Ivanka Trump Prototype Dies at 88

There continue to be parallels between 1930-1940's Germany and 2018 America.  One is that both Germany of that era and America today had/have their "blonde princess" who brazenly refused to admit the ugliness and evil of their fathers.  For Germany, it was Gudrun Himmler, the true-believing daughter of Heinrich Himmler (for Fox News viewers, Hitler's second in command).  For 2018 America, it is Ivanka Trump Kushner.  The Washington Post looks at the death of Himmler's daughter who remained unrepentant to the end and denied the existence of the Holocaust and helped provide money and comfort to former Nazis convicted or suspected of war crimes.  After a visit to Dachau, Himmler's daughter described the experience as :very nice."  Under the regime of her father, Ivanka looks the other way as toddlers are ripped from their parents and now are being hauled before deportation courts alone and unaccompanied by adults known to them. Here are highlights from the Post coverage of the death of Himmler's daughter:

Gudrun Burwitz, the true-believing daughter of Heinrich Himmler, the architect of the Holocaust and Nazi Germany’s highest-ranking official after Adolf Hitler, died May 24 in or near Munich. She was 88.

 Mrs. Burwitz, who was sometimes called a “Nazi princess” by supporters and detractors alike, remained unrepentant and loyal to her father to the end. Although she had visited a concentration camp, she denied the existence of the Holocaust and, in later years, helped provide money and comfort to former Nazis convicted or suspected of war crimes. 

At the time of her birth in 1929, her father was consolidating power as leader of the elite Nazi paramilitary corps known as the SS. Himmler also commanded the German secret police, the Gestapo, and established the system of prison and concentration camps in which more than 6 million people — primarily Jews but also Roma (or Gypsies), homosexuals and others — would perish.The only person who outranked Himmler in the Nazi hierarchy was Hitler himself.

Throughout the 1930s and early 1940s, the bespectacled, undistinguished-looking Himmler enjoyed having Gudrun at his side, as a blond, blue-eyed symbol of Aryan youth. In a diary later seized by Allied authorities, she noted that she liked to see her reflection in her father’s polished boots. She attended Christmas parties with Hitler, who gave her dolls and chocolates. 

When she was 12, Gudrun accompanied her father to the Dachau concentration camp, which was the site of Nazi medical experiments and the execution of tens of thousands of people.Gudrun recalled the visit in her diary: “Today we went to the SS concentration camp at Dachau. We saw everything we could. We saw the gardening work. We saw the pear trees. We saw all the pictures painted by the prisoners. Marvelous.  “And afterward we had a lot to eat. It was very nice.”

Gudrun Margarete Elfriede Emma Anna Himmler was born Aug. 8, 1929, in Munich. Except for a brief interview in 1959, she is not known to have spoken in public about her father or her later life.

She did, however, often wear a silver brooch given to her by her father, depicting the heads of four horses arranged in the shape of a swastika. She was also known to be active in a group called “Stille Hilfe,” or silent help, which was formed in the 1940s to help Nazi fugitives flee Germany, particularly to South America, and to support their families.

The organization is “closely linked to a number of outlawed neo-Nazi movements and actively promotes revisionism — the notion that the Holocaust never happened and Jews caused their own downfall,” Andrea Roepke, a German authority on neo-Nazis, told Britain’s Daily Mail newspaper in 1998.

Among followers of the group, Mrs. Burwitz was “a dazzling Nazi princess, a deity among these believers in the old times,” according to German author Oliver Schrom, who wrote a book about Stille Hilfe.

Mrs. Burwitz attended underground reunions of Nazi SS officers, often held in Austria, possibly as recently as 2014. . . . Mrs. Burwitz also provided support, through Stille Hilfe, to convicted Nazi war criminals, including Klaus Barbie, an SS officer dubbed the “Butcher of Lyon,” and Anton “Beautiful Tony” Malloth, who was convicted of killing prisoners at the Theresienstadt concentration camp.

Am I being too harsh on Ivanka?  I don't believe so. 

Where to Shop, Not Shop for the Holidays

Stores to boycott and/or contact with complaints about anti-equality brands

The husband and I believe in not giving financial support to businesses and vendors that are hostile to LGBT equality and same sex marriage.  The same applies to anti-LGBT "charities" like The Salvation Army or locally, The Union Mission that have a documented history of anti-LGBT bigotry or refusing to provide services to LGBT individuals and/or couples.  This year boycotting companies that are anti-LGBT takes on new urgency as Donald Trump/Mike Pence prepare to unleash and anti-LGBT jihad in payback to the 81% of gay hating evangelical Christians who helped elect them. Already, Trump's named picks for Attorney General and Secretary f Education ought to be causing LGBT Americans to have nightmares.  Things will get even worse once Trump makes a selection from his list of anti-LGBT zealots on his Supreme Court nominee list.  The Advocate has an article that looks at companies that deserve LGBT patronage and those that do not.  Another source of information is the Human Rights Campaign's corporate equality index.  Why give your hard earned money those who hate you and want to keep you a third class citizen. 

This year, an added consideration is the need to avoid retailers that carry Trump brand goods, including Ivanka Trump's clothing line.  Equally important is the need to contact these retailers and let them know that their decision means that you and others will choose to spend your money elsewhere.  Yes, it takes time and effort, but over time, businesses can be educated to come to view being anti-equality as being very bad for business.

Please read these sources and spend your money wisely at businesses that support equality and religious freedom for all Americans, not just right wing "Christians."  Encourage supportive friends and family members to do the same. 

Leaked Trump Speech - Lies and False Statistics

A look a like with our dog give Trump his due

The Fuhrer Donald Trump is about to speak at the GOP convention and a leaked copy of his speech suggests that true to form we will hear lies and false statistics.  Its a trait the is now the norm in the Republican Party and, in my view, traces back to when the Christofascists hijacked the party base. No one lies more than the "godly folk" other than perhaps Trump himself and his children - I am feeling in need of a vomit bag as I listen to Ivanka (seemingly an Eva Peron want to be) blather claims about her father that do not tract with reality.  The Daily Beast looks at what we can expect.  Here are highlights:

A draft of Donald Trump’s Republican National Convention speech was leaked on Thursday, hours before he was set to deliver what is the most important speech of his life and accept his party’s presidential nomination.

Like many of the speeches at this year’s GOP convention, Trump’s will feature themes of law and order as the party’s nominee attempts to capitalize on recent tragedies and terror attacks around the world.
 According to the prepared remarks—which matched up with excerpts released earlier by the campaign—Trump addresses crime and safety issues early on in the speech, accusing President Obama and Hillary Clinton of leaving the country and the world less safe.
 But the bleak picture he paints often does not line up with the facts, using over-inflated statistics and questionable generalizations when discussing matters of crime, justice, immigration, and national security.
 Trump will say that homicides increased by 17 percent from last year in the country’s 50 largest cities. He will not say, however, that the national homicide rate hit a four-decade low last year, according to the FBI. 
 Trump’s dubious contentions are not limited to law and order issues. The billionaire businessman claims 14 million people “left the workplace entirely.” For context, the current workforce has 4.6 million more people than in 2009. He will criticize Obama on the national debt, claiming it doubled. It has actually increased from $11.1 trillion to $19.2 trillion.
 Trump also suggests that Clinton is responsible for the creation of ISIS in the Middle East—even though the group did not formally split from al Qaeda until after she left office. He suggests that sanctions on Iran decreased during her tenure in government; in fact, they increased.
 Additionally, he incorrectly states that Egypt was “turned over” to the Muslim Brotherhood, “forcing the military to retake control.” In 2012, Mohammed Morsi, the former leader of the Muslim Brotherhood, was democratically elected and subsequently ousted from power by the military one year later.

The speech was leaked on Thursday to a super PAC supporting Hillary Clinton. The PAC, Correct the Record, says it received a copy of the speech from a “Republican source who had access to it.” David Brock, the group’s founder, said the leak is evidence that the Trump campaign is “loose and disorganized.”