fear over most people.
But what he doesn’t understand—and truly fears—is that some people cannot be bought or frightened.
People like Eric Schneiderman. Like Robert Mueller. And like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Politics, Social commentary on May 1, 2026 at 12:11 am
On July 14, 2019, President Donald Trump unleashed a brutal Twitter attack on four Democratic members of the House of Representatives who had harshly criticized his anti-immigration policies:
“So interesting to see “Progressive” Democrat Congresswomen, who originally came from countries whose governments are a complete and total catastrophe, the worst, most corrupt and inept anywhere in the world (if they even have a functioning government at all), now loudly……
“….and viciously telling the people of the United States, the greatest and most powerful Nation on earth, how our government is to be run. Why don’t they go back and help fix the totally broken and crime infested places from which they came. Then come back and show us how….
“….it is done. These places need your help badly, you can’t leave fast enough. I’m sure that Nancy Pelosi would be very happy to quickly work out free travel arrangements!”
Donald Trump
The Democrats—all female, and all non-white—were:
- Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York;
- Rashida Tlaib of Michigan;
- Ilhan Omar of Minnesota and
- Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts.
Of the Congresswomen that Trump singled out:
- Cortez was born in New York City.
- Tlaib was born in Detroit, Michigan.
- Pressley was born in Cincinnati, Ohio.
Only Omar was born outside the United States—in Somalia. And she became an American citizen in 2000 when she was 17 years old.
Critics have assailed Trump as racist for implying that these women were not United States citizens.
Moreover, as members of Congress, they had a legal right to declare “how our government is to be run.” Republicans in the House and Senate vigorously—and often viciously—asserted that right during the Presidency of Barack Obama.
Ocasio-Cortez quickly struck back on Twitter on the same day:
“You are angry because you don’t believe in an America where I represent New York 14, where the good people of Minnesota elected , where fights for Michigan families, where fi champions little girls in Boston.
“You are angry because you can’t conceive of an America that includes us. You rely on a frightened America for your plunder.
“You won’t accept a nation that sees healthcare as a right or education as a #1 priority, especially where we’re the ones fighting for it. Yet here we are.”
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez
But then followed the most significant part of Cortez’ reply:
“But you know what’s the rub of it all, Mr. President? On top of not accepting an America that elected us, you cannot accept that we don’t fear you, either.
“You can’t accept that we will call your bluff & offer a positive vision for this country. And that’s what makes you seethe.”
“You cannot accept that we don’t fear you, either.”
For all his adult life, Donald Trump—as a businessman, Presidential candidate and now President—has trafficked in bribery and coercion. First bribery:
- Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi (later United States Attorney General) personally solicited a political contribution from Trump at the same time her office deliberated joining an investigation of alleged fraud at Trump University and its affiliates.
- After Bondi dropped the Trump University case, he wrote her a $25,000 check for her re-election campaign. The money came from the Donald J. Trump Foundation.
- Republican Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton moved to muzzle a former state regulator who said he was ordered in 2010 to drop a fraud investigation into Trump University for political reasons.
- Paxton’s office issued a cease and desist letter to former Deputy Chief of Consumer Protection John Owens after he made public copies of a 14-page internal summary of the state’s case against Trump for scamming millions from students of his now-defunct real estate seminar.
- After the Texas case was dropped, Trump cut a $35,000 check to the gubernatorial campaign of then-attorney general and now Texas Governor Greg Abbott.
Now coercion:
- Throughout his career as a businessman, Trump forced his employees to sign Non-Disclosure Agreements, threatening them with lawsuits if they revealed secrets of his greed and/or criminality.
- In 1981, Trump bought a 14-story building on prime real estate facing New York City’s Central Park. He planned to tear it down and replace it with luxury condos. But first he needed to evict a small band of rent-stabilized tenants.
- Among his tactics: Threatening evictions, ignoring a rat infestation, and shutting off the heat and hot water. Trump ultimately paid out over $500,000 to the tenants and agreed to government monitoring,
- n 2016, USA Today found that Trump was involved in over 3,500 lawsuits during the previous 30 years: “At least 60 lawsuits, along with hundreds of liens, judgments, and other government filings” were from contractors claiming they got stiffed.
- During his second Presidential campaign debate with Hillary Clinton in 2016, he stalked her around the stage as she spoke.
- On April 1, 2026, Trump attended oral arguments at the Supreme Court regarding his executive order seeking to end birthright citizenship. His purpose: To stare down any Justices who might dare oppose him. When it became clear to him the Justices were not intimidated, he left.
But when he has confronted men and women who can’t be bribed or intimidated, Trump has reacted with rage and desperation.
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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.
Bureaucracybuster's Blog 
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TRUMP–AND “THE TWILIGHT ZONE”
In Entertainment, History, Military, Politics, Social commentary on June 3, 2026 at 12:23 amOn May 11, 2026, for three hours, President Donald Trump posted over 50 messages on his website, Truth Social. The posts mainly consisted of:
The posts occurred just before a scheduled trip to China and amid rising economic pressures in the United States. These, in turn, stem from Iran’s blocking the Strait of Hormuz, through which 20% to 25% of the world’s oil passes, after Trump ordered a naval blockade of Iranian ports.
The Wall Street Journal reported that between 10:14 p.m. and 1:12 a.m., Trump posted 55 times, with other reports citing over 50-54 posts within that timeframe.
He posted a 400-word attack against The New York Times at 1:12 a.m. on May 12. His complaint: It had revealed that his renovation of the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool would cost more than $10 million over what he had previously said.
Donald Trump
He also falsely claimed the Times of losing subscribers. On the contrary: On May 6, the company reported:
“The Times has added an average of 330,000 total subscribers a quarter, including print, since the start of last year” and “now has 13.1 million subscribers…after adding about 310,000 digital-only subscribers in the first quarter of the year.”
Most of his venom was aimed at Barack Obama. Trump reposted messages from his supporters, who accused the former president of sedition, wiretapping Trump Tower and creating the “Russia Hoax” to steal the 2016 Presidential election.
It’s clear that Trump—a lifelong racist—harbors jealousy of the black, still-handsome, articulate, witty and beloved former president. When Trump was being assailed in 2016 for his “grab-em-by-the-pussy” comment, he complained that no one was accusing Obama of sexual infidelities.
Barack Obama
For good reason: Unlike Trump—who bedded a porn “star” while married to his third wife, Melania—there has never been a hint of scandal about Obama.
In one post, Trump—who incited a deadly attack on Congress on January 6, 2021, to overturn the legitimate results of the 2020 Presidential election—accused Obama of plotting a coup against him.
As always with Trump, he offered no evidence to back up his slander.
He also lied that:
Obama was not the only public figure Trump attacked. Others included:
Trump is clearly still hung up on his 2020 re-election loss to Joe Biden, lying that Dominion voting machines “DELETED 2.7 MILLION TRUMP VOTES NATIONWIDE. INCLUDING OVER 1 MILLION PENNSYLVANIA VOTES SWITCHED FROM PRESIDENT TRUMP TO BIDEN.”
He can’t accept that a majority of voters would prefer anyone else to him—even though his loss largely stemmed from his refusal to tackle the mushrooming COVID-19 crisis.
Trump’s tweeting rampage echoes the theme of a 1962 episode of The Twilight Zone: “One More Pallbearer.” The central character in it is millionaire Paul Radin (played by Joseph Weisman) who nurses decades-old grudges against three people.
With a few slight alterations, he could be Trump himself.
Radin invites three people to the bomb shelter that he has built in New York City. But they aren’t family or friends. He holds deep grudges against all of them.
One is high-school teacher Mrs. Langsford, who gave him a failing grade when he was caught cheating on a test. The second is Colonel Hawthorne, who had him court-martialed when Radin endangered lives by disobeying orders. The third is Reverend Hughes, who made a public scandal out of a young woman who later committed suicide over Radin.
Radin has equipped his shelter with sound effects and fake radio messages to convince the trio that nuclear war will occur in just moments. He offers them refuge in the shelter if they beg his forgiveness for their treatment of him. They refuse his offer, making it clear they would rather die with loved ones than survive with him.
A TV screen playing footage of a nuclear explosion—and the accompanying sound effects—convince Radin that his fantasy is in fact real.
When he emerges from the shelter, the city is intact. But the sheer intensity of the illusion he created has led Radin to lose his mind. He sobs helplessly at the foot of a fountain outside his intact building—a victim of his own overweening pride and hatred.
And, as happens at the close of every Twilight Zone episode, Rod Serling, the series’ host and narrator, is on hand to offer his moving commentary:
“Mr. Paul Radin, a dealer in fantasy, who sits in the rubble of his own making and imagines that he’s the last man on Earth, doomed to a perdition of unutterable loneliness because a practical joke has turned into a nightmare. Mr. Paul Radin, pallbearer at a funeral that he manufactured himself in the Twilight Zone.”
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