To the Editor:

“Blitzkrieg” is a military tactic combining arms, speed, and surprise, that aims to collapse the enemy without completely destroying it. It was used in WWII to describe military operations of Nazi Germany against Poland, Austria, and other European countries to subdue populations. Trump has modified it for criminal and civil actions against our People to ensure eventual population compliance with an authoritarian state.

The Budget Shutdown is over one issue, to continue government subsidies for health insurance created during Covid, because costs have risen dramatically. Democrats are NOT proposing subsidies for undocumented immigrants; it is already illegal to do so. This is a lie concocted by Trump and the Republican House, and is designed to agitate the uninformed electorate. If the Republicans are successful, many thousands of Americans will lose their healthcare. Rural hospitals cannot accommodate a deluge of uninsured patients in the ER, and will close.

Trump lies that he “has no choice but to fire” furloughed employees (especially those in “Democrat-oriented programs” like health care), and is now disputing whether the government is obliged to eventually pay them, as required by law, and as Trump first promised. The Republican Senate voted down a measure to ensure that the military get paid, only to have “heroic” Trump intervene on their behalf.

In the meantime, the House is still in recess, will not negotiate, and Speaker Johnson will not swear in the newly-elected Democratic Representative from Arizona, who would be the 218th vote to demand all the pedophile Epstein files. It’s reasonable to assume the files will never be released, and that Trump has a very personal, substantial motive for the coverup.
Meanwhile, National Guard from red states has been assigned to blue states’ cities to “protect the actions of ICE” and stop “rampant crime.” According to many witnesses, a week ago Tuesday, at 1 AM in Chicago, armed federal agents rappelled from helicopters into a five-story residential apartment and worked their way through the building, kicking down doors and throwing flash-bang grenades, ordered everyone onto the streets, many who were scantily dressed in sleeping attire, ziptied them, and began taking parents away from their children. The protests were deemed “criminal resistance.” Google it.
Trump is trying to incite violent resistance so that he can advance his long-time position that blue American cities are “hellscapes.” He is the one creating his “American carnage.” It’s in the playbook of every tyrant: first, create unwarranted situations that will surely provoke the public, then exacerbate the response with grossly offensive abuses (the Chicago night raid) and other inappropriately humiliating, aggressive actions) and then claim to require overwhelming powers (the Insurrection Act) to subdue “the rebellion.” It’s an ancient tactic.

The hope is that the American public will be too unaware, too afraid, too tired, too confused and overwhelmed, to respond to the invasion of their Constitutional Rights, especially when it’s not happening to them, personally.

It’s hard to keep up with it all, and that’s the point. Fast and furious, a civil blitzkrieg. And Trump’s got a country to invade (Venezuela), another to prop up financially (Argentina) with $2 Billion and save Treasury Secretary Bessant’s investor friends, and still another (Qatar) to allow to build an air field in Idaho, and train with American troops as part of the Gaza Agreement. Oh! and a gold-festooned ballroom to plan!

But no health care subsidies for American citizens, many in red states.

I acknowledge the completion of Phase I of the Gaza Agreement, the ceasefire and hostage return (thank God). Gaza is nearly completely destroyed at this point, 67,000 Gazans killed, and Phase II is horrifically challenging. Trump did take advantage of the disastrous Israeli attack on Doha that scared Quatar and compromised Netanyahu, and the murderous collapse of Gaza that caused international outrage. Monday, Trump praised Bibi as “a great leader, a great man.”

Trump plans to form a “Board of Peace” for Gaza, with himself in charge, and has already dispatched “indispensable” Jared Kushner and Tony Blair to reimagine Gaza with all manner of high-class vacation amenities as soon as the surviving Gazans disappear. After all, in tragedy and confusion, there is profit.

Kelly Scoles,

Fillmore, Ca