Anslinger Being Tough?
Harry Anslinger was a United States government official who served as the first commissioner of the U.S. Treasury Department’s Federal Bureau of Narcotics. He was a supporter of prohibition and the criminalization of drugs, and played a pivotal role in cannabis prohibition. [1]
Excerpt from the book:
Many people assume what we call the War on Drugs began in 1971 during the Nixon Administration. Some believe “the War” began during Prohibition due to the relentless efforts of a racist and moralist federal agent named Harry Anslinger. [2]
Continuing later in the book:
Anslinger was a bureaucratic empire-builder and he saw marijuana as the leverage needed to expand the size and power of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics. He railed against the use of reefer, weed, or pot by blacks, particularly black entertainers. Anslinger hated jazz with its free-wheeling lack of rigid structure and he equated it with what he viewed as black depravity. Black bandleader Cab Calloway had a 1933 hit song called Reefer Man featured in the movie International House. Anslinger must have been furious. [2]
References:
- Wikipedia, Harry Jacob Anslinger
- Prisoner of War: The Story of White Boy Rick and The War on Drugs by Vince Wade – Page 20, 39
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- What If? – by Art Fettig
Thoughts and Creative Nuggets by Art Fettig that Change People’s Lives
Art Fettig ARCHIVES Home Page | About | Publications | Poems | Music | Videos
(This is something I wrote and used in my Bicentennial speeches nationally in 1976.)
But what if at the battle of Bunker Hill, William Prescott had said, “Don’t one of you fire until you see the whites of their eyes…and I’ll be back tomorrow, fellows, to see how you’re doing.
What if Patrick Henry had said, “Give me liberty—or preferably, time off for good behavior”?
What if those Boston Harbor patriots had said, “We can’t throw that cargo overboard, it’s time for our coffee break..”
What if John Paul Jones had said, “I have not yet begun to fight…but I’d sure prefer some kind of compromise.”?
What if Benjamin Franklin had said, “You guys can all hang together, I’m going out to fly my kite.”
And what if Paul Revere had said, “I can’t ride tonight, fellows…my boy’s over at his girl friend’s with the family horse…?
And what did you say the last time you were asked to do something for America?
Go out today…tomorrow…look around you and be honest… and do something good for America!
Recommended Reading
Art Fettigs The Platinum Rule Available from Amazoncom via our Affiliate Link The Platinum Rule by Art Fettig
The Age Old Secret to Happiness and Prosperity. If you believe in the Golden Rule then, just maybe, you are one of those fortunate few who are ready to take a giant step forwaqrd in your lives to fame, fortune and a great new plateau of personal satisfaction.
Art Fettig has identified a little known key to wealth and happiness in his book The Platinum rule. I hope that millions of people discover this little book and apply this giving formula. Trul their lives will be enriched and certainly this will be a better world.” – The Wickman Formula, Executive Press 1991
- Trump Graffiti’s Washington DC Monuments
Pixabay John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts
“As the president graffitis his name to beloved institutions and builds monuments to his own vanity, we must focus on how much fun it will be to tear it all down.” – The New Republic, Matt Ford, December 20, 2025 – The Immanent Joy of Detrumpification
U.S. Institute of Peace
The building that houses the U.S. Institute of Peace was renamed as the Donald J. Trump U.S. Institute of Peace earlier in December 2025, reflecting the administration’s rebranding.
Wait, there might be more!
Memorial Circle Arch
Trump has publicly proposed a monumental triumphal arch in Washington, D.C., informally dubbed by media as the “Arc de Trump.” It’s intended to celebrate the Semiquincentennial (250th anniversary of the U.S.) and could become a Trump-associated monument if built. – Wikipedia, Memorial Circle arch
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Amazoncom Available from Amazoncom via our Affiliate Link Donald Trump and Adolf Hitler: Making A Serious Comparison by Horace Bloom
How dare you compare Donald Trump to Adolf Hitler! Haven’t you heard of Godwin’s Law?
Let’s talk about this. There’s a cultural taboo against considering Nazi ideology in the context of present day politics. Donald Trump and Adolf Hitler by Horace Bloom confronts this taboo with responsibility, entering into a serious examination of the political histories of the Third Reich and our own time. Bloom’s work isn’t a diatribe, but carefully pays attention to both the similarities and differences between Donald Trump and Adolf Hitler, and the contexts in which they have risen to power.
With the spread of political violence in the United States, and growing extremism in the 2016 presidential election, the comparison between Trump and Hitler has become unavoidable. However, a presidential candidate as breathtakingly original as Donald Trump deserves more than just a snigger here and a snide remark there. Horace Bloom delivers a powerful review of the relevance of the darkest days the 20th century to the essential decisions we are faced with in our own time.
Don’t cast your vote in the 2016 presidential election without confronting the complex web of connections between Trump and Hitler.
- NewsQuill’s Recommended Reading List
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Amazoncom Available from Amazoncom via our Affiliate Link The Early 2000s conjures images of inflatable furniture, flip phones, and low-rise jeans. It was a new millennium and the future looked bright, promising prosperity for all. The internet had arrived, and technology was shiny and fun. For many, it felt like the end of history: no more wars, racism, or sexism. But then history kept happening. Twenty-five years after the ball dropped on December 31st, 1999, we are still living in the shadows of the Y2K Era.
In Y2K, one of our most brilliant young critics Colette Shade offers a darkly funny meditation on everything from the pop culture to the political economy of the period. By close reading Y2K artifacts like the Hummer H2, Smash Mouth’s “All Star,” body glitter, AOL chatrooms, Total Request Live, and early internet porn, Shade produces an affectionate yet searing critique of a decade that started with a boom and ended with a crash.
In one essay Colette unpacks how hearing Ludacris’s hit song “What’s Your Fantasy” shaped a generation’s sexual awakening; in another she interrogates how her eating disorder developed as rail-thin models from the collapsed USSR flooded the pages of Vogue; in another she reveals how the McMansion became an ominous symbol of the housing collapse.
Perfect for fans of Jia Tolentino and Chuck Klosterman, Y2K is the first book to fully reckon with the mixed legacy of the Y2K Era—a perfectly timed collection that holds a startling mirror to our past, present, and future.
- Art Fettig – Interacting to Communicate
Thoughts and Creative Nuggets by Art Fettig that Change People’s Lives
Art Fettig ARCHIVES Home Page | About | Publications | Poems | Music | VideosA very short video nugget showing Art Fettig, author, humorist and professional speaker, at a safety presentation for the military in Hawaii.
Recommended Reading
Art Fettigs The Platinum Rule Available from Amazoncom via our Affiliate Link The Platinum Rule by Art Fettig
The Age Old Secret to Happiness and Prosperity. If you believe in the Golden Rule then, just maybe, you are one of those fortunate few who are ready to take a giant step forwaqrd in your lives to fame, fortune and a great new plateau of personal satisfaction.
Art Fettig has identified a little known key to wealth and happiness in his book The Platinum rule. I hope that millions of people discover this little book and apply this giving formula. Trul their lives will be enriched and certainly this will be a better world.” – The Wickman Formula, Executive Press 1991
- Horse Manure and Journalism – by Art Fettig
Thoughts and Creative Nuggets by Art Fettig that Change People’s Lives
Art Fettig ARCHIVES Home Page | About | Publications | Poems | Music | Videos
I just made up a new game that I play when I listen to political newscasts. I try hard to play it silently. Whenever a reporter cites an unidentified high level source from anywhere, I say to myself, (Horse Manure!) and I smile. What they are saying is, “I can’t verify this folks, but isn’t it cute or interesting?” Or when a reporter says, “A number of people are asking…” Again I say, “Horse Manure!” That is about the same as saying, “I was just wondering…”
You can use your own retorts. “Horse Manure!” isn’t really mine. I don’t think that there are any standards or ethics or reliability or even much truth involved in many of the alleged news broadcasts today. The news is driven by ratings. High ratings bring in more advertising revenue. I often believe that imagination run wild and rumors just wishes are the basis of many stories. Once you become convinced that it is all a little game that is going on twenty four hours a day ad nauseam you might consider a new hobby to spend your time away from the screen. How about writing a blog?
Recommended Reading
Art Fettigs The Platinum Rule Available from Amazoncom via our Affiliate Link The Platinum Rule by Art Fettig
The Age Old Secret to Happiness and Prosperity. If you believe in the Golden Rule then, just maybe, you are one of those fortunate few who are ready to take a giant step forwaqrd in your lives to fame, fortune and a great new plateau of personal satisfaction.
Art Fettig has identified a little known key to wealth and happiness in his book The Platinum rule. I hope that millions of people discover this little book and apply this giving formula. Trul their lives will be enriched and certainly this will be a better world.” – The Wickman Formula, Executive Press 1991
- Trump’s Response to Rob Reiner’s Murder
Trump Inciting More Violence?
Trump posted a message on his social platform Truth Social after the couple were found murdered in their Los Angeles home. He called Rob Reiner “a tortured and struggling, but once very talented movie director and comedy star.”
Instead of offering a standard condolence, Trump’s statement linked Reiner’s death to what he calls “Trump Derangement Syndrome” — a phrase he uses to mock critics — saying Reiner’s intense criticism of him had “driven people crazy.”
Trump framed the tragic deaths not simply as a loss, but in a combative, politicized way focused on Reiner’s past opposition to him.
Media outlets and public figures widely criticized Trump’s remarks as insensitive and inappropriate, especially coming so soon after a violent crime.
Many commentators described his post as mocking the deceased and shifting blame onto Reiner’s political views rather than expressing sympathy for the victims.
References:
- CNN.com, Samantha Waldenberg, December 15, 2025 – Trump offers incendiary political message about Rob Reiner’s death
Recommended Reading
Amazoncom Available from Amazoncom via our Affiliate Link Donald Trump and Adolf Hitler: Making A Serious Comparison by Horace Bloom
How dare you compare Donald Trump to Adolf Hitler! Haven’t you heard of Godwin’s Law?
Let’s talk about this. There’s a cultural taboo against considering Nazi ideology in the context of present day politics. Donald Trump and Adolf Hitler by Horace Bloom confronts this taboo with responsibility, entering into a serious examination of the political histories of the Third Reich and our own time. Bloom’s work isn’t a diatribe, but carefully pays attention to both the similarities and differences between Donald Trump and Adolf Hitler, and the contexts in which they have risen to power.
With the spread of political violence in the United States, and growing extremism in the 2016 presidential election, the comparison between Trump and Hitler has become unavoidable. However, a presidential candidate as breathtakingly original as Donald Trump deserves more than just a snigger here and a snide remark there. Horace Bloom delivers a powerful review of the relevance of the darkest days the 20th century to the essential decisions we are faced with in our own time.
Don’t cast your vote in the 2016 presidential election without confronting the complex web of connections between Trump and Hitler.
- Confidence is Silent. Insecurities are Loud – by Ross Reck
Pixabay There was a time when I was intimidated by loud people. I used to think that their loudness communicated confidence and superiority! Then I found out the truth. Their loudness communicates fear and insecurity! In fact, the louder they are, the higher their level of insecurity. They speak loudly to keep you at a distance. They don’t want you to get too close to them because they don’t want you to find out the truth about who they really are–phonies! At the same time, they are in constant need of reinforcement that they’re okay. So how do you handle such people? First, don’t be intimidate by their loudness; realize it’s a coverup for insecurity. Second, show them a little kindness, ask them a few questions about them, and listen to what they have to say. If you do this, you’ll be amazed at how quickly they calm down and start acting like normal, caring people.
References:
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Instant Turnaround Getting People Excited About Coming to Work and Working Hard Available from Amazoncom via our Affiliate Link Instant Turnaround!: Getting People Excited About Coming to Work and Working Hard
Transform Your Workplace!
Imagine a company where people are excited about coming to work and giving their best efforts every day. In this innovative and engrossing business parable, Harry Paul and Ross Reck show managers at all levels how they can immediately and easily increase productivity by tapping into the discretionary effort of the people who work for them. Starting from the most basic aspect of business reality—that people intentionally regulate the amount of effort they put into their jobs based upon how they feel they’re being treated—the authors point out that the most important part of the job of every manager, team leader, supervisor, and executive is to treat people in such a way that they become excited about applying all their discretionary effort toward performing their jobs.
At the book’s center is the story of Nancy Kim, a human resources director at a magazine that is struggling with all the problems associated with unhappy employees—low productivity and morale along with high absenteeism and turnover. After she openly challenges the CEO’s new management-by-the-numbers system, she’s charged with turning the situation around immediately. Filled with real-world studies, Instant Turnaround! shows anyone how to turn the workplace into a destination—a place where working hard feels like hardly working because it’s engaging, enjoyable, and fulfilling.
- Today – by Art Fettig
Thoughts and Creative Nuggets by Art Fettig that Change People’s Lives
Art Fettig ARCHIVES Home Page | About | Publications | Poems | Music | Videos
Originally published on September 4, 2017
There are a lot of wonderful quotes around expressing the idea that all we have is today. That is becoming more and more important to me with each passing moment as I race forward into my third childhood. It seems that recently not a day passes without my reflecting on that question coming up again, “What haven’t I done with this day that I should have or might have done?”
Exercise. I write that down on my list every morning and often I find it is already 10 PM and I haven’t done anything but ride my stationary bicycle for twenty minutes. There are five other things I try to do involving standing, laying on the floor, standing against a door jam, using light weights and walking. When I do them all my agility improves.
Mind exercises. I do some memory exercises during the day, perhaps while walking. I used to take long walks and run through my speech material reciting one story after another mentally. If I was in a secluded spot I might do them out loud working on the rhythms and timing or the vocal varieties such as a whisper or a shout. When I go to bed I sometimes see if I can remember the titles of the sixty or so songs that I have written. Last night I got to fifty seven. When I was really doing a lot of speaking I used to remember the names of up to a hundred different bits, or clumps or vignettes. They were speech segments, most lasting about seven minutes or so. Over the years my dear friend, Terry Pochert, who has done my video presentations for our clients, has captured about thirty or more of those.
Contacts. For some reason I don’t do much on Facebook. When I was playing that character Almost Andy as an Andy Griffith look alike a lot of strangers flocked to my Facebook site but I never explored it. Soon it seemed to me to be a place where others met to exchange conversations that I was in no way involved in. I never took the time to figure Facebook out. I still keep in touch with others by e-mail or by this Monday Morning Memo.
Like most old dogs I have observed over the years, I am not learning a whole lot of new tricks. Trouble is I am forgetting a whole lot of the old ones.
Recommended Reading
Art Fettigs The Platinum Rule Available from Amazoncom via our Affiliate Link The Platinum Rule by Art Fettig
The Age Old Secret to Happiness and Prosperity. If you believe in the Golden Rule then, just maybe, you are one of those fortunate few who are ready to take a giant step forwaqrd in your lives to fame, fortune and a great new plateau of personal satisfaction.
Art Fettig has identified a little known key to wealth and happiness in his book The Platinum rule. I hope that millions of people discover this little book and apply this giving formula. Trul their lives will be enriched and certainly this will be a better world.” – The Wickman Formula, Executive Press 1991
- Fox News – “Propaganda Machine”
Fake News “Over my decade with Fox, I long was proud of the association,” Col. Ralph Peters wrote in an email to colleagues. “Now I am ashamed.” [1]
On March 1st, I informed Fox that I would not renew my contract. The purpose of this message to all of you is twofold:
First, I must thank each of you for the cooperation and support you’ve shown me over the years. Those working off-camera, the bookers and producers, don’t often get the recognition you deserve, but I want you to know that I have always appreciated the challenges you face and the skill with which you master them.
Second, I feel compelled to explain why I have to leave. Four decades ago, I took an oath as a newly commissioned officer. I swore to “support and defend the Constitution,” and that oath did not expire when I took off my uniform. Today, I feel that Fox News is assaulting our constitutional order and the rule of law, while fostering corrosive and unjustified paranoia among viewers. Over my decade with Fox, I long was proud of the association. Now I am ashamed.
In my view, Fox has degenerated from providing a legitimate and much-needed outlet for conservative voices to a mere propaganda machine for a destructive and ethically ruinous administration. When prime-time hosts–who have never served our country in any capacity–dismiss facts and empirical reality to launch profoundly dishonest assaults on the FBI, the Justice Department, the courts, the intelligence community (in which I served) and, not least, a model public servant and genuine war hero such as Robert Mueller–all the while scaremongering with lurid warnings of “deep-state” machinations– I cannot be part of the same organization, even at a remove. To me, Fox News is now wittingly harming our system of government for profit.
As a Russia analyst for many years, it also has appalled me that hosts who made their reputations as super-patriots and who, justifiably, savaged President Obama for his duplicitous folly with Putin, now advance Putin’s agenda by making light of Russian penetration of our elections and the Trump campaign. Despite increasingly pathetic denials, it turns out that the “nothing-burger” has been covered with Russian dressing all along. And by the way: As an intelligence professional, I can tell you that the Steele dossier rings true–that’s how the Russians do things.. The result is that we have an American president who is terrified of his counterpart in Moscow.
I do not apply the above criticisms in full to Fox Business, where numerous hosts retain a respect for facts and maintain a measure of integrity (nor is every host at Fox News a propaganda mouthpiece–some have shown courage). I have enjoyed and valued my relationship with Fox Business, and I will miss a number of hosts and staff members. You’re the grown-ups.
Also, I deeply respect the hard-news reporters at Fox, who continue to do their best as talented professionals in a poisoned environment. These are some of the best men and women in the business..
So, to all of you: Thanks, and, as our president’s favorite world leader would say, “Das vidanya.”
References:
- Buzzfeed, March 20, 2018, Tom Namako – An “Ashamed” Fox News Commentator Just Quit The “Propaganda Machine”
Recommended Reading
Amazoncom Available from Amazoncom Judgment at Appomattox: A Novel (The Battle Hymn Cycle)
The ferocious final weeks of the Civil War come alive in Judgment at Appomattox, the final novel of New York Times bestselling author Ralph Peters’s breathtaking, Boyd Award-winning series
A great war nears its end. Robert E. Lee makes a desperate, dramatic gamble. It fails. Ulysses S. Grant moves. Veteran armies clash around Petersburg, Virginia, as Grant seeks to surround Lee and Lee makes a skillful withdrawal in the night. Richmond falls.
Each day brings new combat and more casualties, as Lee’s exhausted, hungry troops race to preserve the Confederacy. But Grant does not intend to let Lee escape…
In one of the most thrilling episodes in American history, heroes North and South, John Brown Gordon and Phillip Sheridan, James Longstreet and Francis Channing Barlow, battle each other across southern Virginia as the armies converge on a sleepy country court house.
Written with the literary flair and historical accuracy readers expect from Ralph Peters, Judgment at Appomattox takes us through the Civil War’s last grim interludes of combat as flags fall and hearts break. Capping the author’s acclaimed five-novel cycle on the war in the East, this “dramatized history” pays homage to all the soldiers who fought, from an Irish-immigrant private wearing gray, to the “boy generals” who mastered modern war. This is a grand climax to a great, prize-winning series that honors―and reveals―America’s past.
Recommended Reading
American Crucible: Race and Nation in the Twentieth Century
Amazoncom Available from Amazoncom via our Affiliate Link This sweeping history of twentieth-century America follows the changing and often conflicting ideas about the fundamental nature of American society: Is the United States a social melting pot, as our civic creed warrants, or is full citizenship somehow reserved for those who are white and of the “right” ancestry? Gary Gerstle traces the forces of civic and racial nationalism, arguing that both profoundly shaped our society.
After Theodore Roosevelt led his Rough Riders to victory during the Spanish American War, he boasted of the diversity of his men’s origins- from the Kentucky backwoods to the Irish, Italian, and Jewish neighborhoods of northeastern cities. Roosevelt’s vision of a hybrid and superior “American race,” strengthened by war, would inspire the social, diplomatic, and economic policies of American liberals for decades. And yet, for all of its appeal to the civic principles of inclusion, this liberal legacy was grounded in “Anglo-Saxon” culture, making it difficult in particular for Jews and Italians and especially for Asians and African Americans to gain acceptance.
Gerstle weaves a compelling story of events, institutions, and ideas that played on perceptions of ethnic/racial difference, from the world wars and the labor movement to the New Deal and Hollywood to the Cold War and the civil rights movement. We witness the remnants of racial thinking among such liberals as FDR and LBJ; we see how Italians and Jews from Frank Capra to the creators of Superman perpetuated the New Deal philosophy while suppressing their own ethnicity; we feel the frustrations of African-American servicemen denied the opportunity to fight for their country and the moral outrage of more recent black activists, including Martin Luther King, Jr., Fannie Lou Hamer, and Malcolm X.
Gerstle argues that the civil rights movement and Vietnam broke the liberal nation apart, and his analysis of this upheaval leads him to assess Reagan’s and Clinton’s attempts to resurrect nationalism. Can the United States ever live up to its civic creed? For anyone who views racism as an aberration from the liberal premises of the republic, this book is must reading.
Containing a new chapter that reconstructs and dissects the major struggles over race and nation in an era defined by the War on Terror and by the presidency of Barack Obama, American Crucible is a must-read for anyone who views racism as an aberration from the liberal premises of the republic. - Seeking Synergism – by Art Fettig
Thoughts and Creative Nuggets by Art Fettig that Change People’s Lives
Art Fettig ARCHIVES Home Page | About | Publications | Poems | Music | Videos
Synergy Did you ever dip into the meaning of the word “Synergism” synergism (noun) the interaction or cooperation of two or more organizations, substances, or other agents to produce a combined effect greater than the sum of their separate effects. Ever so often when I encounter that word I have a flood of good memories gushing into my mind.
Take the years I worked with Dr. G. Herbert True at Notre Dame. When we’d get together creative sparks would fly across the room. He sort of mentored me in the speaking business. My earning and learning took leaps forward under his wing. He claims I saved his life. I think we saved each other’s. But that is another story.
Terry Pochert, videographer and all around genius. His hours of shooting videos with me in Newfoundland, Michigan, Texas, Hawaii, and Arizona and tedious, patient days of editing resulted in videos that reached a dozen major industries in the U.S. and Canada.
Roger Thurgaland worked with me as a free agent at the Grand Trunk Western Railroad. Together we ground out about fifty audio-visual presentations that I might modestly claim helped change the course of that railroad. Roger was a genius at production and he had a voice that could tempt an angel. Our slide shows, including Operation Lifesaver, (prior to video) are said to have reached millions in conjunction with railroad safety programs. I would hand Roger a tattered sorry script and he would go into our sound room and come out a few hours later with a sound track that would keep me smiling for weeks. What a joy to work with.
Greg Brayton, the music man in my life. For five years our synergy continued to amaze me.
Julius Carrasco, a genius Flamenco World Class Guitarist who found worth in my poor efforts.. He amplified my bongo drums and brought new meaning to my life.
How you find people like this? When Thomas Edison was asked where he got his ideas from said, “They are all around us in the ether of the air. You have to look for them.”
In my case these people appeared in my life when I needed them most. Picture them in your mind and keep on searching.
Recommended Reading
Art Fettigs The Platinum Rule Available from Amazoncom via our Affiliate Link The Platinum Rule by Art Fettig
The Age Old Secret to Happiness and Prosperity. If you believe in the Golden Rule then, just maybe, you are one of those fortunate few who are ready to take a giant step forwaqrd in your lives to fame, fortune and a great new plateau of personal satisfaction.
Art Fettig has identified a little known key to wealth and happiness in his book The Platinum rule. I hope that millions of people discover this little book and apply this giving formula. Trul their lives will be enriched and certainly this will be a better world.” – The Wickman Formula, Executive Press 1991
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