Some Short 'Comments' Made on a Variety of Events, in Late 2025
"Either this nation shall kill racism, or racism shall kill this nation." (S. Jonas, August 2018)
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"How do you spell ICE in German? GESTAPO."
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"First, they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out because I was not a socialist.
"Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out because I was not a trade unionist.
"Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out because I was not a Jew.
"Then they came for me and there was no one left to speak for me." Pastor Martin Niemoller (c. 1946)
This column consists of a series of Comments that I made on Steve Schmidt's (great) Substack (ste veschmidt.substack.com/), in late 2025. In part, they provide a summary of my perspectives on what our nation faces as we head into Year 2 of what I call the "TrumpRepubloFascist" Presidency (Click Here). The dates of posting precede each entry.
12-4-25: Trump speaks his own version of English. It's called "Trumplish." Like any language, its general purpose is to enable communication between members of the same species, who speak the same language (of which there are many, many around the globe). But Trumplish has one particular purpose at any given time, and that is for distracting from a particular subject, from which Trump wants to distract folks.
For all but the totally uninitiated, that subject can be subsumed in one word "Epstein." And so, when anyone says "Epstein," in Trumplish the word appears as, for example: "aliens" (even when the designated persons have full legal rights, of one kind or another, [including citizenship, whether by birth or by naturalization] to be in the U.S.); "Venezuela," or "Venezuelan cocaine trafficking" (even though Venezuela does not grow cocaine, and if it did it would not transport a highly soluble powder in any sort of bag in an open boat), and as for trafficking, Trump, as is well known, just pardoned one of the historically biggest cocaine traffickers (a former President of Honduras); "Tariffs" (even though, despite Trump's claims, tariffs are making a variety of goods more expensive in the U.S.) And so on and so forth. As it happens all of them variations on Trick No. 2 of his "Seven Magic Tricks:" Click Here --- "Look! Over there!).
12-4-25: On the origins of the modern (Post World War I) Germany and Adolf Hitler's anti-Semitisim. As is well-known, in the early 1920s Hitler was an immigrant to Germany, from the then new nation-state of Austria, the creation of which followed the break-up of the Austro-Hungarian Empire following the end of World War I (resulting from the defeat of the Prussian Empire in the same war). A principal cause of the very bad way in which the new nation of "Germany" found itself in the 1920s were the onerous economic terms imposed upon it by the Treaty of Versailles. Hitler was an early joiner of, and principal speaker for (he was very good at that), the then-nascent far right-wing, Nazi Party, which had a particular focus on "the Jews." However, from the beginning the focus on "The Jews" as the enemy, was for political purposes. That focus, as is well known, proved to be very successful politically, and to where it eventually led substantively is very well known. But Nazi-German anti-Semitism began as a political tool of a then-nascent, far-right-wing party. Expulsion, and then extermination, came later. (BTW, not well-known is the fact that an early foreign contributor to that party was a U.S. named George Herbert Walker. Does that name sound familiar?)
12-5-25. The White House has launched what they entitle the "Offender Hall of Shame" (whitehouse.gov/mediabias/). Its members consist of print and electronic media that publish content that is critical of the Trump Administration and its policies. The idiomatic German translation of the term is "Die Luegen Presse" (in English "The Lying Press.") It was a term widely used by the German Nazi Party before the Nazi dictatorship was established in early 1933. Many of the identified newspapers and other print media had their offices physically attacked and either destroyed or severely damaged by the Nazi's private militia, Die Sturmabteilung, the "SA," "The Storm Division," the Brown Shirts. After the establishment of the Hitler Dictatorship by the "Enabling Act" of March 23, 1933, Die Luegen Presse members were simply, and totally, shut down, with most of their staff either killed outright or imprisoned in the newly established "Concentration Camps." (The name reflected the literal jamming in of however many Nazi captives could be "concentrated" into them.)
12-7-25. As it was characterized by Pres. Franklin Delano Roosevelt in his famous speech to the Congress on Dec. 8, asking for a Declaration of War on Japan following the attack on Pearl Harbor on this date 65 years ago, December 7, 1941, it was famously "a date that shall live in infamy." And so, it has lived down to the present time. (Indeed, as a small boy listening to the speech in my parents' living room, I remember it well.) To which date that shall also live in infamy, Trump and the TrumpRepubloFascists have added another, Jan 6, 2021.
12-7-25. "The Susy Wiles Interviews." Let me try to start to frame the question that is now on the minds of many: why did she do this interview-in-stages, over a period of months from the beginning of Trump II (in multiple choice): A) She had turned on Trump, privately, and wanted to use her position to document the horrors she knew were coming; B) she really wants to quit, but thought that putting out this material would instead force Trump to fire her (why she would want that outcome would be revealed on/after the firing); C) she really wanted to give it to every single hyper-male chauvinist in the group (that is, likely, all of them), and could not think of a better way to do it; D) the release at this time is all planned out to cover a blockade/invasion-of Venezuela; E) she is just plain nuts. There are other possible reasons, to be sure. And Steve will have his own list, I'm sure. As will we all, I will be following the next steps in this drama with great interest.
12-28-25. I (and many, many others) think that there is plenty more to learn from further release of the "Epstein Files." If there weren't, why would they be so slow in releasing them? Certainly, the "nine-blacked-out-names" of "prominent people" have not been blacked-out for no politically significant reason. If it were just to "protect the innocent" they wouldn't have released Clinton's name. And who knows, one or more of "The Nine" might just be ready to turn on Trump, in spite of the DOJ's attempted-Trump-Wall.
12-29-25. In Germany, in the early 1930s, there were two socialist parties. One was the Socialist Party of Germany (SPD) which believed in the "parliamentary road to socialism." The other was the Communist Party of Germany (KPD) which believed in the (Leninist) Doctrine that only violent revolution could lead the way to the establishment of a socialist state. The KPD was part of an international socialist-party alliance called the Third International, led from Moscow by Josef Stalin. Among other things, Stalin forbade the KPD from forming a parliamentary alliance with the SPD which might (and one must say might advisedly) prevented the confirmation of Pres. Hindenburg's nomination of Hitler as Chancellor. At the same time, the Third International and the KPD strongly attacked the SPD and its leadership. I believe that there is a (history-to-be-sure) lesson to be learned here if the eventual defeat of the TrumpRepubloFascist dictatorship (Click Here) is to be achieved.
12-29-25. When the British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain was "appeasing" Hitler at Munich on Sept. 30, 1938, he did honestly think that he was "achieving Peace in or Time" (he was, of course, keeping the Soviet Red Army, which was ready to come to the aid of Czechoslovakia against the Wehrmacht, out of Central Europe)? What Trump is doing/not-doing with/for Putin has nothing to do with peace, in Ukraine or anywhere else. It all has to do with what Putin "has on" Trump. Just four items in a longer list includes: 1. The details the "DeutscheBank" affair; 2. The details (of course) of Russian interference in the 2016 election (for the details from the U.S. side, see the Mueller Report); 3. Putin's interpreter's notes from the famous "2018 Helsinki meeting" (Trump had his interpreter's notes destroyed); and 4. Roger Stone and the "DNC tapes," supplied to him by Julian Assange (who got them from where?), which Stone then conveniently "dropped" a couple of hours after the "Access Hollywood" tape was released.
And so, to next week, when I will be dealing with the frank fascist (and I do mean Fascist*) threat the TrumpRepubloFascists present to our nation.
* "Fascism," a definition: "There is a single, all-powerful executive branch of government, in service of an industrial/financial/sales-and-marketing/communications ruling class, that controls, for the most part, the functions of production, distribution, finance, and exchange. There is no separation of the principal governmental powers: executive, legislative, and judicial. They are all held by the Executive branch. There is no independent judiciary/civil/criminal/justice system. There are no independent media. There is a single national ideology, based on some combination of racism, misogyny, religious bigotry, authoritarianism, homophobia, and xenophobia. There is a political party supporting the movement. There is a state propaganda machine using the big and little lie techniques. There may be a full-blown dictatorship, a charismatic leader, engagement in foreign wars, and the use of the mob/private armies to enforce governmental control."