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TWO FUHRERS IN SEARCH OF SELF-PITY: PART TWO (END)

In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Military, Politics, Social commentary on December 19, 2025 at 12:27 am

On December 17, 2019, President Donald J. Trump sent a vicious, self-pitying letter to Nancy Pelosi, Speaker of the House of Representatives. 

Seventy-four years separate Adolf Hitler’s “Last Political Testament” from Trump’s letter to Pelosi. But the similarities between the two are uncanny. 

ADOLF HITLER: I have further never wished that after the first fatal world war a second against England, or even against America, should break out. Centuries will pass away, but out of the ruins of our towns and monuments the hatred against those finally responsible whom we have to thank for everything, international Jewry and its helpers, will grow. 

DONALD TRUMP: Your first claim, “Abuse of Power,” is a completely disingenuous, meritless, and baseless invention of your imagination. You know that I had a totally innocent conversation with the President of Ukraine….

The second claim, so-called “Obstruction of Congress,” is preposterous and dangerous. House Democrats are trying to impeach the duly elected President of the United States for asserting Constitutionally based privileges that have been asserted on a bipartisan basis by administrations of both political parties throughout our Nation’s history. 

ADOLF HITLER: Three days before the outbreak of the German-Polish war I again proposed to the British ambassador in Berlin a solution to the German-Polish problem — similar to that in the case of the Saar district, under international control. This offer also cannot be denied. 

DONALD TRUMP: You are turning a policy disagreement between two branches of government into an impeachable offense — it is no more legitimate than the Executive Branch charging members of Congress with crimes for the lawful exercise of legislative power.

This administration's agenda plan...

ADOLF HITLER:  I die with a happy heart, aware of the immeasurable deeds and achievements of our soldiers at the front, our women at home, the achievements of our farmers and workers and the work, unique in history, of our youth who bear my name.

DONALD TRUMP: You and your party are desperate to distract from America’s extraordinary economy, incredible jobs boom, record stock market, soaring confidence, and flourishing citizens.

ADOLF HITLER: From the sacrifice of our soldiers and from my own unity with them unto death, will in any case spring up in the history of Germany, the seed of a radiant renaissance of the National-Socialist movement and thus of the realization of a true community of nations.

DONALD TRUMP: There is far too much that needs to be done to improve the lives of our citizens. It is time for you and the highly partisan Democrats in Congress to immediately cease this impeachment fantasy and get back to work for the American People. While I have no expectation that you will do so, I write this letter to you for the purpose of history and to put my thoughts on a permanent and indelible record.

One hundred years from now, when people look back at this affair, I want them to understand it, and learn from it, so that it can never happen to another President again.

Dallas Jewish groups say John Wiley Price political ad comparing ...

Adolf Hitler / Donald Trump

ADOLF HITLER: Before my death I expel the former Reichsmarschall Hermann Goring from the party and deprive him of all rights which he may enjoy by virtue of the decree of June 29th, 1941….

Before my death I expel the former Reichsfuhrer-SS and Minister of the Interior, Heinrich Himmler, from the party and from all offices of State….

Göring and Himmler, quite apart from their disloyalty to my person, have done immeasurable harm to the country and the whole nation by secret negotiations with the enemy, which they conducted without my knowledge and against my wishes, and by illegally attempting to seize power in the State for themselves.

DONALD TRUMP: Before the Impeachment Hoax, it was the Russian Witch Hunt. Against all evidence, and regardless of the truth, you and your deputies claimed that my campaign colluded with the Russians — a grave, malicious, and slanderous lie, a falsehood like no other.

You forced our Nation through turmoil and torment over a wholly fabricated story, illegally purchased from a foreign spy by Hillary Clinton and the DNC in order to assault our democracy.

Yet, when the monstrous lie was debunked and this Democrat conspiracy dissolved into dust, you did not apologize. You did not recant. You did not ask to be forgiven. You showed no remorse, no capacity for self-reflection. Instead, you pursued your next libelous and vicious crusade—you engineered an attempt to frame and defame an innocent person. 

* * * * *

Adolf Hitler opened World War II with a lie—that Polish forces had attacked a German radio station. He ended it with another lie—that “Jewish interests” had forced war on an innocent Germany. 

Donald Trump opened his administration with a lie—that his inaugural crowd had been far bigger than that of his predecessor, Barack Obama. On the eve of impeachment, he chose to lie again—that Pelosi “engineered an attempt to frame and defame an innocent person.”

Few tears were shed for Adolf Hitler when his “Last Political Testament” was unveiled after his suicide.

Nancy Pelosi’s reaction to Donald Trump’s letter was equally appropriate: “It’s really sick.”

TWO FUHRERS IN SEARCH OF SELF-PITY: PART ONE (OF TWO)

In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Military, Politics, Social commentary on December 18, 2025 at 12:10 am

For Donald Trump, self-pitying past is repeatedly prologue.

On December 15, 2025, he viciously attacked recently murdered movie director Rob Reiner for not worshiping him. 

On December 17, 2019, he had attacked Nancy Pelosi, then Speaker of the House of Representatives, for the same reason.

The House was expected to vote on two articles of impeachment against him the next day. Specifically, these condemned him for:

Article 1: Abuse of Power: For pressuring Ukraine to assist him in his re-election campaign by damaging former Vice President Joe Biden, his possible Democratic rival. 

Article 2: Obstruction of Congress: For obstructing Congress by blocking testimony of subpoenaed witnesses and refusing to provide documents in response to House subpoenas in the impeachment inquiry. 

Trump was ensured an acquittal in the United States Senate, where Republicans held a 53 to 47 member advantage. Yet he knew that only three other Presidents had faced impeachment—Andrew Johnson, Richard Nixon and Bill Clinton.

Trump didn’t care about history, nor was he even knowledgeable about it. But he did care about labels—those he gave his enemies and those they gave him. And he desperately wanted to avoid having “impeachment” attached to his name in American Presidential history.

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Donald Trump

Trump had tried—and failed—to head this off by insults and intimidation. Just two days earlier, he had tweeted about the Speaker: “Nancy’s teeth were falling out of her mouth, and she didn’t have time to think!”  

So, on December 17, he sought to do in a letter what he had failed to do on Twitter. He sent a ranting and insulting six-page letter to Nancy Pelosi.

Nancy Pelosi 2012.jpg

Nancy Pelosi

The Washington Post estimates that from the day he took office—January 20, 2017—to October 9, 2019—Trump had made 13,435 false or misleading claims.

And in sending his letter to Pelosi, he remained true to form.

His letter had no precedent in American history. But there was such a precedent in German history—specifically, the infamous “Last Political Testament” of Adolf Hitler.

Hitler dictated this to a secretary at 4 a.m. on April 29, 1945, shortly after marrying his longtime mistress, Eva Braun. The marriage occurred in his bunker in Berlin under the bomb-shattered Reich Chancellery.

Even 50 feet below ground, the structure shook as bombs continued to rain from American and British planes. And, at ground level, a more deadly threat was fast approaching: At least one million enraged Russian soldiers, seeking vengeance for the devastation wrought on their country from 1941 to 1945.

Hitler knew the end was closing in on him. He had many times spoken of suicide, and now he was determined to cheat his enemies of the pleasure of killing or capturing him. But before he ended his life, he was determined to have the last word.

Adolf Hitler

Which is where “My Political Testament” comes in.

Seventy-four years separated Adolf Hitler’s testament from Donald Trump’s letter to Nancy Pelosi. But the similarities between the two were uncanny. 

ADOLF HITLER: More than thirty years have now passed since I in 1914 made my modest contribution as a volunteer in the first world war that was forced upon the Reich.

In these three decades I have been actuated solely by love and loyalty to my people in all my thoughts, acts and life. They gave me the strength to make the most difficult decisions which have ever confronted mortal man. I have spent my time, my working strength and my health in these three decades. 

DONALD TRUMP: After three years of unfair and unwarranted investigations, 45 million dollars spent, 18 angry Democrat prosecutors, the entire force of the FBI, headed by leadership now proven to be totally incompetent and corrupt, you have found NOTHING!   

Few people in high position could have endured or passed this test. You do not know, nor do you care, the great damage and hurt you have inflicted upon wonderful and loving members of my family. You conducted a fake investigation upon the democratically elected President of the United States, and you are doing it yet again. 

ADOLF HITLER: It is untrue that I or anyone else in Germany wanted the war in 1939. It was desired and instigated exclusively by those international statesmen who were either of  Jewish descent or worked for Jewish interests. 

I have made too many offers for the control and limitation of armaments, which posterity will not for all time be able to disregard for the responsibility for the outbreak of this war to be laid on me. 

DONALD TRUMP: The Articles of Impeachment introduced by the House Judiciary Committee are not recognizable under any standard of Constitutional theory, interpretation, or jurisprudence. They include no crimes, no misdemeanors, and no offenses whatsoever. You have cheapened the importance of the very ugly word, impeachment!

By proceeding with your invalid impeachment, you are violating your oaths of office, you are breaking your allegiance to the Constitution, and you are declaring open war on American Democracy.

You dare to invoke the Founding Fathers in pursuit of this election-nullification scheme — yet your spiteful actions display unfettered contempt for America’s founding and your egregious conduct threatens to destroy that which our Founders pledged their very lives to build.

BACKING A DICTATOR CAN BE HAZARDOUS TO YOUR HEALTH: PART TWO (END)

In Bureaucracy, Business, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Politics, Social commentary on August 28, 2025 at 12:10 am

Donald Trump, upon taking office as President, appointed Elon Musk the head of a newly-created government agency called DOGE (Department of Government Efficiency). Its stated goal: Eliminating inefficiency and waste within the federal bureaucracy.      

DOGE’s activities included shuttering government agencies, defunding programs and firing up to 100,000 federal employees.

Musk initially claimed he would save taxpayers $2 trillion. But financial records now indicate a savings of $175 billion.

Musk’s tenure with DOGE officially ended on May 29.

Portrait of Elon Musk, a white, middle-age man with short, dark hair, wearing a morning coat

Elon Musk

The Royal Society, CC BY-SA 3.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0&gt;, via Wikimedia Commons

Musk donated $288 million to Trump’s 2024 Presidential campaign. He repeatedly praised Trump: “This election, I think, is going to decide the fate of America, and along with the fate of America, the fate of Western civilization.”

And Trump praised Musk: “Only Elon can do this,” Trump said of a SpaceX launch. “That’s why I love you, Elon.”

But that lovefest has brutally ended. On June 3, 2025, Musk blasted the massive tax-and-spending bill backed by Trump. 

Dubbed the “One Big, Beautiful Bill” by Trump—and thus by House and Senate Republicans—the legislation will:

  • Extend the 2017 Trump tax cuts, keeping taxes low on the richest Americans;
  • Hurt millions of Americans by slashing $600 billion from Medicaid;
  • Cost millions some or all of their food stamp benefits;
  • Leave nine to 14 million people without health insurance by 2034;
  • Add $3.1 trillion to the nation’s debt.

Having narrowly passed the House of Representatives by one vote, the bill passed the Senate on July 4, as Trump had demanded.

Elon Musk vigorously dissented. In a post on X, his social media site, he wrote: “I’m sorry, but I just can’t stand it anymore.

“This massive, outrageous, pork-filled Congressional spending bill is a disgusting abomination. Shame on those who voted for it: you know you did wrong. You know it.” 

In a follow-up post, he added: “It will massively increase the already gigantic budget deficit to $2.5 trillion (!!!) and burden America citizens with crushingly unsustainable debt.”

Tesla headquarters

Larry D. Moore, CC BY 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0&gt;, via Wikimedia Commons

Even worse for Republicans, Musk wrote on X: “In November next year, we fire all politicians who betrayed the American people,” suggesting that he would fund campaigns in the upcoming 2026 midterm elections to remove those who voted for the bill.

Many Republicans were expecting Musk to fund their midterm campaigns against Democrats—and their own primary challengers.

Donald Trump

Trump has loudly proclaimed his belief in taking vengeance on those who cross him: “If someone screws you, screw them back 10 times harder,” he told business leaders during a 2005 speech in Colorado.

Trump is an alpha male who enjoys dominating others. So is Musk. As Dan McAdams, a psychology professor at Northwestern University, told Newsweek:

“Two alphas can probably get along well enough as long as they don’t interfere with each other’s respective domain. 

“Musk is certainly a narcissist but his self-worth is caught up in what he achieves. He really cares about building electric cars, sending people into space, and so on.

“Trump does not care about anything except himself. His entire self worth depends on others adoring him and fearing him.” 

Musk is the world’s richest man, with an estimated net worth of $314 billion as of November 2024, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. He owns Tesla, Inc., X (formerly Twitter), Space X and xAI, an artificial intelligence startup that he founded in 2023. 

He commands unlimited resources in money, attorneys and the ability to reach millions through X. He’s received billions of dollars in Federal contracts—among them $733.5 million for the Space Development Agency (SDA) and two for the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO).

But Trump commands the Justice Department and Internal Revenue Service. He’s already turned that machinery on former federal officials he hates—such as Chris Krebs, the former director for cybersecurity. 

Pam Bondi, Trump’s appointment for Attorney General, has proven her reliability. As Florida Attorney General, she solicited a political contribution from Trump while her office deliberated investigating alleged fraud at Trump University and its affiliates.

After Bondi dropped the Trump University case, Trump wrote her a $25,000 check for her re-election campaign. The money came from the Donald J. Trump Foundation.

And Trump has already started his attack on Musk: On July 1, when reporters asked him if he would deport South Africa-born Musk, Trump said: “We’ll have to take a look. We might have to put DOGE on Elon.” 

And on July 3, The New Republic published that Trump was responsible for rumors about Elon Musk’s rampant White House ketamine use: “‘Actually, we dropped a dime to The New York Times….on Elon’s drug taking,’” said Trump, according to his biographer Michael Wolff,

Musk could easily be indicted for corruption—even if it’s totally unwarranted. At the very least, many—if not all—of Musk’s government contracts could be cancelled. At the worst, Musk could find himself locked in combat with Federal prosecutors for the length of Trump’s term and facing huge fines—if not imprisonment.

Ernst Rohm felt invulnerable at the start of 1934. After leaving government with an effusive send-off from Trump, Elon Musk may have felt the same.

Like Rohm, Musk may live to regret the devotion he’s lavished on his choice for Fuhrer.

BACKING A DICTATOR CAN BE HAZARDOUS TO YOUR HEALTH: PART ONE (OF TWO)

In Bureaucracy, Business, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Politics, Social commentary on August 27, 2025 at 12:18 am

On June 30, 1934, German Chancellor Adolf Hitler ordered a massive purge of his private army, the S.A., (Sturmabteilungor). It was carried out by Hitler’s elite army-within-an-army, the Schutzstaffel, or Protective Squads, better known as the SS.               

The Brownshirts (also known as “Storm Troopers”) had been instrumental in securing Hitler’s rise to Chancellor of Germany on January 30, 1933. They had violently intimidated political opponents (especially Communists) and organized mass rallies for the Nazi Party.

But after Hitler reached the pinnacle of power, they became a liability.

Ernst Rohm, their commander, had served as a tough army officer during World War 1. He was one of the few men allowed to use “du,” the personal form of “you” in German, when addressing Hitler.

Rohm urged Hitler to disband the regular German army, the Reichswehr, and replace it with his own undisciplined paramilitary legions as the nation’s defense force.

By 1934, the Storm Troopers numbered approximately three million. By contrast, about 100,000 soldiers served in the Reichswehr, owing to restrictions imposed by the 1919 Versailles Treaty which ended World War 1.

Ernst Rohm

Frightened by Rohm’s ambitions, the generals of the Reichswehr gave Hitler an ultimatum: Get rid of Rohm—or they would get rid of him.

Hitler didn’t hesitate. Backed by armed thugs, he stormed into Rohm’s apartment, catching him in bed with a young S.A. Storm Trooper.

Accusing his onetime friend of treasonously plotting to overthrow him, Hitler screamed: “You’re going to be shot!”

Rohm was not plotting a coup. But the generals had the whip hand—and, for Hitler, that was enough to literally sign Rohm’s death warrant.

Hours later, sitting in a prison cell, Rohm was offered a pistol with a single bullet.

“Adolf himself should do the dirty work,” said Rohm, adding: “All revolutions devour their own children.”

One hour later, Rohm died in a hail of SS bullets.

Earlier throughout that day, so had several hundred of his longtime S.A. cronies. Many of them yelled “Heil Hitler!” as they stood against barracks walls waiting to be shot.

A Nazi DJ spins records at a radio exhibition in Berlin, 1932 - Rare Historical Photos

SS soldiers marching

Thirteen days later, addressing the Reichstag, Germany’s parliament, Hitler justified his purge in a nationally broadcast speech:

“If anyone reproaches me and asks why I did not  resort  to the  regular courts of justice, then all I can say is this: In this hour I was responsible for the fate of the German people, and thereby I became the Supreme Judge of the German people! 

“I gave the order to shoot the ringleaders in this treason, and I further gave the order to cauterize down to the raw flesh the ulcers of this poisoning of the wells in our domestic life.

“Let the nation know that its existence—which depends on its internal order and security—cannot be threatened with impunity by anyone! And let it be known for all time to come that if anyone raises his hand to strike the State, then certain death is his lot.”

On This Day: Nazi Germany Invades Poland, Starting World War II

Hitler giving the speech

Adolf Hitler addressing parliament

Bundesarchiv, Bild 183-E11354 / CC-BY-SA 3.0, CC BY-SA 3.0 DE <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/de/deed.en&gt;, via Wikimedia Commons

Ninety-one years after Adolf Hitler declared himself “the Supreme Judge of the German people,” the United States faces the same fate under re-elected President Donald J. Trump.

And his Number One victim may turn out to be Elon Musk, the man who played a pivotal role in sending him back to the White House. 

Musk, the leader of Space X Tesla and X (formerly Twitter), had donated tens of millions of dollars to pro-Trump super PACs, jumped around the stage behind Trump during campaign rallies, and turned X into a Right-wing cheering squad for Trump.

Trump, upon taking office, appointed Musk the head of a fictional government agency called DOGE (Department of Government Efficiency). Its official goal: Eliminating inefficiency and waste within the federal bureaucracy.

But some—like former Trump lawyer Michael Cohen—had a warning for Musk: “Donald Trump is loyal to one person and one person only…himself. 

“The moment Elon steps an inch out of Trump’s line, despite all he might have done for him, Donald will cut him off, disparage and denigrate him. Elon is no different than me or anyone else similarly situated. It’s just a matter of when.”

Cohen speaks from bitter personal experience. 

A longtime executive of the Trump Organization, Cohen told ABC news in 2011: “If somebody does something Mr. Trump doesn’t like, I do everything in my power to resolve it to Mr. Trump’s benefit.”

In April 2018, the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York began investigating Cohen. Charges reportedly included bank fraud, wire fraud and violations of campaign finance law.

Trump executive Michael Cohen 012 (5506031001) (cropped).jpg

Michael Cohen

By IowaPolitics.com (Trump executive Michael Cohen 012) [CC BY-SA 2.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0)%5D, via Wikimedia Commons

On April 9, 2018, the FBI, executing a federal search warrant, raided Cohen’s office at the law firm of Squire Patton Boggs, as well as at his home and his room in the Loews Regency Hotel in New York City.

Agents seized emails, tax and business records and recordings of phone conversations that Cohen had made.

Trump’s response: “Michael Cohen only handled a tiny, tiny fraction of my legal work.”  

Thus Trump undermined the argument of Cohen’s lawyers that he was the President’s personal attorney—and therefore everything Cohen did was protected by attorney-client privilege. 

APRIL 30–AN ANNIVERSARY OF TRIUMPH AND SHAME

In Bureaucracy, History, Military, Politics, Social commentary on May 21, 2025 at 12:06 am

April 30: Two anniversaries—one of American victory, the other of American defeat.  

April 30, 1945: With Berlin, the capitol of Nazi Germany burning and in ruins, Germany’s Fuhrer, Adolf Hitler raises a 7.65 caliber, seven-shot Walther PPK pistol to his right temple and pulls the trigger as he bites on a cyanide capsule. 

Then, his corpse—along with that of Eva Braun, his longtime mistress and hastily-married wife of less than 24 hours—is carried out of the underground Fuhrerbunker. Both bodies are carried into the Reich Chancellery garden, doused with petrol, and set afire.

Hitler’s 12-year-reign of terror and infamy is finally over.

Adolf Hitler

America had been waging war against Nazi Germany since December 11, 1941.

That was when Hitler—just four days after Japanese aircraft had bombed Pearl Harbor—declared war on the United States. There was nothing to be gained by adding the world’s most powerful industrial nation to his list of enemies. But he did it anyway.

Starting in 1942, American forces gradually moved from triumph to triumph. These culminated in the June 6, 1944 D-Day invasion of France, which sealed the fate of the Third Reich in the West.

American military forces had been halted at the Elbe River, where they had met with Soviet forces. This was a strategic decision by General Dwight D. Eisenhower, the Allied Supreme Commander, to not continue into eastern Germany, which was to be occupied by the Red Army

Even though Soviet forces are the ones to capture Berlin, this amounts to an American victory. The last outpost of Nazi Germany is destroyed, and at no cost to American soldiers.

Neither the United States nor the Soviet Union is willing to officially acknowledge the contributions of the other in achieving victory over Nazi Germany.

Russians (from Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin on down) refuse to admit that without a massive infusion of aid from the United States, their final victory over Nazi Germany would have been delayed by years.

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Joseph Stalin

Under the Lend-Lease program, the United States contributed tons of military and civilian equipment the Soviets desperately needed, including:

  • 400,000 jeeps and trucks
  • 14,000 airplanes
  • 13,000 tanks
  • 1,640 flat cars and rail accessories
  • 15 million pairs of army boots
  • 107,000 tons of cotton
  • 2.7 million tons of petroleum products
  • 4.5 million tons of food

Americans, in turn, are unwilling to admit that their strategy for defeating Germany depended on the Soviet Union bearing the brunt of Allied casualties.

The Soviet Union suffered an estimated 26.6 million casualties, including both military (8.7 million) and (19 million) civilian deaths. 

By contrast, about 250,000 American soldiers died in the European theater. 

Fast forward 30 years—to April 30, 1975.

The South Vietnamese Army suddenly crumbles under an all-out offensive by North Vietnamese regular army units.

The United States—which had been been supplying military assistance to Vietnam since the Presidency of Dwight D. Eisenhower—suddenly sees its worst nightmare come to life.

Eisenhower had sent 700 military advisors in 1955. President John F. Kennedy increased the number of advisors to 16,300.

Starting in 1965, President Lyndon B. Johnson committed wholesale combat troops to Vietnam. By April, 1969—three months after Richard M. Nixon took office—there were approximately 543,400 personnel serving there.

America poured more than $120 billion into the conflict in Vietnam from 1965-73. At least 2.7 million  soldiers served there–and 58,000 died there. Another 304,000 were wounded. At home, the war divided Americans as no other event since the Civil War (1861-1865).

Decades later, Americans still debate whether “we should have gone all the way” in Vietnam—including the use of atomic bombs.

The unspoken reason for this carnage: Four Presidents—Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson and Nixon—kept the war going because they feared they would be turned out of office if they didn’t.

Such a fate overtook President Joseph Biden when he dared to pull American forces out of a 20-year effort to “civilize” Afghanistan in September, 2021.

Map showing the partition of French Indochina following the 1954 Geneva Conference

Vietnam during the Vietnam war

The last American troops left Vietnam on March 29, 1973. President Nixon claimed that he had achieved “peace with honor.” The South Vietnamese Army was supposedly now trained by Americans to defend the “country” from attack by North Vietnam. 

Then came December 13, 1974—the start of the North’s all-out offensive.

The result: South Vietnamese forces melted away.

President Gerald R. Ford, who had replaced Nixon upon his August 9, 1974 resignation, asked Congress for permission to send American soldiers to rescue the situation. But Congress refused, leaving Vietnam to its own fate 

This was hardly surprising to American veterans of the war. Among them a favorite joke had been: “There’s a new batch of South Vietnamese rifles for sale. Never fired, and only dropped once.”

By April 30, 1975, Saigon, the capitol of South Vietnam, fell to the People’s Army of Vietnam and the Viet Cong.

Fall of Saigon

At home, watching TV, Americans felt shame as Army helicopters hurriedly lifted off the roof of the United States embassy.

Numerous South Vietnamese desperately tried to climb aboard—only to have their hands stomped on by Americans equally desperate to get out before North Vietnamese forces reached them.

Thus a great nation goes from waging a victorious war against a deadly enemy to waging a losing war against a needless enemy in just 30 years.

HITLER’S GERMANY HAD ITS RESISTENCE MOVEMENT–TRUMP’S AMERICA HAD NONE: PART THREE (END)

In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Military, Politics, Social commentary on May 7, 2025 at 12:11 am

“U.S. democracy wasn’t set up to deal with a president openly behaving like a James Bond villain while being protected by a political party behaving more like a mafia than a civic institution.” 

The Washington Monthly, March 9, 2020

During his 12-year reign, Adolf Hitler was the target of at least 42 assassination plots. The most famous of these was the one of July 20, 1944.    

From 2017 to 2021, Donald Trump was not the target of even one.   

In Hitler’s case, the plotters were officers of the German general staff—who believed the Fuhrer was leading Germany into a war it could not hope to win.

Adolf Hitler

In the case of President Donald Trump:

  • A non-violent method for removal existed in the Twenty-Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution. This allows the Vice President and a majority of the Cabinet to recommend the removal of the President when he is “unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office.” The Vice President then becomes President.
  • No Cabinet members had the courage to invoke this.
  • Within the Senate and House of Representatives, Republicans acted as a rubber stamp for his every infamy.
  • When he praised North Korea’s dictator Kim Jong-Un or attacked Vietnam POW John McCain, they stayed silent.
  • When he falsely charged massive voter fraud, Republicans stayed silent or loudly parroted his lies.
  • Their most notorious example of ambition-fueled cowardice occurred on February 5, 2020. That was when the Republican-dominated Senate—ignoring the overwhelming evidence against him—acquitted Trump on both impeachment articles: Obstruction of Congress and abuse of power.
  • At the Pentagon, American generals stood mute as Trump repeatedly sided with Russian dictator Vladimir Putin against the FBI, CIA and National Security Agency—and even gave classified CIA Intelligence to Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and Ambassador Sergey Kislyak.
  • And just as high-ranking field marshals in Hitler’s Wehrmacht held their tongues when he insulted them, so, too, did American generals when Trump belittled their intelligence and even patriotism. 
  • When Trump arbitrarily decided to remove American forces from Syria and Afghanistan, Secretary of Defense James Mattis resigned in protest in 2018. But then he was simply replaced by Mark Esper.
  • Despite the fact that many of these men regularly came into contact with Trump, not one of them apparently plotted his removal. 
  • Similarly, Trump repeatedly attacked the integrity of the men and women of the FBI—even firing its director, James Comey, for daring to investigate Russia’s subversion of the 2016 election.
  • If its agents—steeped in Federal criminal law—built a case for Trump’s indictment and prosecution, it has never come to light.
  • Neither did any of his Secret Service agents register the slightest protest, despite his arrogant behavior toward them. He forced them to work without pay during his 35-day government shutdown in 2018.
  • And he forced them to accompany him to COVID-infected states—both during the Presidential campaign and afterward. Many of them became stricken with this often fatal disease as a result.

Donald Trump   

* * * * *

On November 3, 2020, 81,255,933 Democratic voters elected former Vice President Joseph Biden the 46th President of the United States. Trump, running for a second term, got 74,196,153 votes.

Yet almost two months after the election, Trump refused to concede, insisting that he won—and repeatedly claiming falsely that he was the victim of massive vote fraud.

This toxic lie was feverishly embraced by millions of Right-wingers, and cast a shadow of illegitimacy over the Biden administration.

This refusal to acknowledge the outcome initially denied Biden access to the money, information-sharing and machinery traditionally accorded the President-elect. Trump himself was the beneficiary of such assistance in 2016, after his win over Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton.

Only on November 23, 2020 was Biden acknowledged as the winner by the General Services Administration, as the Trump administration finally began the formal transition process.

Meanwhile, the COVID-19 pandemic raged across the country. More than 400,000 Americans  died by the time Trump left office. Hospitals were filled to capacity, and millions faced starvation and/or eviction.

Yet Trump remained obsessed with his loss, and did nothing to coordinate the Federal response to the pandemic.

Trump’s refusal to accept reality posed an unprecedented danger to democracy: No presidential candidate had ever refused to concede defeat once all the votes were counted and legal challenges resolved.

By refusing to commit to a peaceful transfer of power, Trump took on the classic mantle of a dictator.

Right-wing Virginia State Senator Amanda Chase urged Trump to declare martial law and allow the military to “oversee” another election. So did disgraced ex-National Security Advisor Michael Flynn, whom Trump pardoned for lying to the FBI about private talks he had with a Russian official.

Reports have surfaced that Trump considered doing so. 

History has recorded an active German resistance movement against Adolf Hitler. And posterity has honored its members, many of whom died heroically for standing firm against a brutal tyrant.

To its eternal shame, the same cannot be said of America during the reign of Donald Trump.

Even more shameful: On November 5, 2024, having lived through four years of Trump’s lies, egomania and lawbreaking, 77 million Americans re-elected him as President.

HITLER’S GERMANY HAD ITS RESISTENCE MOVEMENT-–TRUMP’S AMERICA DID NOT: PART TWO (OF THREE)

In History, Law, Law Enforcement, Military, Politics, Social commentary on May 6, 2025 at 12:05 am

On July 20, 1944, Colonel Claus Schenk von Stuaffenberg tried to assassinate Adolf Hitler.    

He had served with the Wehrmacht in Poland (1939), France (1940) and the Soviet Union (1941).

While serving in Tunisa, he was seriously wounded on April 7, 1943, when Allied fighters strafed his vehicle. He lost his left eye, right hand and two fingers of his left hand after surgery.    

Colonel Claus Schenk von Stuaffenberg

Nevertheless, he now acted as the prime mover for the conspiracy among a growing number of German high command officers to arrest or assassinate Germany’s Fuehrer.

For most of these officers, the motive was craven: The “happy time” of German victories was over. Germany was losing the war it had unleashed on the world in 1939—and now they feared the worst. 

This was especially true now that the numerically superior forces of the Soviet Union had gone onto the offensive.

For Stauffenberg, there was another reason: His disgust at the horrors he had seen committed by his fellow Wehrmacht soldiers upon defenseless POW’s and civilians in Russia.

Thus, Stauffenberg—more than many Germans–knew firsthand the vengeance his country could expect if the “Thousand-Year Reich” fell.

Something must be done, he believed, to prove to the world that not all Germans—even members of the Wehrmacht—were criminals.

Most of the conspirators wanted to arrest Hitler and surrender to British and American forces—well before the much-feared Russians gained a toehold in Germany.

Stauffenberg didn’t want to arrest Hitler; he wanted to kill him. A live Hitler might eventually be rescued by his Nazi colleagues.

But Hitler was a closely-guarded target. He was surrounded by fanatical bodyguards who were expert marksmen. He often wore a bulletproof vest and a cap lined with three pounds of laminated steel. 

Adolf Hitler

Bundesarchiv, Bild 146-1990-048-29A / CC-BY-SA 3.0 [CC BY-SA 3.0 de (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/de/deed.en)%5D

But his single greatest protection—he claimed—was an instinct for danger. He would suddenly change his schedule—to drop in where he was least expected. Or suddenly depart an event where he was expected to stay a long time.

That instinct had repeatedly saved his life.

A series of assassination attempts had been made against Hitler. All of them involved time-bombs. And all of the would-be assassins were members of the German General Staff.

In one case, a bomb secretly stashed aboard Hitler’s plane failed to explode. In another, an officer who had a bomb strapped to himself unexpectedly found his scheduled meeting with Hitler called off. He had to rush into a bathroom to defuse the bomb before it exploded.

Stauffenberg intended to carry his bomb—hidden in a briefcase—into a “Hitler conference” room packed with military officers. Rigged with a time-fuse, it would be left there while he found an excuse to leave.

After the explosion, he would phone one of his fellow conspirators with the news. 

Stauffenberg intended to direct the new government that would replace that of the Nazis—and open peace talks with the British and Americans.

With Hitler dead, the coup—“Operation Valkyrie”—would be on.

Anti-Nazi conspirators would seize control of key posts of the government. The British and Americans would then be informed of Germany’s willingness to surrender. Provided, of course, that the vengeance-seeking Russians did not have a say in its postwar future.

The Wehrmacht and Schutzstaffel (SS) had killed millions of Russians. Many had died in combat. Others had been murdered as captives. Still more had been allowed to die by starvation and exposure to the notorious Russian winter.

So the Germans—both Nazi and anti-Nazi—knew what they could expect if soldiers of the Soviet Union reached German soil.

On July 20, 1944, Stauffenberg appeared at Hitler’s well-guarded military headquarters in East Prussia.  Like all his other outposts, Hitler had named it—appropriately enough—“Wolf’s Lair.” 

“Wolf’s Lair”

Stauffenberg entered the large, concrete building while the conference was in session. He placed his yellow briefcase next to Hitler—who was standing with his generals at a heavy oaken table. Then he excused himself to take an “urgent” phone call.

After Stauffenberg left the room, Colonel Heinz Brandt, standing next to Hitler, found the briefcase blocking his legs. So he moved it—to the other side of the heavy oaken support, partially shielding Hitler from the blast.. 

At 12:42 p.m. on July 20, 1944, Stauffenberg’s briefcase bomb erupted. 

Brandt died, as did two other officers and a stenographer.  

Hitler not only survived, but the plotters failed to seize the key broadcast facilities of the Reich.  

This allowed Hitler to make a late-night speech to the nation, revealing the failed plot and assuring Germans that he was still alive. And he swore to flush out the “traitorous swine” who had tried to kill him.

Mass arrests quickly followed.

Among the first victims discovered and executed was the conspiracy’s leader, Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg. Standing before a makeshift firing squad at midnight, he cried: “Long live our sacred Germany!”

At least 7,000 persons were arrested by the Gestapo. Of these, 4,980 were executed.

HITLER’S GERMANY HAD ITS RESISTENCE MOVEMENT–TRUMP’S AMERICA DID NOT: PART ONE (OF THREE)

In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Military, Politics, Social commentary on May 5, 2025 at 12:09 am

“When Fascism comes to America, it will be called anti-Fascism.”
–Huey Long, Louisiana Governor/Senator 

In the Twilight Zone episode, “No Time Like the Past,” Paul Driscoll (Dana Andrews), a scientist in early 1960s America, uses a time machine to visit Nazi Germany on the eve of World War II. 

He’s rented a motel room overlooking the balcony from where the Fuhrer, Adolf Hitler will soon make a speech. And he’s eager to watch that speech—through the lens of a telescopic-sighted rifle.  

Just as he’s about to pull the trigger, there’s a knock at his door—by the maid. Driscoll hustles her out as soon as possible, then once again picks up his rifle. He—and viewers—can once again see Hitler through the cross-hairs of his weapon.  

Paul Driscoll prepares to shoot Adolf Hitler

But instead of the anticipated shot, there’s another knock at his door—his time by the black-uniformed secret police, the SS. Driscoll knows the game is up, and disappears into the present just as the thugs break down his door.  

And the audience is left to ponder how different the world would have been if Driscoll—or someone in Nazi Germanyhad succeeded in assassinating the man whose wars would wipe out the lives of 50 million men, women and children around the globe.  

One 2016 Republican candidate for President dared to invoke the menace of Nazi Germany in warning of the dangers of a Donald Trump Presidency. And to argue that Americans could prevent that past from returning.  

In November, 2015, John Kasich, the governor of Ohio, was peddling a message of creating jobs, balancing the Federal budget and disdain for Washington, D.C.  

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John Kasich

But he remained far behind in the polls, dropping 50% in support in just one month—from September to October. Meanwhile, Trump, the New York billionaire developer, was being backed by 25% of Republican primary voters.  

So, with nothing to lose, Kasich decided to take off the gloves. He invoked the “N” word for Republicans: Nazi.  

He authorized the creation of a TV ad that opened with ominous music—and the face of a snarling Donald Trump.

“I would like anyone who is listening to consider some thoughts that I’ve paraphrased from the words of German pastor Martin Niemoeller.” 

The voice belonged to Tom Moe, a retired colonel in the U.S. Air Force—and a former Vietnam prisoner-of-war.

“You might not care if Donald Trump says Muslims must register with the government, because you’re not one,” continued Moe. 

“And you might not care if Donald Trump says he’s going to round up all the Hispanic immigrants, because you’re not one. 

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Donald Trump

“And you might not care if Donald Trump says it’s OK to rough up black protesters, because you’re not one. 

“And you might not care if Donald Trump wants to suppress journalists, because you’re not one.

“But think about this: 

“If he keeps going, and he actually becomes President, he might just get around to you. And you’d better hope that there’s someone left to help you.”  

Martin Niemoeller (1892–1984) was a prominent Protestant pastor who had commanded a U-boat during World War 1. He became a bitter public foe of Adolf Hitler.

A staunch anti-Communist, he had initially supported the Nazis as Germany’s only hope of salvation against the Soviet Union.

But when the Nazis made the church subordinate to State authority, Niemoeller created the Pastors’ Emergency League to defend religious freedom. 

For his opposition to the Third Reich,  Niemoeller spent seven years in concentration camps.

With the collapse of the Reich in 1945, he was freed—and elected President of the Protestant church in Hesse and Nassau in 1947. During the 1960s, he was president of the World Council of Churches.

He is best remembered for his powerful condemnation of the failure of Germans to protest the increasing oppression of the Nazis:

First they came for the Communists, but I was not a Communist, so I did not speak out.

Then they came for the Socialists, but I was not a Socialist, so I did not speak out.

Then they came for the trade unionists, but I was not a trade unionist, so I did not speak out.

Then they came for the Jews, but I was not a Jew, so I did not speak out.

And when they came for me, there was no one left to speak out for me.

Neither “Adolf Hitler” nor “Nazi Party” was mentioned during the one-minute Kasich video. But a furious Trump threatened to sue Kasich if he could find anything “not truthful” within the ad.

Apparently he couldn’t find anything “not truthful,” because he never sued.

So threatened the man who had called Mexican immigrants “rapists” and accused President Barack Obama of being a Muslim and an illegal alien.

The Kasich ad was the darkest attack made against Trump by any candidate–-Republican or Democrat. And it raised a disturbing question:

If Donald Trump proved to be America’s Adolf Hitler, would there be an American Claus von Stauffenberg

Colonel Claus Schenk von Stuaffenberg was the German army officer who, on July 20, 1944, tried to assassinate Adolf Hitler. 

“WORKING TOWARDS THE PRESIDENT”: PART TWO (END)

In Bureaucracy, Business, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Politics, Social commentary on April 25, 2025 at 12:19 am

In Stalingrad, a 1993 German-made war movie, a platoon of German Army soldiers leaves behind the beaches and beauties of Italy and find themselves fighting desperately to stay alive in Russia.  

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Early in the film, there is an exchange that has its real-life counterpart almost 75 years later.

A young, idealistic German lieutenant, newly transferred to the Russian front, is horrified when he sees a fellow soldier from another unit sadistically beat a Russian prisoner to death.

He seeks out the man’s superior, a captain, and says: “Captain, I must protest about the behavior of your men.”

“You want to protest?” asks the captain, grinning sardonically. “Tell the Fuhrer.”

Fast forward to January 28, 2017, the day after President Donald J. Trump signed into law an executive order which:

  • Suspended entry of all refugees to the United States for 120 days;
  • Barred Syrian refugees indefinitely;, and
  • Blocked entry into the United States for 90 days for citizens from Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen.

The new rules—and the efforts of security personnel at major international airports to enforce them—triggered a tsunami of chaos and fear among travelers.

“We’ve gotten reports of people being detained all over the country,” said Becca Heller, the director of the International Refugee Assistance Project. “They’re literally pouring in by the minute.”

Refugees on flights when the order was signed on January 27 were detained upon arrival.

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Donald Trump

Many students attending American universities were blocked from returning to the United States from visits abroad.

According to Homeland Security officials, 109 people who were already in transit to the United States when the order was signed were denied access; 173 were stopped before boarding planes heading to America. Eighty-one people who were stopped were eventually given waivers to enter the United States.

Internationally, travelers were seized by panic when they were not allowed  to board flights to the United States. In Dubai and Istanbul, airport and immigration officials turned passengers away at boarding gates. At least one family was removed from a flight it had boarded.

Earlier on January 28, Trump, isolated in the White House from all the chaos he had unleashed in airports across the nation and throughout the world, said:

“It’s not a Muslim ban, but we were totally prepared. It’s working out very nicely. You see it at the airports, you see it all over.”

Then the American Civil Liberties Union intervened.

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Two Iraqi immigrants, defended by the ACLU, accused Trump of legal and constitutional overreach.

The Iraqis had been detained at John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York City.  One had served as an interpreter for American forces in Iraq for a decade. The other was en route to reunite with his wife and son in Texas.

The interpreter, Hameed Khalid Darweesh, was released after nearly 19 hours of detention. So was the other traveler, Haider Sameer Abdulkhaleq Alshawi.

Before the two men were released, one of their lawyers, Mark Doss, a supervising attorney at the International Refugee Assistance Project, asked an official, “Who is the person we need to talk to?”

“Call Mr. Trump,” said the official, who refused to identify himself.

He might just as well have said: “You want to protest? Tell the Fuhrer.”

The ACLU action secured at least a temporary blocking of part of Trump’s order. A Brooklyn judge barred the government from deporting some arrivals who found themselves ensnared by the Presidential order.

Judge Ann M. Donnelly of the Federal District Court in Brooklyn, ruled that sending the travelers home could cause them “irreparable harm.” She said the government was “enjoined and restrained from, in any manner and by any means, removing individuals” who had arrived in the United States with valid visas or refugee status.

But she did not force the administration to let in people otherwise blocked by the executive order who have not yet traveled to the United States. Nor did she issue a broader ruling on the constitutionality of the order.

* * * * *

On November 5, 75 million ignorant, hate-filled, Right-wing Americans re-elected Donald Trump—a man reflecting their own hate and ignorance—to the Presidency. 

Summing up Trump’s character in a March 25, 2016 broadcast of The PBS Newshour, conservative political columnist David Brooks warned: “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…. 

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.”

There were countless warning signs available for Trump’s supporters to see—if they had wanted to see them:  

  • His facing 91 criminal counts in four cases;
  • His threats against his political opponents and Justice Department prosecutors;
  • His conviction for raping columnist E. Jean Carroll;
  • His continued lying about winning the 2020 Presidential election;
  • His conviction on 34 counts of falsifying business records;
  • His unjustified attacks the integrity of the FBI—causing previously “law and order” Republicans to demand its defunding. 

Those who voted for Trump will now learn the meaning of the Nazi slogan: “The Fuhrer proposes and disposes for all.”  Those who voted against him knew this already.

“WORKING TOWARDS THE PRESIDENT”: PART ONE (OF TWO)

In Bureaucracy, Business, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Politics, Social commentary on April 24, 2025 at 12:06 am

When historians—-and ordinary citizens—think about the Third Reich, the name of Werner Willikens doesn’t immediately spring to mind.    

Adolf Hitler, Herman Goring, Joseph Goebbels, Heinrich Himmler, Adolf Eichmann—yes.  

But why Werner Willikens?  

British historian and author Ian Kershaw has unearthed the reason.

He has written extensively about the Third Reich. He is best-known for his monumental, two-volume biography, Hitler 1889–1936: Hubris (1998) and Hitler 1936–1945: Nemesis (2000). 

Ian Kershaw 2012 crop.jpg

Ian Kershaw

Willikens, State Secretary in the Ministry of Food, gave a speech on February 21, 1934 that casts new light on how Hitler came to exercise vast authority over Nazi Germany: 

“Everyone who has the opportunity to observe it knows that the Fuhrer can hardly dictate from above everything he intends to realize sooner or later.

“On the contrary, up till now everyone with a post in the new Germany has worked best when he has, so to speak, worked towards the Fuhrer….

Werner Willikens – Wikipedia

Werner Willikens 

“In fact, it is the duty of everybody to try to work towards the Fuhrer along the lines he would wish.  Anyone who makes mistakes will notice it soon enough.

“But anyone who really works towards the Fuhrer along his lines and towards his goal will certainly both now and in the future one day have the finest reward in the form of the sudden legal confirmation of his work.”

Volker Ullrich, bestselling author of Hitler: Ascent 1889 – 1939, summed up the results of this interplay between Hitler and his subjects:

“Kershaw tried to show that in many instances Hitler didn’t need to do very much at all since German society–everyone from the underlings surrounding him to ordinary people on the street—-were increasingly inclined to anticipate and fulfill the Fuhrer’s every wish, ‘working towards him.’

“…Kershaw…. illustrate[d] that without the readiness of many people to work for the man in charge, there would have been no way he could have achieved his murderous aims.

“Kershaw’s main thesis was that the dynamics of the Nazi regime arose from the interplay of Hitler’s intentions with activism emanating from subordinate individuals and institutions. The results were ever more radical ‘solutions.'” 

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On April 30, 1945, Adolf Hitler simultaneously bit on a cyanide capsule and fired a pistol shot into his right temple.

The concept of “working towards the Fuhrer” seemed to have come to a literally fiery end.

Fast forward almost 80 years later–to January 20, 2025.

Donald J. Trump, upon resuming the office of President, has declared all-out war on illegal aliens within the United States. He has given Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) full powers to seize and deport anyone fitting that description.

Even if that person is a legal resident who has lived in the United States legally with a work permit since 2011 and is protected from deportation by a 2019 court order.

Such was the case with Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a Salvadoran citizen living in Maryland. He illegally entered the United States at age 18 to escape being drafted into the 18th Street Gang. 

In 2019 he was arrested in Maryland and detained by federal immigration authorities. An immigration judge granted Garcia protection from deportation because he might risk violence from local gangs in El Salvador.

On March 12, 2025, Garcia was stopped and detained by immigration agents and questioned about his alleged affiliation with the MS-13 gang. MS-13 was originally formed by Salvadoran immigrants fleeing civil war in their homeland and is now involved in myriad illegal enterprises,

ICE deported him to El Salvador, alongside hundreds of other men accused of being gang members.

There was just one problem: Garcia was deported due to a clerical error. 

U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis ordered that Garcia be returned to Maryland: “His detention appears wholly lawless.” 

In turn, the Justice Department claimed that it could not return him from a sovereign nation. 

United States Department of Justice - Wikipedia

On April 5, Erez Reuveni, the acting deputy director of the department’s immigration litigation division, struggled to answer questions from the judge about the circumstances of Garcia’s deportation.

Asked why the U.S. couldn’t ask for his return, Reuveni said: “The first thing I did when I got this case on my desk is ask my clients the same question. Our only arguments are jurisdictional. He should not have been sent to El Salvador.

“My answer to a lot of these questions is going to be frustrating, and I am frustrated. The government made a choice here to produce no evidence.”

Attorney General Pam Bondi took issue with how Reuveni handled the case in court. The next day, she ordered him put on administrative leave by Deputy U.S. Attorney Todd Blanche. He is no longer working on the Abrego Garcia case or in the Justice Department in general.

August Flentje, Reuveni’s supervisor, was also placed on administrative leave. Flentje was told he had failed to supervise a subordinate. 

In a statement to CNN, Bondi said: “At my direction, every Department of Justice attorney is required to zealously advocate on behalf of the United States. Any attorney who fails to abide by this direction will face consequences.”

Reuveni had been praised as a “top-notched” prosecutor by his superiors in an email announcing his promotion two weeks ago. His crime lay in his failure to “work toward the Fuhrer.