Syndicated columnist Mark Shields and New York Times columnist David Brooks appear every Friday on the PBS Newshour to review the week’s major political events.
On March 25, Shields–a liberal, and Brooks, a conservative–came to some disturbingly similar conclusions about Donald Trump.
Eerily, their conclusions echo those reached by former Panzer General Heinz Guderian about German dictator Adolf Hitler.
Guderian created the concept of motorized blitzkrieg warfare, whereby masses of tanks and planes moved in coordination to strike at the vital nerve centers of an enemy.
Heinz Guderian
As a result, Guderian enabled Hitler to conquer France in only six weeks in 1940, and to come to the brink of crushing the Soviet Union in 1941.
He recounted his career as the foremost tank commander of the Third Reich in his 1950 autobiography, Panzer Leader.
Moderator Judy Woodruff noted that “polls show Trump’s standing with women voters has worsened in recent months.”
A Washington Post/ABC News poll reveals that 64% of women say they have a strongly unfavorable reaction to Trump. That’s 18 points higher than it was in August, 2015.
Judy Woddruff
This led David Brooks to declare that Trump has shown “a consistent misogynistic view of women as arm candy, as pieces of meat. It’s a consistent attitude toward women which is the stuff of a diseased adolescent.”
Judy Woodruff noted that Fox News Correspondent Megyn Kelly “has asked him tough questions” in a recent debate.
MARK SHIELDS: “She just asked him tough questions and was totally fair, by everybody else’s standards.
“But there is something really creepy about this that’s beyond locker room. It’s almost like a stalker, and I just–I thought this was–it actually did the impossible. It made Ted Cruz look like an honorable, tough guy on the right side of an issue.”
Donald Trump
HEINZ GUDERIAN:Once in power, Hitler quickly–and violently–eliminated his opposition.
He make no attempt to disguise this aspect of his character, because the opposition was weak and divided and soon collapsed after the first violent attack.
This allowed Hitler to pass laws which destroyed the safeguards enacted by the Weimar Republic against the the dangers of dictatorship.
MARK SHIELDS: “And I don’t know at what point it becomes…politically, he’s still leading. And I would have to say he’s the overwhelming favorite for the Republican nomination.”
HEINZ GUDERIAN:Hitler promised to “make Germany great again” both domestically and internationally. And this won him many followers. In time he controlled the largest party in the land and this allowed him, by democratic procedure, to assume power.
DAVID BROOKS: “The odd thing about [Trump’s] whole career and his whole language, his whole world view is there is no room for love in it. You get a sense of a man who received no love, can give no love, so his relationship with women, it has no love in it. It’s trophy.”
HEINZ GUDERIAN:[Hitler] was isolated as a human being. He had no real friend. There was nobody who was really close to him.
Adolf Hitler
There was nobody he could talk to freely and openly. And just as he never found a true friend, he was denied the ability to deeply love a woman.
DAVID BROOKS: “And [Trump’s] relationship toward the world is one of competition and beating, and as if he’s going to win by competition what other people get by love.”
HEINZ GUDERIAN:Everything on this earth that casts a glow of warmth over our life as mortals–friendship with fine men, the pure love for a wife, affection for one’s own children–all this was and forever remained unknown to him.
DAVID BROOKS: “And so you really are seeing someone who just has an odd psychology unleavened by kindness and charity, but where it’s all winners and losers, beating and being beat. And that’s part of the authoritarian personality, but it comes out in his attitude towards women.”
HEINZ GUDERIAN:He lived alone, cherishing his loneliness, with only his gigantic plans for company.
His relationship with Eva Braun may seem to contradict what I have written. But it is obvious that she could not have had any influence over him. And this is unfortunate, for it could only have been a softening one.
* * * * *
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.”
There is a very real danger that millions of ignorant, hate-filled, Right-wing Americans will catapult Donald Trump–a man with an “odd psychology unleavened by kindness and charity”–into the Presidency.
And that this man–“who received no love, can give no love”–will assume all the awesome power that goes with that office.
If that happens, future historians–if there are any–may similarly condemn those Americans who stood by like “good Germans” and allowed their country to fall into the hands of a ruthless tyrant.
Syndicated columnist Mark Shields and New York Times columnist David Brooks appear every Friday on the PBS Newshour to review the week’s major political events.
On March 25, Shields–a liberal, and Brooks, a conservative–came to some disturbingly similar conclusions about the character of Republican Presidential front-runner Donald Trump.
As the business magnate moves ever closer to winning the 2016 Republican Presidential nomination, both columnists appear increasingly dismayed.
David Brooks and Mark Shields
Eerily, their conclusions about Trump’s character echo those reached by former Panzer General Heinz Guderian about German dictator Adolf Hitler.
Guderian created the concept of motorized blitzkrieg warfare, whereby masses of tanks and planes moved in coordination to strike at the vital nerve centers of an enemy.
As a result, Guderian enabled Hitler to conquer France in only six weeks in 1940, and to come to the brink of crushing the Soviet Union in 1941.
He recounted his career as the foremost tank commander of the Third Reich in his 1950 autobiography, Panzer Leader.
Heinz Guderian
Moderator Judy Woodruff opened the discussion by alluding to the blood feud raging between Trump and his fellow Republican, Texas U.S. Senator Eduardo “Ted” Cruz.
Both are seeking their party’s Presidential nomination–and both are ruthlessly determined to attain it.
Cruz accused Trump of behind a recent National Enquirer story charging him with having a series of extramarital affairs.
An anti-Trump Super PAC posted on Facebook a photo of a scantily-clad Melania Trump–his wife. The photo had been taken 16 years ago when, as a model, she posed for “British GQ.
Its publication came just ahead of the primary caucuses in sexually conservative Utah, which Cruz won.
Trump quickly responded on Twitter, accusing the Cruz campaign of leaking the photo, warning Cruz: “Be careful or I will spill the beans on your wife.”
Cruz struck back, defending his wife, Heidi, and calling Trump a coward. The next day, Trump retweeted an unflattering image of Mrs. Cruz.
This “war of the wives” has cost Trump dearly in his standing with American women. In March, a Washington Post/ABC News poll showed that 64% of women felt highly unfavorably disposed toward him.
DAVID BROOKS: “The Trump comparison of the looks of the wives, he does have, over the course of his life, a consistent misogynistic view of women as arm candy, as pieces of meat.
“It’s a consistent attitude toward women which is the stuff of a diseased adolescent.
Donald Trump
“And so we have seen a bit of that show up again. But if you go back over his past, calling into radio shows bragging about his affairs, talking about his sex life in public, he is childish in his immaturity. And his–even his misogyny is a childish misogyny….
“He’s of a different order than your normal candidate. And this whole week is just another reminder of that.”
HEINZ GUDERIAN:As Hitler’s self-confidence grew, and as his power became more firmly established both inside and outside Germany, he became overbearing and arrogant. Everyone appeared to him unimportant compared to himself.
Previously, Hitler had been open to practical considerations, and willing to discuss matters with others. But now he became increasingly autocratic.
Judy Woodruff asked Mark Shields if the uproar over Donald Trump’s disdain for women could really hurt his candidacy.
MARK SHIELDS: The ad featuring a scantily-clad Melania Trump “elicited from Donald Trump the worst of his personality, the bullying, the misogyny, as David has said, brought it out.
“But I think it’s more than childish and juvenile and adolescent. There is something creepy about this, his attitude toward women.
“Take Megyn Kelly of FOX News, who he just has an absolute obsession about, and he’s constantly writing about, you know, how awful she is and no talent and this and that.
Megyn Kelly
“And I don’t know if he’s just never had women–strong, independent women in his life who have spoken to him. It doesn’t seem that way….”
HEINZ GUDERIAN:Hitler’s most outstanding quality was his will power. It was by this that he compelled men to follow him.
When Hitler spoke to a small group he closely observed each person to determine how his words were affecting each man present.
If he noticed that some member of the group was not being swayed by his speech, he spoke directly to that person until he believed he had won him over.
But if the target of his persuasive effort still remained obstinate, Hitler would exclaim: “I haven’t convinced that man!”
His immediate reaction was to get rid of such people. As he grew increasingly successful, he grew increasingly intolerant.
On May 28, 2015, Hastert, the former Republican Speaker of the House of Representatives (1999-2007) was indicted for violating Federal banking laws and lying to the FBI.
He had tried to conceal $3.5 million he had paid since 2010 to a man whom he had molested as a high school student. The student had been on the wrestling team that Hastert had coached.
The relationship had occurred while Hastert was a teacher and wrestling coach at Yorkville High School in Yorkville, Ill.
Later, in 1981, Hastert entered Congress.
On October 28, 2015, Hastert pleaded guilty to structuring money transactions in a way to avoid requirements to report where the money was going.
Dennis Hastert
“I felt a special bond with our wrestlers,” Hastert wrote in his 2004 memoirs, Speaker: Lessons From Forty Years of Coaching and Politics. “And I think they felt one with me.”
Apparently that “special bond” extended to activities outside the ring.
In the pre-sentence report, Justice Department prosecutors charged that Hastert had abused four young boys when he was their wrestling coach. One was only 14 years old.
Hastert had claimed that a coach should never strip away another person’s dignity.
But, said federal prosecutors, “that is exactly what defendant did to his victims. He made them feel alone, ashamed, guilty, and devoid of dignity.”
Hastert’s sentencing, delayed because of health problems, is now scheduled for April 27.
Thus, irony: By giving in to blackmail, Hastert:
Lost $3.5 million;
Unintentionally engineered his arrest and indictment; and
Ensured that his darkest secret would be revealed.
There is a lesson to be learned here–one that longtime FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover well understood: Giving in to blackmail only empowers the blackmailer even more.
As William C. Sullivan, the onetime director of the FBI’s Domestic Intelligence Divison, revealed after Hoover’s death in 1972:
“The moment [Hoover] would get something on a senator, he’d send one of the errand boys up and advise the senator that ‘we’re in the course of an investigation, and we by chance happened to come up with this data on your daughter.
“‘But we wanted you to know this. We realize you’d want to know it.’ Well, Jesus, what does that tell the senator? From that time on, the senator’s right in his pocket.”
“Boy, the dirt he [Hoover] has on those Senators!” John F. Kennedy–a former Senator now President–gushed to his journalist-friend, Benjamin C. Bradlee.
Kennedy soon came to know that even Presidents could be targeted for blackmail.
In May, 1962, Hoover privately informed Kennedy that the FBI had learned that Judith Campbell, the mistress of Chicago Mafia boss Sam Giancana, had another bedmate: JFK himself.
John F. Kennedy, J. Edgar Hoover and Robert F. Kennedy
Hoover had feared being retired by the President’s brother, Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy. It had been RFK who had ordered Hoover to attack the Mafia as he had long attacked the Communist Party USA.
Now, as a result of that anti-Mob effort, the FBI had picked up evidence linking the President with the mistress of a top Mafia boss.
Hoover’s tenure as FBI director was thus assured–until his death on May 2, 1972, of a heart attack.
Narcotics agents have their own methods of blackmail in dealing with informants.
When a drug-abuser and/or dealer is coerced into becoming a “snitch,” the narcotics agent orders him to call another user/dealer he knows.
The agent then tapes the call–and makes sure his new informant knows it. From that moment, the “snitch” knows there’s no way out except cooperating with his new master.
The only effective way of handling blackmail was demonstrated by Arthur Wellesley, known to history as the Duke of Wellington.
The Duke of Wellington
In 1815, he had defeated Napoleon at the battle of Waterloo, ending France’s longstanding threat to England. With that victory came the honors of a grateful nation.
Then, in December, 1824, Wellington found himself the target of blackmail by Joseph Stockdale, a pornographer and scandal-monger.
“My Lord Duke,” Stockdale write in a letter, “In Harriette Wilson’s memoirs, which I am about to publish, are various anecdotes of Your Grace which it would be most desirable to withhold….
“I have stopped the Press for the moment, but as the publication will take place next week, little delay can necessarily take place.”
Wilson was a famous London courtesan past her prime, then living in exile in Paris. She was asking Wellington to pay money to be left out of her memoirs.
From Wellington came the now-famous reply: “Publish and be damned!”
Wilson’s memoirs appeared in installments, naming half the British aristocracy and scandalizing London society.
And, true to her threat, she named Wellington as one of her lovers–and a not very satisfying one at that.
Wellington was a national hero, husband and father. Even so, his reputation did not suffer, and he went on to become prime minister.
But wait! There’s something even more demoralizing awaiting these “heirs of tomorrow.”
The discovery that for all the “we hire only the brightest” rhetoric by employers, having a college degree actually means little to most CEOs.
A new report from the Center for College Affordability and Productivity concludes that nearly half of the nation’s recent college graduates hold jobs that don’t require a degree.
In short, many of the jobs they have aren’t worth the price of their diploma.
From that report:
Increasing numbers of recent college graduates are ending up in relatively low-skilled jobs that, historically, have gone to those with lower levels of educational attainment. This study examines this phenomenon in some detail, concluding:
About 48% of employed U.S. college graduates are in jobs that the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) suggests requires less than a four-year college education. And 11% of employed college graduates are in occupations requiring more than a high-school diploma but less than a bachelor’s. Another 37% are in occupations requiring no more than a high-school diploma;
The proportion of overeducated workers in occupations appears to have grown substantially; in 1970, fewer than one percent of taxi drivers and two percent of firefighters had college degrees, while now more than 15% do in both jobs;
About five million college graduates are in jobs the BLS says require less than a high-school education;
But a glance at their accompanying photos offers the real appeal of this site.
Consider the profile of “Eric, The Actor”:
With his shirt unbuttoned down to his chest in the classic Fabio style, he claims:
I’m an award winning NYC actor who has traveled the World for movies and for pleasure.
I recently founded my own production company. I have a vision of not only entertaining people but also of getting people to think and hopefully help foster social change.
I also love the outdoors and sustainable culture. I am also active in social causes.
And he’s also available–for $200 an hour.
So if you’re a college graduate who can’t find a willing-to-hire employer within your chosen profession–such as pharmacy of engineering– there’s always Rent-A-Gent.
Or some similar agency catering to the whims of the American plutocracy, for whom $200 an hour means what buying a Snicker’s candy bar means for the fast-disappearing middle class.
It should be enough to make you hesitate before signing up for a loan to cover the average $57,000 cost of a public college education.
Or an even larger loan to cover the $132,000 cost of a private college education.
But if you’re still thinking that “employers really respect that degree,” consider this: Job recruiters spend exactly six seconds examining your resume.
According to The Ladders research, recruiters spend an average of “six seconds before they make the initial ‘fit or not fit’ decision” tointerviewyou.
Not hire you–just to meet you. You’ll still have plenty ofchances to get shot down during or after the interview.
According to the study, when scanning a resume, recruiters looked at the following items:
Your name
Current title and company
Current position start and end dates
Previous title and company
Previous position start and end dates
Education
American employers should be legally compelled to hire as responsibly as college students are expected to pursue an education.
Until this happens, those young men and women thinking of committing a big chunk of their time and going into massive debt to pursue a college degree should think twice before doing so.
And as of July 15, 2015, Ashley Madison joined this list.
Ashley Madison is, of course, the notorious website for cheating wives and husbands.
Launched in 2001, its catchy slogan is: “Life is short. Have an affair.”
One of its ads featured a photo of a woman apparently kneeling at the feet of a bare-chested man, her hand passionately clawing at his belt. Next to her was the caption: “Join FREE & change your life today. Guaranteed!”
Now millions of its clients may find their lives changed in ways they never imagined–and for the worse.
Ashley Madison claims to have more than 37 million members. And now, untold numbers of them may find their lives changed forever.
Its hackers were enraged at the company’s refusal to fully delete users’ profiles unless it received a $19 fee.
Referring to themselves as “The Impact Team,” they stated in an online manifesto: “Full Delete netted [Avid Life Media, the parent company of Ashley Madison] $1.7 million in revenue in 2014. It’s also a complete lie.
“Users almost always pay with credit card; their purchase details are not removed as promised, and include real names and address, which is of course the most important information the users want removed.”
On July 20, Avid Life Media defended the service, and said it would make it free.
The hackers demanded: “AM [Ashley Madison] AND EM [Established Men] MUST SHUT DOWN IMMEDIATELY PERMANENTLY.
“We have taken over all systems in your entire office and production domains, all customer information databases, source code repositories, financial records, emails.
“Shutting down AM and EM will cost you, but non-compliance will cost you more.”
The hackers threatened to “release all customer records, including profiles with all the customers’ secret sexual fantasies and matching credit card transactions, real names and addresses, and employee documents and emails.”
Avid Life Media assured its customers that it had hired “one of the world’s top IT security teams” to work on the breach:
“At this time, we have been able to secure our sites, and close the unauthorized access points. We are working with law enforcement agencies, which are investigating this criminal act.”
This statement gives new meaning to the phrase, “Closing the barn door after the cow has gotten out.”
And it raises the question: Why wasn’t this “top IT security team” hired at the outset?
After all, its database is a blackmailer’s dream-come-true. Yet apparently its owners didn’t care enough about the privacy of their customers to provide adequate security.
On August 18, 2015, the hackers began releasing their pirated information.
As usual during a corporation’s data breach, Ashley Madison issued a reassuring statement: “We are working with law enforcement agencies, which are investigating this criminal act.
“Any and all parties responsible for this act of cyber-terrorism will be held responsible.”
Eight of those customers (so far) have decided to hold Ashley Madisonresponsible. They have filed lawsuits against the company in California, Georgia, Minnesota, Missouri, Tennessee and Texas.
They seek class-action status to represent Ashley Madison’s 37 million users.
The lawsuits claim negligence, breach of contract and privacy violations. They charge that Ashley Madison failed to take reasonable steps to protect the security of its users, including those who paid the $19 fee to have their information deleted.
If they win–and force the owners of Ashley Madison to pay up big-time–this could set a precedent for lawsuits by other victims of such data breaches.
An October 22, 2014 “commentary” published in Forbesmagazine raised the highly disturbing question: “Cybersecurity: Does Corporate America Really Care?”
And the answer is clearly: No.
Its author is John Hering, co-founder and executive director of Lookout, which bills itself as “the world leader in mobile security for consumers and enterprises alike.”
“One thing is clear,” writes Hering. “CEOs need to put security on their strategic agendas alongside revenue growth and other issues given priority in boardrooms.”
Hering warns that “CEOs don’t seem to be making security a priority.” And he offers several reasons for this:
The sheer number of data compromises;
Relatively little consumer outcry;
Almost no impact on the companies’ standing on Wall Street;
Executives may consider such breaches part of the cost of doing business.
“Sales figures and new products are top of mind,” writes Hering. “Shoring up IT systems aren’t.”
The key to sharply reducing data breaches lies in holding greed-obsessed CEOs financially accountable for their criminal negligence.
Only then will their mindset of “We don’t care, we don’t have to” be replaced with: “We care, because our heads will roll if we don’t.”
“Yesterday they were ruffians. Today they control our lives. Tomorrow they will wind up as keepers of the public lavoratories.”
So wrote the ancient Roman poet Juvenal about the brutal non-entities who reigned at the court of the Caesars.
Roman Emperor Nero
Yet he could have been writing about the rise and fall of a onetime American Caesar named Dennis Hastert.
On May 28, 2015, Hastert, the former Republican Speaker of the House of Representatives (1999-2007) was indicted for violating Federal banking laws and lying to the FBI.
He had tried to conceal $3.5 million he had paid since 2010 to a man whom he had molested as a high school student. The student had been on the wrestling team that Hastert had coached.
The relationship had occurred while Hastert was a teacher and wrestling coach at Yorkville High School in Yorkville, Ill.
Later, in 1981, Hastert entered Congress.
On October 28, 2015, Hastert pleaded guilty to structuring money transactions in a way to avoid requirements to report where the money was going.
Dennis Hastert
“I felt a special bond with our wrestlers,” Hastert wrote in his 2004 memoirs, Speaker: Lessons From Forty Years of Coaching and Politics. “And I think they felt one with me.”
Apparently that “special bond” extended to activities outside the ring.
In the pre-sentence report, Justice Department prosecutors charged that Hastert had abused four young boys when he was their wrestling coach. One was only 14 years old.
Hastert had claimed that a coach should never strip away another person’s dignity.
But, said federal prosecutors, “that is exactly what defendant did to his victims. He made them feel alone, ashamed, guilty, and devoid of dignity.”
Hastert’s sentencing, delayed because of health problems, is now scheduled for April 27.
Hastert wasn’t indicted for having had a sexual relationship with underage students. The statute of limitations had long ago run out on those offenses.
He was indicted for trying to evade federal banking laws and lying to the FBI.
Shortly after his indictment, Hastert resigned from the board of Wheaton College, an evangelical university in Chicago known for its anti-gay policies.
The FBI began investigating the cash withdrawals in 2013.
The Bureau wanted to know if Hastert was using the cash for criminal purposes or if he was the victim of a criminal extortion.
When questioned by the FBI, Hastert said he was storing cash because he didn’t feel safe with the banking system: “Yeah … I kept the cash. That’s what I’m doing.”
One part of Hastert’s life was not secret: His opposition to homosexual rights.
From 1997 to 2007, Hastert voted for the Marriage Protection Act, which “forbids requiring any state or any other political subdivision of the United States to credit as a marriage a same-sex relationship treated as marriage in another state or equivalent government.”
Hastert also voted in favor of a Constitutional amendment to “establish that marriage shall consist of one man and one woman.”
He also voted against the Employment Non-Discrimination Act, which banned companies from discriminating against employees “on the basis of sexual orientation.”
Owing to Hastert’s “deeply conservative” voting record, in 1998, he received perfect scores of 100 from
Hastert, who concealed his past as a sexual predator while claiming to be a man of virtue, wrote in his autobiography:
“I was never a very good liar. Maybe I wasn’t smart enough. I could never get away with it, so I made up my mind as a kid to tell the truth and pay the consequences.”
Hastert makes the third Republican “family values” Speaker of the House to become ensnared in an ethics scandal.
Newt Gingrich was the first Speaker (1985-1999) in the history of the House to be reprimanded and punished for ethics violations. His offense: Claiming tax-exempt status for a college course run for political purposes.
He successor, Bob Livingston, was forced to resign when Hustler publisher Larry Flynt revealed his sexual infidelities.
And now there’s Dennis Hastert, whose conduct involved neither money nor women–but a series of male high school students.
Of course, Democrats have had their sex scandals as well–as President Bill Clinton can thoroughly attest. But Democrats usually don’t suffer as badly from them.
The reason: Republicans portray themselves as moral examples for the nation. So for them, being caught literally with their pants down proves a double-whammy.
They are condemned for their specific illegal/immoral acts–and for the sheer hypocrisy of their false claims of sainthood.
Ironically, Right-wingers like Hastert would fare better when caught in homosexual affairs if they simply admitted their sexual tastes and registered as Democrats.
But in heavily Right-wing states like Texas and Oklahoma, they wouldn’t stand a chance of being elected as a Democrat.
And Red-state voters, feeling themselves moral arbiters of the nation, wouldn’t elect anyone they thought was “unnatural.”
So Right-wingers will continue pretending to be moral paragons–and will continue paying the price when they’re exposed as fallible humans.
According to Donald Trump, stopping illegal immigration is easy.
Just build a massive, impenetrablewall along the U.S./Mexican border to keep out Mexican immigrants.
“Building a wall is easy, and it can be done inexpensively,” Trump said in an interview. “It’s not even a difficult project if you know what you’re doing.”
Really?
Among the obstacles to erecting such a barrier:
The United States/Mexican border stretches for 1,954 miles—and encompasses rivers, deserts and mountains.
Environmental and engineering problems.
Squabbles with ranchers who don’t want to give up any of their land.
Building such a wall would cost untold billions of dollars.
Drug traffickers and alien smugglers could easily tunnel under it into the United States—as they are now doing.
There are, in fact, cheaper and more effective remedies for combating illegal immigration.
Illegal aliens crossing into the United States
(1)The Justice Department should vigorously attack the “sanctuary movement” that officially thwarts the immigration laws of the United States.
Among the 31 “sanctuary cities” of this country: Washington, D.C.; New York City; Los Angeles; Chicago; San Francisco; Santa Ana; San Diego; Salt Lake City; Phoenix; Dallas; Houston; Austin; Detroit; Jersey City; Minneapolis; Miami; Denver; Baltimore; Seattle; Portland, Oregon; New Haven, Connecticut; and Portland, Maine.
These cities have adopted “sanctuary” ordinances that do not allow municipal funds or resources to be used to enforce federal immigration laws, usually by not allowing police or municipal employees to inquire about one’s immigration status.
(2) The most effective way to combat this movement:Indict the highest-ranking officials of those cities who have actively violated Federal immigration laws.
In San Francisco, for example, former District Attorney Kamala Harris—who is now Vice President of the United States—created a secret and illegal program called Back on Track, which provided training for jobs that illegal aliens could not legally hold.
She also prevented Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) from deporting even those illegal aliens convicted of a felony.
(3) Even if some indicted officials escaped conviction, the results would prove worthwhile.
City officials would be forced to spend huge sums of their own money for attorneys and face months or even years of prosecution.
And this, in turn, would send a devastating warning to officials in other “sanctuary cities” that the same fate lies in store for them.
(4) CEOs whose companies—like Wal-Mart—systematically employ illegal aliens should be held directly accountable for the actions of their subordinates.
They should be indicted by the Justice Department under the Racketeer Influenced Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act, the way Mafia bosses are prosecuted for ordering their own subordinates to commit crimes.
Upon conviction, the CEO should be sentenced to a mandatory prison term of at least 20 years.
This would prove a more effective remedy for combating illegal immigration than stationing tens of thousands of soldiers on the U.S./Mexican border.
CEOs forced to account for their subordinates’ actions would take drastic steps to ensure that their companies strictly complied with Federal immigration laws.
(5) The Government should stop granting automatic citizenship to “anchor babies” born to illegal aliens in the United States.
A comparable practice would be allowing bank robbers who had eluded the FBI to keep their illegally-obtained loot.
A person who violates the bank robbery laws of the United States is legally prosecutable for bank robbery, whether he’s immediately arrested or remains uncaught for years. The same should be true for those bornillegallywithin this country.
If they’re not here legally at the time of birth, they should not be considered citizens and should—like their parents—be subject to deportation.
(6)The United States Government–fromthe President on down–should scrap its apologetic tone on the right to control its national borders.
First Lady Michelle Obama—accompanied by Margarita Zavala, the wife of then-Mexican President Felipe Calderon—was visiting a second-grade class in Silver Spring, Maryland.
A second-grade girl said: “My Mom, she says says that Barack Obama is taking everybody away that doesn’t have papers.”
“Yeah, well, that’s something that we have to work on right?”
Replied Mrs. Obama. “To make sure that people can be here with the right kind of papers, right?”
The girl then said: “But my mom doesn’t have any….”
Obama: “Well, we’ll have to work on that. We have to fix that, and everybody’s got to work together in Congress to make sure that happens.”
The Mexican Government doesn’t consider itself racist for strictly enforcing its immigration laws.
The United States Government should not consider itself racist for insisting on the right to do the same.
(7)Voting materials and ballots should be published in one language: English.
In Mexico, voting materials are published in one language—Spanish.
Throughout the United States, millions of Mexican illegals refuse to learn English and yet demand that voting materials and ballots be made available to them in Spanish.
(8) The United States should impose economic and even military sanctions against countries—such as China and Mexico—whose citizens make up the bulk of illegal aliens.
Mexico, for example, uses its American border to rid itself of those who might demand major reforms in the country’s political and economic institutions.
Such nations must learn that dumping their unwanteds on the United States now comes at an unfavorablyhigh price. Otherwise those dumpings will continue.
In 1959, J. Edgar Hoover, the legendary director of the FBI, declared war on the Mafia.
He set up a Top Hoodlum Program and encouraged his agents to use wiretapping and electronic surveillance (“bugging”) to make up for lost time and Intelligence.
But Hoover also imposed a series of restrictions that could destroy an agent’s professional and personal life.
William E. Roemer, Jr., assigned to the FBI’s Chicago field office, was one of the first agents to volunteer for such duty.
In his memoirs, Man Against the Mob, published in 1989, Roemer laid out the dangers that went with such work:
If confronted by police or mobsters, agents were to try to escape without being identified.
If caught by police, agents were notto identify themselves as FBI employees.
They were to carry no badges, credentials or guns–or anything else connecting themselves with the FBI.
If they were arrested by police and the truth emerged about their FBI employment, the Bureau would claim they were “rogue agents” acting on their own.
Such agents were notto refute the FBI’s portrayal of them as “rogues.”
If he had been arrested by the Chicago Police Department and identified as an FBI agent, Roemer would have:
Definitely been fired from his position as an FBI agent.
Almost certainly been convicted for at least breaking and entering.
Disbarred from the legal profession (Roemer was an attorney).
Perhaps served a prison sentence.
Been disgraced as a convicted felon.
Been unable to serve in his chosen profession of law enforcement.
Given the huge risks involved, many agents, unsurprisingly, wanted nothing to do with “black bag jobs.”
The agents who took them on were so committed to penetrating the Mob that they willingly accepted Hoover’s dictates.
In 1989, Roemer speculated that former Marine Lieutenant Colonel Oliver North had fallen victim to such a “Mission: Impossible” scenario: “The secretary will disavow any knowledge of your actions….”
In 1986, Ronald Reagan’s “arms-for-hostages” deal known as Iran-Contra had been exposed.
To retrieve seven Americans taken hostage in Beirut, Lebanon, Reagan had secretly agreed to sell some of America’s most sophisticated missiles to Iran.
During this operation, several Reagan officials–including North–diverted proceeds from the sale of those missiles to fund Reagan’s illegal war against the Sandinistas in Nicaragua.
In Roemer’s view: North had followed orders from his superiors without question. But when the time came for those superiors to step forward and protect him, they didn’t.
They let him take the fall.
Roemer speculated that North had been led to believe he would be rescued from criminal prosecution. Instead, in 1989, he was convicted for
accepting an illegal gratuity;
aiding and abetting in the obstruction of a congressional inquiry; and
ordering the destruction of documents via his secretary, Fawn Hall.
That is how many employers expect their employees to act: To carry out whatever assignments they are given and take the blame if anything goes wrong.
Take the case of Wal-Mart Stores, Inc., the world’s biggest retailer.
In March, 2005, Wal-Mart escaped criminal charges when it agreed to pay $11 million to end a federal probe into its use of illegal aliens as janitors.
Agents from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raided 60 Wal-Mart stores across 21 states in October, 2003. The raids led to the arrest of 245 illegal aliens.
Federal authorities had uncovered the cases of an estimated 345 illegal aliens contracted as janitors at Wal-Mart stores.
Many of the workers worked seven days or nights a week without overtime pay or injury compensation. Those who worked nights were often locked in the store until the morning.
According to Federal officials, court-authorized wiretaps revealed that Wal-Mart executives knew their subcontractors hired illegal aliens.
Once the raids began, Federal agents invaded the company’s headquarters in Bentonville, Ark., seizing boxes of records from the office of a mid-level executive.
Of course, Wal-Mart admitted no wrongdoing in the case. Instead, it blamed its subcontractors for hiring illegal aliens and claiming that Wal-Mart hadn’t been aware of this.
Which, of course, is nonsense.
Just as the FBI would have had no compunctions about letting its agents take the fall for following orders right from the pen of J. Edgar Hoover, Wal-Mart meant to sacrifice its subcontractors for doing precisely what the company’s executives wanted them to do.
The only reason Wal-Mart couldn’t make this work: The Feds had, for once, treated corporate executives like Mafia leaders and had tapped their phones.
Which holds a lesson for how Federal law enforcement agencies should treat future corporate executives when their companies are found violating the law.
Instead of seeing CEOs as “captains of industry,” a far more realistic approach would be giving this term a new meaning: Corrupt EgotisticalOligarchs.
A smart investigator/prosecutor should always remember:
Widespread illegal and corrupt behavior cannot happen among the employees of a major government agency or private corporation unless:
Those at the top have ordered it and are profiting from it; or
Those at the top don’t want to know about it and have taken no steps to prevent or punish it.
That’s something to remember the next time a scandal hits a major corporation or government agency.
Recruiters for corporate America routinely claim they’re looking for “a team player.”
This sounds great–as though the corporation is seeking people who will get along with their colleagues and work to achieve a worthwhile objective.
And, at times, that is precisely what is being sought in a potential employee.
But, altogether too often, what the corporation means by “a team player” is what the Mafia means by “a real standup guy.”
That is: Someone willing to commit any crime for the organization–and take the fall for its leaders if anything goes wrong.
FBI Chart of Mafia Families during the 1960s
Consider this classic example from the files of America’s premier law enforcement agency, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI).
On November 14, 1957, 70 top Mafia leaders from across the country gathered at the estate of a fellow gangster, Joseph Barbara, in Apalachin, a small village in upstate New York.
The presence of so many cars with out-of-state license plates converging on an isolated mansion caught the attention of Edgar Crosswell, a sergeant in the New York State Police.
Crosswell assembled as many troopers as he could find, set up roadblocks, and swooped down on the estate.
The mobsters, panicked, fled in all directions–many of them into the surrounding woods. Even so, more than 60 underworld bosses were arrested and indicted following the raid.
Perhaps the most significant result of the raid was the effect it had on J. Edgar Hoover, the legendary director of the FBI.
J. Edgar Hoover
Up to that point, Hoover had vigorously and vocally denied the existence of a nationwide Mafia. He had been happy to leave pursuit of international narcotics traffickers to his hated rival, Harry Anslinger, director of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics (FBN).
But he had been careful to keep his own agency well out of the war on organized crime.
Several theories have been advanced as to why.
Hoover feared that his agents–long renowned for their incorruptibility–would fall prey to the bribes of well-heeled mobsters.
Hoover feared that his allegedly homosexual relationship with his longtime associate director, Clyde Tolson, would be exposed by the Mob. Rumors still persist that mobster Meyer Lansky came into possession of a compromising photo of Hoover and Tolson engaged in flagrante delicto.
Hoover knew of the ties between moneyed mobsters and their political allies in Congress. Hoover feared losing the goodwill of Congress for future–and ever-larger–appropriations for the FBI.
Hoover preferred flashy, easily-solved cases to those requiring huge investments of manpower and money.
Whatever the reason, Hoover had, from the time he assumed directorship of the FBI in 1924, kept his agents far from the frontlines of the war against organized crime.
Suddenly, however, that was no longer possible.
The arrests of more than 60 known members of the underworld–in what the news media called “a conclave of crime”–deeply embarrassed Hoover.
It was all the more embarrassing that while the FBI had virtually nothing in its files on the leading lights of the Mafia, the Federal Bureau of Narcotics had opened its voluminous files to the Senate Labor Rackets Committee.
Heading that committee as chief legal counsel was Robert F. Kennedy–a fierce opponent of organized crime who, in 1961, would become Attorney General of the United States.
So Hoover created the Top Hoodlum Program (THP) to identify and target selected Mafiosi across the country.
Since the FBI had no networks of informants operating within the Mafia, Hoover fell back on a technique that had worked wonders against the Communist Party U.S.A.
He would wiretap the mobsters’ phones and plant electronic microphones (“bugs”) in their meeting places.
The information gained from these techniques would arm the Bureau with evidence that could be used to strongarm mobsters into “rolling over” on their colleagues in exchange for leniency.
Hoover believed he had authority to install wiretaps because more than one Attorney General had authorized their use.
But no Attorney General had given permission to install bugs–which involved breaking into the places where they were to be placed. Such assignments were referred to within the Bureau as “black bag jobs.”
So, in making clear to his agent-force that he wanted an unprecedented war against organized crime, Hoover also made clear the following:
Before agents could install electronic surveillance (an ELSUR, in FBI-speak) devices in Mob hangouts, agents had to first request authority for a survey. This would have to establish:
That this was truly a strategic location;
That the agents had a plan of attack that the Bureau could see was logical and potentially successful; and, most importantly of all
That it could be done without any “embarrassment to the Bureau.”
According to former FBI agent William E. Roemer, Jr., who carried out many of these “black bag” assignments:
“The [last requirement] was always Mr. Hoover’s greatest concern: ‘Do the job, by God, but don’t ever let anything happen that might embarrass the Bureau.”
After spending years of his life sexually abusing boys entrusted into his care, Jerry Sandusky will likely spend the rest of his life as a prison inmate.
On October 9, 2012, a Pennsylvania judge sentenced the 68-year-old former Penn State assistant football coach to at least 30 years in prison. And he may spend as many as 60 years behind bars.
Following his conviction on June 22, 2012, he had faced a maximum of 400 years’ imprisonment for his sexual abuse of 10 boys over a 15-year period.
Jerry Sandusky (middle) in police custody
After the sentencing decision was announced, Penn State University President Rodney Erickson released a statement:
“Our thoughts today, as they have been for the last year, go out to the victims of Jerry Sandusky’s abuse.
“While today’s sentence cannot erase what has happened, hopefully it will provide comfort to those affected by these horrible events and help them continue down the road to recovery.”
No doubt Erickson–and the rest of Penn State–waned to move on from this shameful page in the university’s history. And the university desperately tried to sweep the sordid scandal out of sight of the ticket-paying public–-and of history.
Among the steps it took:
Firing Joe Paterno, the legendary head football coach who had led Penn State to a staggering 112 victories;
Ousting Graham Spanier, the university’s longtime president; and
Removing the iconic statue of Paterno–long held in worshipful esteem by almost everyone at the football-obsessed institution.
So what remains to be learned from this sordid affair?
A great deal, it turns out.
To begin at the beginning:
In 2002, assistant coach Mike McQueary, then a Penn State graduate assistant, walked in on Sandusky anally raping a 10-year-old boy. The next day, McQueary reported the incident to head coach Paterno.
“You did what you had to do,” said Paterno. “It is my job now to figure out what we want to do.”
Paterno’s idea of “what we want to do” consisted of reporting the incident to three other top Penn State officials:
Their idea of “what we want to do” was to close ranks around Sandusky and engage in a diabolical “code of silence.”
As former FBI Director Louis J. Freeh summed up in an internal investigative report compiled at the request of Penn State and released on July 12, 2012:
“Four of the most powerful people at the Pennsylvania State University–-President Graham B. Spanier, Senior Vice President-Finance and Business Gary C. Schultz, Athletic Director Timothy M. Curley and Head Football Coach Joseph V. Paterno–-failed to protect against a child sexual predator harming children for over a decade.
“These men concealed Sandusky’s activities from the board of trustees, the university community and authorities.
Louis J. Freeh
“They exhibited a striking lack of empathy for Sandusky’s victims by failing to inquire as to their safety and well-being, especially by not attempting to determine the identity of the child who Sandusky assaulted in the Lasch Building in 2001.
“… In order to avoid the consequences of bad publicity, the most powerful leaders at the University….repeatedly concealed critical facts relating to Sandusky’s child abuse from the authorities, the University’s Board of Trustees, the Penn State community, and the public at large.
“The avoidance of the consequences of bad publicity is the most significant, but not the only, cause for this failure to protect child victims and report to authorities.”
If there is a fundamental truth to be learned from this sordid affair, it is this:
The first rule of any and every bureaucracy is: Above all else, the reputation of the institution must be protected.
And this holds true at:
The level of local / state / Federal government;
For-profit organizations;
Non-profit organizations; or
Religious institutions
During the 48-year reign of FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover, agents had their own version of this: Do not embarrass the Bureau.
Those who did were fired or shipped to Hoover’s version of Siberia: A posting in remote Butte, Montana.
J. Edgar Hoover
Within the Catholic Church, countless Catholic priests who abused young boys entrusted to their protection were repeatedly protected by their high-ranking superiors.
In private industry, whistleblowers who report rampant safety violations in nuclear power plants are often ignored by the very regulatory agencies the public counts on to prevent catastrophic accidents.
Imperfect institutions staffed by perfect men obsessed with power, money and fame–-and fearful of losing one or all of these–-can never be expected to act otherwise.
And those who do expect ordinary mortals to behave like extraordinary saints will be forever disappointed.
So how can we at least minimize such outrages in the future?
“Eternal vigilance is the price of freedom,” warned Thomas Jefferson. And it remains as true today as it did more than 200 years ago.
Add to this the more recent adage: “Sunlight is the best disinfectant.”
The more we know about how our institutions actually work–as opposed to how they want us to believe they work–the more chances we have to control their behavior.
Steffen White’s Email: Sparta480@aol.com Former reporter, legal investigator and troubleshooter. Columnist at Bureaucracybuster.com. Fighting political and bureaucratic arrogance, incompetence and/or indifference.
When making complaints in writing, carefully review your email or letter before sending it. Remove any words that are vulgar or profane. Don't make sweeping accusations: "Your agency is a waste."
Don't attribute motives to people you've had problems with, such as: "The postal clerk refused to help me because he's a drunk." If the person actually appeared to be drunk, then be precise in your description: "As he leaned over the counter I could smell beer on his breath. Behind him, in a waste basket, I saw an empty bottle of Coors beer."
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TWO FUEHRERS–GERMANY’S AND AMERICA’S: PART TWO (END)
In Bureaucracy, History, Politics, Social commentary on April 20, 2016 at 12:05 amSyndicated columnist Mark Shields and New York Times columnist David Brooks appear every Friday on the PBS Newshour to review the week’s major political events.
On March 25, Shields–a liberal, and Brooks, a conservative–came to some disturbingly similar conclusions about Donald Trump.
Eerily, their conclusions echo those reached by former Panzer General Heinz Guderian about German dictator Adolf Hitler.
Guderian created the concept of motorized blitzkrieg warfare, whereby masses of tanks and planes moved in coordination to strike at the vital nerve centers of an enemy.
Heinz Guderian
As a result, Guderian enabled Hitler to conquer France in only six weeks in 1940, and to come to the brink of crushing the Soviet Union in 1941.
He recounted his career as the foremost tank commander of the Third Reich in his 1950 autobiography, Panzer Leader.
Moderator Judy Woodruff noted that “polls show Trump’s standing with women voters has worsened in recent months.”
A Washington Post/ABC News poll reveals that 64% of women say they have a strongly unfavorable reaction to Trump. That’s 18 points higher than it was in August, 2015.
Judy Woddruff
This led David Brooks to declare that Trump has shown “a consistent misogynistic view of women as arm candy, as pieces of meat. It’s a consistent attitude toward women which is the stuff of a diseased adolescent.”
Judy Woodruff noted that Fox News Correspondent Megyn Kelly “has asked him tough questions” in a recent debate.
MARK SHIELDS: “She just asked him tough questions and was totally fair, by everybody else’s standards.
“But there is something really creepy about this that’s beyond locker room. It’s almost like a stalker, and I just–I thought this was–it actually did the impossible. It made Ted Cruz look like an honorable, tough guy on the right side of an issue.”
Donald Trump
HEINZ GUDERIAN: Once in power, Hitler quickly–and violently–eliminated his opposition.
He make no attempt to disguise this aspect of his character, because the opposition was weak and divided and soon collapsed after the first violent attack.
This allowed Hitler to pass laws which destroyed the safeguards enacted by the Weimar Republic against the the dangers of dictatorship.
MARK SHIELDS: “And I don’t know at what point it becomes…politically, he’s still leading. And I would have to say he’s the overwhelming favorite for the Republican nomination.”
HEINZ GUDERIAN: Hitler promised to “make Germany great again” both domestically and internationally. And this won him many followers. In time he controlled the largest party in the land and this allowed him, by democratic procedure, to assume power.
DAVID BROOKS: “The odd thing about [Trump’s] whole career and his whole language, his whole world view is there is no room for love in it. You get a sense of a man who received no love, can give no love, so his relationship with women, it has no love in it. It’s trophy.”
HEINZ GUDERIAN: [Hitler] was isolated as a human being. He had no real friend. There was nobody who was really close to him.
Adolf Hitler
There was nobody he could talk to freely and openly. And just as he never found a true friend, he was denied the ability to deeply love a woman.
DAVID BROOKS: “And [Trump’s] relationship toward the world is one of competition and beating, and as if he’s going to win by competition what other people get by love.”
HEINZ GUDERIAN: Everything on this earth that casts a glow of warmth over our life as mortals–friendship with fine men, the pure love for a wife, affection for one’s own children–all this was and forever remained unknown to him.
DAVID BROOKS: “And so you really are seeing someone who just has an odd psychology unleavened by kindness and charity, but where it’s all winners and losers, beating and being beat. And that’s part of the authoritarian personality, but it comes out in his attitude towards women.”
HEINZ GUDERIAN: He lived alone, cherishing his loneliness, with only his gigantic plans for company.
His relationship with Eva Braun may seem to contradict what I have written. But it is obvious that she could not have had any influence over him. And this is unfortunate, for it could only have been a softening one.
* * * * *
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.”
There is a very real danger that millions of ignorant, hate-filled, Right-wing Americans will catapult Donald Trump–a man with an “odd psychology unleavened by kindness and charity”–into the Presidency.
And that this man–“who received no love, can give no love”–will assume all the awesome power that goes with that office.
If that happens, future historians–if there are any–may similarly condemn those Americans who stood by like “good Germans” and allowed their country to fall into the hands of a ruthless tyrant.
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