***. “Anyone who has proclaimed violence his method inexorably must choose lying as his principle.”
[ Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn ]
this post is the 5th in a series examining the conduct of Donald John Trump, unfortunately president of the United States. Many have concluded Trump has serious mental issues. In 2017 and 2019, 37 psychiatrists and mental health experts expressed alarm in “The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump.” Several years later, another group examined Trump’s speech patterns over a multi-year span. – expressed alarm. Even if Trump is “norma,” there is NO debate he is THE anti-George Washington. Now, he has embroiled America, the Middle East, the world in a war of choice. And, of course, he has already told numerous lies and falsehoods.
This post presents excerpts from: “Americans Deserve The Truth About Iran” [ New York Times Editorial; 3/22/26 ]:
10] “Whatever short-term gain mr. Trump thinks he is getting by lying about the war in Iran is far exceeded by the cost, for him, the country and the world.”
3] “..lying about war is uniquely corrosive. When a president signals that the truth does not matter in wartime, he encourages his cabinet and his generals to mislead the country and one another about how the war is going. He creates a culture in which deadly mistakes and even war crimes can become more common. He makes it harder to win by hiding the realities of conflict and by making allies wary of joining the fight. Ultimately, her undermines American values and interests.”
9]. “Lies about war also make it harder to achieve victory: The more one spreads falsehoods, the less one feels obligated to face reality. In one respect, Americans understand that their leaders’ refusal to confront the truth in Iraq and Vietnam led to strategic errors. This pattern is repeating. Before Mr. Trump began this war, he brushed aside warnings from his top military advisor that Iran could close the Strait of Hormuz to traffic it does not approve. The global economy is now dealing with the consequences of his overconfidence.”
4] “There is a reasonable debate to have about the wisdom of this war. Iran’s murderous government does indeed present a threat. – to its own people, to its region and to global stability. Mr. Trump could make a fact-based argument for confronting the regime now, especially to prevent it from menacing its neighbors and, above all, from developing a nuclear weapon…. Mr. Trump is not making it. Instead, he has lied about the reasons for the war and about its progress, an an apparent attempt to disguise his poor planning and the war’s questionable basis.”
***. “The first casualty of war is truth.” { Aeschylus ]
1] “From his first announcement of the attack on Iran on Feb. 28, President Trump has issued a stream of falsehoods about the war..”
2] “Lying is standard behavior for Mr. Trump, of course. His political career began with a lie about Barack Obama’s birthplace, and he has lied about his business, his wealth, his inauguration crowd size, his defeat in the 2020 election and so much more. A CNN tally of Mr. Trump’s falsehoods during one part of his first term found that he averaged eight false claims per day.”
5]. “the president was only minutes into his Feb. 28 announcement of the start of the conflict when he offered an obviously contradictory rationale for it….The lies have continued since then.”
*** “If you tell a big enough lie and tell it frequently enough, it will be believed.” [ Adolf Hitler ]
6]. “he has also asserted that “nobody” believed Iran would retaliate by attacking Arab countries. On Monday, he said that “no, the greatest experts, nobody thought they were going to hit” neighboring countries. In truth, some experts had warned of precisely this scenario.”
7]. “In another instance, Mr. Trump has used false information to continue his alarming penchant to portray people who contradict him as un-American.”
8]. “A shocking falsehood came on March 7, when Mr. Trump claimed in his typically offhand way that a strike on an elementary school in the town of Minab in †he first hours of war “was done by Iran.” …The U.S. military has conducted an investigation and preliminarily concluded taht an American missile mistakenly hit the school.”
***. “To announce that there must be no criticism of the President, or that we are to stand by the President, right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public.”
[ Theodore Roosevelt; Republican; 26th U.S. President ]
Author: tomdolen
The Trump DICTATORSHIP. – Stupidity, Cruelty, Corruption, Craziness, CLX. – Trump as Incompetent, Stupid, Dangerous War Leader, IV
*** “Foreign policy is effectively the assertion of many individual countries interacting on the global marketplace. And you have to figure out how to get your interest served in a way that meets the interests and needs of these other folks.”
[ John Kerry; former Secretary of State ]
This post is the 4th in a series examining the conduct of Donald John Trump, unfortunately president of the United states. Many, who scientifically examined him and knew him closely have said he was, is, unfit for this office. On Friday, 4/10/26, a very serious discussion occurred on the PBS “News Hour” about Trump’s mental state. Given Trump’s erratic, and, often un-presidential conduct – YOU can expect more of this, not in “hatred of Trump”. but in serious concern. Even if Trump is “normal,” he is THE anti-George Washington, THE anti-Abraham Lincoln.
This post presents excerpts from: “An Unjust War Without Plan or Purpose”. [ Phil Klay; New York Times; 3/22/26 ]:
11] “Power does not grow out of the barrel of a gun, cruelty is not the same as strength, and a politics built on such ideas promises ruin, delusion about the limits of our power and a betrayal of the promise of our founding.”
5] “American leaders have sought to justify our wars as having objectives in keeping with our founding political philosophy. This isn’t simply rhetoric, but about a fundamental view of power and its relationship to violence that filters down to strategy.”
10] “Without a clear moral or political purpose, we’re left with what the military analyst Franz-Stefan Gady calls the “strike-as-strategy” paradox, in which we substitute tactical prowess for comprehensive strategic design. this tendency, he writes, ‘is reinforced by a political culture that demands televised displays of military prowess.”
***. “Where there is no vision, the people perish.” [ Proverbs 29: 18 ]
1] “The justifications for the war have been stunningly incoherent. maybe the war is about regime change, about Iran’s nuclear program, about the narrow military objectives of degrading their ballistic missile and drone capabilities, or perhaps it was because Israel was about to attack and we’d be at risk, or because the United States was under imminent threat from Iran, or to achieve peace in the Middle East, and so on. Maybe it’s not a war at all…Maybe we want “unconditional surrender,” but maybe “unconditional surrender” is a thing that happens inside the president’s mind…Maybe the war is “quite contained,” but maybe Americans throughout the region need to leave. Maybe there will be ground troops and maybe not.” [ follow al of this? got it all figured out???!!!???!!! ]
4] “What these men don’t seem to realize, or care about, is that their language of brute force represents a fundamental break with American traditions around war going back to the Revolution.” [ as in 1776 ]
***. “Donald Trump tells us that he is very smart. I’m afraid that when it comes to foreign policy, he is very, very not smart.” [ Mitt Romney ]
2] “..as I watched a video posted by the White House in which a group of angry, rifle-wielding bowling pins labeled “Iranian Regime Officials” are struck by a Stars and Stripes bowling ball that turns into an airplane, followed by actual combat footage of U.S. airstrikes, I realized how one rationale for this war has remained clear and consistent: the administration’s delight in displays of violence and domination.”
3]. “The men who want to Make America Great Again are searching for a clean break from the Global War on Terror. That conflict was launched with lofty rhetoric about democracy and freedom but led to years of civil war, chaos, swollen ranks of terror groups, genocide, a refugee crisis…”
6] “When Stephan miller talked about our troops not fighting with their hands tied behind their backs, he was referring to a popular conservative myth about the Vietnam War, that we might have won had we only exercised less restraint…perhaps if we’d really gone scorched earth and killed a million more, the Vietnamese would have loved and embraced the rulers we foisted upon them…a particularly vile form of folly. And yet, that attitude seems to be guiding the current administration.”
***. “Wooden-headedness consists of assessing a situation in terms of preconceived, fixed notions while ignoring or rejecting any contrary signs. It is acting to wish while not allowing oneself to be confused by the facts.”
[ Barbara Tuchman ]
7] “A reliance on brute force can be blinding. In one of the more telling comments from the defense secretary, Mr. Hegseth claimed that because we’d taken control of Iran’s airways and waterways, “we control their fate,” and “the terms of this war will be set by us at every step.” a veteran of Iraq like Mr. Hegseth should know better. The enemy always gets a vote..”
8]. ‘..the U.S. energy secretary, Chris Wright, suggested that “Trump’s energy dominance agenda” meant that America need not worry about disruptions to the oil market if war broke out with Iran. Now the president is trying to claim that high gas prices are good for Americans, while urging oil tankers to “show some guts”. and sail through the Strait of Hormuz, and Iran, whose ships can get through, is selling more oil than before the war.”
9] “Robert Pape, an expert on strategic bombing campaigns, has argued that air power without subsequent ground troops has never resulted in a positive regime change.”
***. “War is, at first, the hope that one will be better off; next, the expectation that the other fellow will be worse off; then, the satisfaction that he isn’t any better off; and, finally, the surprise at everyone’s being worse off.”
[ Karl Kraus ]
So – in judging the work of ANY American government – use the Constitution’s Preamble as THE test. “We the People”. created the U.S. government to. “..establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare..”
So – ask YOURSELF. – how does Trump’s war of choice against Iran accomplish these goals? How does ANY Trump DICTATORSHIP policy accomplish these goals [in real life, not rhetoric]????? WHY. – are virtually ALL of America’s traditional friends and allies refusing to enter Trump’s war [do they all ‘hate’ him?]????? WHY did Pope Leo condemn Trump’s war?
***. “Character matters. Leadership descends from character.” [ Rush Limbaugh ]
The Trump DICTATORSHIP. – Stupidity, Cruelty, Corruption, Craziness, CLIX. – Trump as Incompetent, Stupid, Dangerous. War. Leader, III
*** “War is not only destructive, it is sterile of positive result. The most that military victory can do is to provide opportunity to attempt anew the establishment of durable international peace.”
[ Dwight D. Eisenhower; World War II General; 34th U.S. President ]
This post is the 3rd in a series examining the conduct of one Donald John Trump, unfortunately president of the United States, as a wartime leader. Psychiatrists and others who closely watched him have said ‘unfit to be president.” He is the anti-Dwight D. Eisenhower.
This post presents excerpts from: “Pax Americana, Meet Lax Americana” [Carlos Lozada; New York Times; 3/29/26]:
8]. “We are not entering a post-American world, one in which the United States recedes from the stage or stops wielding its military might. Far from it. But we may be entering a post-America world, one in which the meaning of America, the principles and values the country has stood for. – sometimes in reality, sometimes in aspiration. – are fading. And the loss of that America may prove just as damaging, and far more lasting, than any harm Donald Trump’s excursions can inflict.” [NOTE; read this again, slowly, sentence by sentence. “…the meaning of America..” And what Trump and his Rasputins are doing to it…..]
4]. “It means that what we once called Pax Americana, that U.S.-led system of alliances and institutions that promoted American interests and values and helped avoid major conflicts in the decades after World War II, is gone, and irretrievably so. In place of the Pax Americana we are seeing a sort of Lax Americana, a world in which a careless and uninhibited and incurious U.S. superpower struts across the chess board, threatening old friends and enabling old rivals, seeking short-term gains, heedless of the dangers it is creating for itself and the world.” [NOTE: read this again, slowly. it says that the Trump DICTATORSHIP is making America. LESS. SAFE. Stupidity in action]
2]. “Under Trump, the idea of U.S. leadership has indeed been remade. – but from authority to domination, from persuasion to bullying, from nurturing alliances to wrecking them….”We don’t need anybody,’ a peeved Trump said..” [NOTE: we won WW II and the Cold War. BECAUSE. we had allies and friends. – we. NEEDED. other countries.]
***. “Ignorance, when voluntary, is criminal, and a man may be properly charged with that evil which he neglected or refused to learn how to prevent.” [ Samuel Johnson ]
1] “Rather than leading the free world, the United States is striding across the globe seemingly free of restraint, forethought or strategy, exerting its power because it can….Trump in his second term is like Michael Corleone in “The Godfather,” settling all the family business.”
3]. “Launching a war with only one ally and expecting everybody else to fall in line is a perfect example of the tensions inherent in America’s new approach. The United States wants the benefits of hegemony but without accepting the responsibilities. – ensuring collective security, promoting economic openness, nurturing vital alliances. – that come with it. Trump doesn’t care to be a superpower; he just likes to wield superpowers. He wants to operate in the world constrained only by “my own morality” and “my own mind”…” {NOTE: THE problem here IS his “mind”…]
5] “This is a historical aberration: a superpower that freely abdicates its leadership role, because it has concluded that leadership is for suckers; one that no longer promotes its values, because its decided those values are fake anyway; one that gives up on the rules and institutions it spent so long building, because it assumes they’re no longer worth the hassle.” [NOTE: this is an example of Trump’s STUPIDITY. and. IGNORANCE ]
6] “…Marco Rubio, the secretary of state, likewise invoked the common “heritage” of the Western world, but he based it explicitly on Christian faith, culture, language and ancestry. “We are part of one civilization. – Western civilization,” he said, specifying that Washington prefers “allies who are proud of their culture and of their heritage, who understand that we are heirs to the same great and noble civilization.” This is the “civilizational West” rather than the “geopolitical West”…” ]
7]. “…an essential resource: international legitimacy. In “The End of the American Era,” Kupchan called it America’s “most precious asset,” and warned that the Bush administration was misspending it in Iraq, vastly overestimating “the autonomy that comes with military supremacy.” It is an appropriate warning for our time, when the Trump administration is likewise squandering America’s legitimacy and misjudging the freedom of action that comes with having the strongest military and as Trump brags, the “best equipment.” That legitimacy is part of what made Pax Americana possible. Lax Americana, by contrast, doesn’t just waste the nation’s legitimacy; it hardly recognizes its value.” [NOTE; read this again. He’s just told YOU that Trump is making YOU less secure; that Trump is actively, STUPIDLY, undermining much of what made America THE superpower, 1945-2016.]
*** “Donald Trump himself actually said during his campaign that he essentially thinks being unpredictable is a good thing. maybe that’s a good thing in domestic politics, but in foreign policy, that is really stupid.” [ Ted Lieu ]
The Trump DICTATORSHIP. – Stupidity, Cruelty, Corruption, Craziness, CLVIII. – Trump as Incompetent, Stupid, Dangerous. War leader, II
***. “The statement that war is a continuation of policy by other means has become a catch-phrase and is therefore dangerous. We can say with equal truth: War is bankruptcy of policy.” [ German General Hans Von Seeckt ]
This post is the second in a series examining the conduct of one Donald John Trump, unfortunately president of the United States. As has been said many times: he is a deeply flawed person; seems to operate on whims, grudges, delusions, LIES. It has been said he is UNFIT to be president – by serious observers citing examples, not wild assertions. He IS the anti-George Washington. the anti-Abraham Lincoln.
***. “I now know that wars do not end wars.” [ Henry Ford ]
This post presents excerpts from: “President Donald Trump is an incompetent commander in chief” [ Stephen Young; New York Times; 3/27/26 ]:
10] “As far as I can tell, given Clausewitz’s criteria for winning a war, Donald Trump doesn’t, and can’t, pass muster as a commander in chief.”
2] ‘Clausewitz’s famous [because it’s true] law of war is that “war is a mere continuation of politics by other means.” To ignore politics in waging war is to lose. Does Trump know that?”
8] “Most important..is the human element brought to the fight by the commander. A commander must have determination, but if that determination hardens into blind self-confidence, it becomes a liability rather than a strength. The commander who is too self-assured or conceited becomes dangerous because he stops questioning his own assumptions. in war, where uncertainty dominates, this leads to performative decisions that don’t adapt to reality.”
5] “It seems Trump never read Clausewitz. He was, after all, a draft dodger refusing to serve his country in Vietnam.”
9] “Most importantly, Clausewitz advised, the mind of the commander must be free to think while not being captured by prejudice. For Clausewitz such freedom of the mind is indispensable if the commander is to dominate events, not to be overpowered by them.”
*** “Perhaps the most central characteristic of authentic leadership is the relinquishing of the impulse to dominate others.” [ David Cooper ]
1]. “After four weeks as a wartime commander in chief, Donald Trump now wants to pull his burning chestnuts out of the fire. Why. – the war not going as he has foreseen? The Iranian theocrats not willing to give in?”
3]. “What does Trump know of the hearts and minds of his Iranian enemy, or of the Iranian people in general? After four weeks of intensive bombing, the killing of dozens of religiously driven leaders and the straits of Hormuz being closed against his wishes, how close is our president to victory?”
4] “For Clausewitz the heart and soul of politics is will and morale. You wein when your enemy loses the will to continue, falls into an irresistible collapse of morale, just throws in the towel. So, Clausewitz says, the art of war is how to bring about such a collapse of will. In short, politics.”
6]. “Clausewitz defined war as an act of violence intended to compel our opponent to fulfill our will. Thus, we must proportion our efforts to the enemy’s powers of resistance. So our efforts must be proportional to the enemy’s will. – weapons and tactics which do not degrade the enemy’s will cannot win a war.”
7] “Thus, the Chinese master of the art of war, Sun Tzu, taught: first of all, study your enemy. He wrote simply: “[W]hat is of supreme importance in war is to attack the enemy’s strategy.” Bombs can’t do that. They only target enemy combatants and weapons systems. A conviction that bombing could ever be a war-winning strategy is an illusion.”
*** “One should never forbid what one lacks the power to prevent.” [ Napoleon ]
The Trump DICTATORSHIP. – Stupidity, Cruelty, Corruption, Craziness, CLVII. – Trump as Incompetent, Stupid, Dangerous. War Leader, I
***. “The imponderables and the unforeseen cannot be ignored in formulating foreign policy. That is why a preventive war should always be regarded as an act of criminal folly.” [. Sumner Welles ]
This post BEGINS to examine the American, and world, tragedy of Donald John Trump as the leader of a major world power in a war. That he is a deeply flawed person is beyond debate. That he seems to operate almost exclusively on whims, grudges, delusions, self-imposed lies is also seemingly beyond debate. Psychiatrists have said, written books, on his unfit mental state to be a U.S. president. That he is THE anti-George Washington, anti-Abraham Lincoln, anti-FDR, is also seemingly beyond debate. That he has surrounded himself with people who are “loyal” IS beyond debate.
And, now, this person has embroiled the U.S., thr Middle East, the world, in a war against Iran. – not for what they have done, but for what they COULD do. That Iran has fomented much evil. – in the name of religion. – is beyond debate.
Thus. – THE question: does Iran’s recent 46-year history justify a preventive war?
***. “War is an instrument entirely inefficient toward redressing wrong; and multiplies, instead of indemnifying losses.” [ Thomas Jefferson ]
This post presents excerpts from. “Impulse and Ultimatums” [Erica Green; New York Times; 3/29/26]:
5] “THe war, like everything else that comes out of the White House, is a reflection of Donald Trump’s very unique personality and leadership style,” said Steven M. Gillon, a historian and the author of “Presidents at War: How World War II Shaped a Generation of Presidents,” “It’s focused on him as a great man. It is vague. It’s undisciplined. It’s unfocused.”
1]. “At 7;44 p.m., the president made his frustration known with an extraordinary ultimatum: if Iran did not reopen the Strait of Hormuz within 48 hours and allow much of the world’s gas and oil to flow through, he would bomb Iran’s civilian power plants. It was the kind of attack that could constitute a war crime under the Geneva Conventions.”
2]. “The disconnect underscores just how much the Iran war is testing Mr. Trump’s usual strategy for dealing with a crisis: imposing his own reality and disregarding inconvenient truths. “He thinks everything is transactional, he can deal with the deal one step at a time and see how things unfold, but war is fast, uncontrollable, unpredictable and deadly,: said Julian E. Zelizer, a Princeton University professor… “He’s doing the same techniques he always does – threatening people, insulting people, seizing attention to what he wants to say – he’s learning that it doesn’t always work,: he added. “He’s doing the art of the deal in a way that’s just creating chaos.”
3] “Mr. Trump’s cavalier attitude has shown cracks. When he was pressed about the deadly Tomahawk missile strike on an Iranian elementary school on the opening day of the war, Mr. Trump first blamed Iran and then claimed he did not “know enough about it.” [President Truman: “The buck stops here.” !!!!!]
4] “The president, who was granted five deferments from being drafted to fight in Vietnam. including for a diagnosis of bone spurs, has often mused that he would be a “good general.” [ delusional ego ??? ]
6] “Aside from the question of congressional approval, Mr. Trump has failed to provide any evidence that Iran posed an “imminent threat”. to the United States. And he has repeatedly moved the goal posts for success…”
{ But. – when you are a DICTATOR. – you don’t have to explain yourself. }
***. “War is the business of barbarians.” [ Napoleon ]
The Trump DICTATORSHIP. – Stupidity, Cruelty, Corruption, Craziness, CLVI. – Trump’s. Climate. Crisis. Recklessness. Threatens YOU
***. “The Trump White House continued its attacks on climate science and scientists, pulling out of the Paris climate accords and recruiting into government scientists who held contrarian or fringe views on the role of human activity in global warming.” [ Peter Hotez: “The Deadly Rise Of Anti-Science” ]
This post presents excerpts from. “The Dead Zones….By mid-century, many places in the United States may be uninhabitable” [ Vann Newkirk II; The Atlantic; December, 2025 ]:
9] “..our present government is actively working to worsen global warming and make communities less resilient to its effects. It is working to make the darkest futures more likely. It is possible, even considering the hatchet blows thatn Donald Trump has delivered to the federal bureaucracy, public institutions, and the Constitution, that his legacy will b most felt in our climate.” [!!think on the magnitude of this statement…]
18] “All of this could create even better conditions than those today for the kind of transactional authoritarian government that Trump is trying to establish.” [***. think – by worsening global warming crisis – Trump & the far-right power behind him – want to make Americans. – YOU. – more desperate & vulnerable – so YOU “need’ a dictator to save” you ****]
16] “..bit by bit, the American economy and culture will likely be transformed by climate attrition and the redistribution of people. Southern states will lose residents and dynamism.”
5] “..whole regions will be thinned out and impoverished…without insurance, people cannot get mortgages, and so most cannot buy houses…some places are already becoming economic “no-go” zones.”
6]. “..we should expect more food deserts, fewer libraries, and fewer small businesses..expect that, with a larger share of municipal budgets going to disaster mitigation and repair, city and county services will suffer or disappear. Even as local taxes rise, “service deserts” will spread.” … These are the dead zones.” [ And!!! – Trump’s new budget wants to cut federal support to local governments !!!!!!!!!!! ]
***. “[Trump’s]..agenda is codified by Project 2025…the thorough dismantling of climate policy in the United States through eliminating agencies overseeing policies relating to energy or the environment and repeal of the Inflation Reduction Act and other congressionally enacted climate measures.” [Micheal Mann, Peter Hotez: “Science Under Siege”]
1]. “..the future toward which we are heading will mean heartbreak for millions. Many people will go in search of new homes in cooler, more predictable places…leave behind…”dead zones.” Should the demolition of America’s rule of law continue, authoritarianism and climate change wll reinforce each other, and a vicious spiral from which it will be difficult to exit.”
2] “Just as.. [Eaton].. fire victims began trying to recover, Donald Trump came back into power. Deep cuts at FEMA and other agencies targeted much of the federal machinery and sources of money that were supposed to help.”
3]. “One problem is who will underwrite disaster risks as they grow. Seven of the 12 largest home insurers in California…have already limited their coverage or stopped taking new policies there.”
4] “There are parallels to the 2008 financial crisis…and “insurance deserts,” where policies are becoming impossible to find or prohibitively expensive…threatens a “collapse in property values with the potential to trigger a full-scale financial crisis similar to what occurred in 2008.”
*** “… their scientific colleagues were increasingly finding evidence that capitalism was failing in a crucial aspect: it was failing to protect the natural environment upon which all life. – free or not. – ultimately depends… The free market was causing problems…that the free market did not know how to solve. The government had a potential remedy – regulation – but that flew in the face of the capitalist ideal.” [ Naomi Oreskes, Eric Conway: “Merchants of Doubt” ]
7] “Private equity firms are deeply embedded in the disaster-recovery industry…Investors come into distressed real estate markets and transform them, buying up land on the cheap and flipping residential homes into rental units…Essential services are being slowly ceded by the public to the private sector in places under climate stress.”
8]. “..Biden’s climate agenda was the most robust ever attempted in this country, but even he did not sign enough laws to produce the fair share of decarbonization that America would need to deliver in order to avert 2 degrees Celsius of warming..”
10] “Trump’s EPA administrator Lee Zeldin, came into office with the intent, he said, of “driving a dagger straight into the heart of the climate change religion.”
***. “Two dozen states..sued the Environmental Protection Agency. – public health and welfare….EPA leader Lee Zeldin…says wiping out that finding will save money.” [Matthew Daly: “Minnesota joins suit vs. EPA over repeal of climate finding”; Associated Press; 3/20/26]. [Note: polluting companies save money. – BUT. – YOUR health may be sabotaged by Trump DICTATORSHIP policies.]
11] “Trump has even thrown wrenches intovthe energy-transition plans of other countries.”
12] “As the administration accelerates climate change, it has also moved to weaken the country’s infrastructure for dealing with climate disruptions. Trump scrapped a program…He axed rules…The national Weather Service is a shadow of its former self..”
13] “..global warming is supercharging ..[Miami’s]..already daunting heat…the spike in overnight temperatures…The county is the epicenter of an incipient “extreme heat belt” that is reshaping concepts of seasonality and livability in the United States.”
***. ‘..2007. The internet is flooded with the assertion that Carson was a mass murderer, worse than Hitler….In the demonizing of Rachel Carson, free marketers realized that if you could convince people that an example of successful government regulation wasn’t, in fact, successful. – that it was actually a mistake. – you could strengthen the argument against regulation in general.” [ Oreskes. &. Conway: “Merchants of Doubt” ]
14] “The geography of real climate risk. – which includes not just the effects of weather and disasters, but also the abilities of communities to withstand them. – looks roughly similar to the geographies of poverty and race.”
15]. “Within the U.S. today, people are again moving because of disasters, and because of the slow-grind attrition of heat, flooding, and rising insurance rates.”
17] “The worst climate disruptions will happen beyond U.S. borders, but they will put pressure on American society nonetheless. Migration to the southern border, perhaps the most powerful current in American politics today, is already being driven partly by ecological collapses in Central American farm communities.”
*** “One of the saddest lessons of history is this: If we’ve become bamboozled long enough, We tend to reject any evidence of the bamboozle…Once you give a charlatan power over you, you almost never get it back.” [Carl Sagan]i
The Trump DICTATORSHIP. – Stupidity, Cruelty, Corruption, Craziness, CLIV – Affordability. – Trump Lies About, Contributes To It, II
*** “Future historians will record the volatility of the president’s decision-making, as well as the internal struggles of a government for4ced to grapple with it. They will write that his advisors came to find him unfit for the job. He couldn’t focus on governing, and he was prone to abuses of power, from ill-conceived schemes to punish his political rivals to a propensity for undermining vital American institutions. They will document how officials considered drastic. – some might say desperate. – measures to warn the American people.” [ Anonymous: “A Warning” ]. [NOTE: this book, written in 2019, was a warning to America about Donald John Trump – and the damage he already was doing]
This post is volume two on Trump’s contributions to, and lies about, his own policies and rhetoric for the “affordability” struggles most Americans face. As post CLIV noted, Trump will likely have NO empathy for their struggles. – as he seldom has ANY empathy for ANYBODY outside a small circle [ like billionaires!!!]. He will likely spend the next 7 months trying to sell. YOU on the FRAUD. that he has no responsibility for YOUR. struggles, and, trying to convince YOU. it doesn’t exist, or – is a “hoax” made up by “the enemies of the people” – news media, economists, statisticians – all of whom look at. REAL. numbers, listen to REAL. ordinary people – like YOU.
This post examines three major “affordability” crises: health care, housing, chuld care:
Health Care
A]. “One-third of Americans – an estimated 82 million people – say they are making sacrifices, including skipping meals or driving less, to pay for care….people also said they had delayed making major changes to their lives, like hacing a child or retiring..” [Reed Abelson: “Medical costs are squeezing Americans”; New York Times; 3/13/26]
B] “Over the past five years, the price of health coverage for an employee’s family has risen 26 percent, to $27,000 annually….About 32 percent of Americans said they were “very worried” about health care bills.” [Peter Whoriskey: “Americans’ top worry is now the cost of health care”; Washington Post Weekly; 2/1/26]
C] “We don’t talk about it much, but the numbers tell the story plain: about four in 10 adults in America carry medical or dental debt, and rural folks are more likely to struggle with it than people living in urban areas. Research shows medical problems and bills are among the leading contributors to personal bankruptcy…. Other nations have made different choices about how to care for their people..” [Andrew Tate: “The Cost of Care in the Land of Plenty”; The Progressive Populist; January, 2026]
Housing
D]. “President Trump’s proposed housing policies would put hundreds of thousands of Americans out on the streets.” [Farrah Hassen: “It’s Not only the White House Getting Demolished. Trump’s Gutting Affordable Housing”; The Progressive Populist; December, 2025]
E] “Home prices have risen more than 50 percent since the start of the pandemic. About a third of American households now spend more than 30 percent of their income on housing….The core of the problem is simple: Too much money chasing too few homes.” [Note; the solution is known: built more homes]. [Ezra Klein: “Our Housing Crisis, in One Chart”; New York Times; 1/30/25]
F} “I don’t want to drive housing prices down,” ..[Trump].. said. I want to drive housing prices up for people that own their own homes.”….Economists across the ideological spectrum have diagnosed the United states with an acute housing shortage ghat has raised home prices and rents. The remedy, they argue, is to focus on policies that increase the supply of housing..” [Connor Dougherty: “Trump Is Seeking To Drive Up Housing Prices”; New York Times; 2/9/26]
G] “ICE Surge Drags Down Home Construction”. [Dee Depass; Minnesota Star Tribune; 2/10/26]: “Twin Cities homebuilders are falling behind schedule as the federal immigration crackdown in Minnesota has fueled a shortage of roofing, drywall and other construction workers..”
H] YOU can also rad; “Homewreckers”. [Aaron Glantz]: “a shocking investigation into America’s housing crisis and the modern day robber barons – among them Donald Trump and his inner circle – who are making a fortune off the backs of the disenfranchised working class and middle class.”
Child Care
I]. “Nationally, the cost of child care now significantly outpaces inflation, rising 8% since June 2024, compared with a 4% increase in general inflation……New York Times/Siena University polling, which found that affordability concerns are largely about the costs of family life….In most states, the average price of child care is even higher than in-state college tuition.” [Asmaa Elkeurti, Claire Cain Miller: “For Many, Child Care Seems less Affordable Than Ever”; New York Times; 3/22/26]
*** “Trump lacks the emotional stability, knowledge, critical-thinking skills, and judgment to be commander-in-chief…..Even by the standards of the incurious George W. Bush, Trump is appallingly ignorant….More surprising than Trump’s lack of knowledge of geopolitics is his ignorance of economics, the field in which he was given a bachelor’s degree..” [ Pulitzer Prize winner David Cay Johnston: “It’s Even Worse Than You Think” ]
***. “In a president, character is everything.” [ Peggy Noonan ]
The Trump DICTATORSHIP. – Stupidity, Cruelty, Corruption, Craziness, CLIV. – Affordability – Trump Lies About, Contributes To It, I
***. “He simply couldn’t admit that he’d done anything wrong and he had no empathy for anyone he’d offended, because he had no empathy for anyone, period. Donald Trump’s single greatest character flaw as a leader and human being is his complete and total lack of empathy.” [ Omarosa Manigault Newman: “Unhinged”
This post presents to YOU, some examples of how ‘your” president seeks to convince YOU that the increased prices YOU are paying are a figment of your imagination – and. – most especially. – those higher prices YOU ARE PAYING. – are most definitely not his fault !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Judge for YOURSELF. – by NUMBERS, not rhetoric.
A]. “In his State of the Union address on Feb. 24…the president claimed that the problem of ‘affordability” was solved.” [Bloomberg: “The affordability problem is far from solved”; 3/15/26]
B]. “Given the upheaval we may soon be facing, it would be nice if we had a president capable of leading a thoughtful national conversation about where A.I. is taking us. Suffice it to say, Donald Trump is not that kind of president.” [Michael Steinberger: “Your Job Could Be in Jeopardy Already”; New York Times; 3/8/26] {NOTE: – Read this article and find out WHY Steinberger says this. What does factual evidence show us?]
C] “This fits the economist’s notion of the nation’s post-COVID “K-shaped economy”: A small upper class is at the top, accumulating wealth and driving spending, while everyone else is at the bottom and facing a widening gap. The cost of living has outpaced the traditional definition of a middle-class life..” [Emma Nelson: “Middle earners feeling the pinch”; Minnesota Star Tribune; 1/1/26}. NOTE ******. Read this article, and others, about the “K-shaped economy” – THIS is one big clue why YOU , and others not making at least $120,000 are struggling. Get the FACTS, the NUMBERS]
D] “Even people earning six figures. – which puts them in the top 18% of wage earners. – are secretly struggling to keep afloat.” [NOTE: as an economy that can’t comfortably support even the top 18%. “doing well”????] “What Americans need is higher wages. Salaries have been stagnant or falling in real terms, failing to keep up with inflation and productivity gains since the Vietnam War.” [ Note; which ended about 1975]. [Ted Rall: “Affordability: We Need Higher Wages, Not Lower Prices”; The Progressive Populist; January, 2026]
*** “And then there are Trump’s many delusions…claims to know more…how to deal…to be the world’s foremost expert…All that is nonsense. For almost three decades I have been pointing out that Trump creates his own reality, a point on which his other leading biographers agree.” { Pulitzer Prize winner David Cay Johnston: “It’s Even Worse Than You Think” }
E]. “Days away from the anniversary of President Donald Trump’s second term in office, grocery prices are still rising, undercutting his administration’s rhetoric about how it is making life more affordable for average Americans….Yet Trump continues to falsely claim otherwise. “Grocery prices are starting to go rapidly down,’ he said Tuesday afternoon during a speech in Detroit. It’s not the first time that he has said food prices are down, even when data show they’re not.” [ Kevin Draper, Julie Creswell: “Grocery prices Rising Despite Trump’s Claims”; New York Times; 1/17/26 }
[NOTE: Read the article – find out. WHY. YOU pay more for YOUR food. – the facts]
F] “One year after the Trump administration took control of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, the consumer watchdog has largely retreated from enforcement and regulatory work, changes that consumer advocates and Democrats now estimate have cost Americans at least $19 billion in financial relief.” [ Ken Sweet: “CFPB changes prove costly”; Associated Press; 2/22/26] [NOTE: ask. YOURSELF; WHY would. ‘your’ president weaken an agency with a proven track record of saving. YOU. money???? Who’s president is he really….maybe his donors….his billionaire friends…because Project 2025 wants it?????- ***THIS is at the crux of YOUR search for facts. this, and many other policies. – are reasons WHY Trump is costing YOU money.]
*** “In a president, character is everything.” [ Peggy Noonan ]
The Trump DICTATORSHIP – Stupidity, Cruelty, Corruption, Craziness, CLIV – Trump’s Reckless Iran War
*** “..the notion, that his team is working to protect him from himself, has since become one of the defining narratives of the Trump administration…President Trump should not be shocked that wary aides and cabinet members saved his presidency. My colleagues have done so many times. He should be worried – we should all be worried. – that these reasonable professionals are vanishing.” [ Anonymous: “A Warning.”] [NOTE: This was published in 2019, by “a senior Trump administration official.” Trump’s second administration has virtually NONE of this kind of patriotic American. Read this again – and – pray YOU have an American democracy on January 20, 2029. ]
This post presents excerpt from. “Trump’s Fantasy Is Crashing Down”. [Lydia Polgreen; New York Times; 3/8/26 ]:
1]. “in Donald Trump’s fantasy world, America in invincible and impregnable….It can slap punitive tariffs on any nation it likes, abandon longstanding alliances on a whim, bomb any country at any time and freely blow up boats it may suspect of carrying drugs. America’s awesome power means it is unfettered by any rules, untroubled by any consequences.”
2] “…after Trump plunged the United States into a war with Iran, that fantasy of omnipotence has come crashing down. Undertaken for unexplained and perhaps unexplainable reasons, the war is being waged in a central node of the global economy against a disciplined well-armed opponent with nothing to lose….Trump has clearly given little thought to what comes next.”
3] “For America, the repercussions are just beginning…..This is the world Trump tries to disavow – complex and interconnected…vulnerable to disruption…More than anything, it shows up..the fallacy of Fortress America.”
*** “Because Trump has no political philosophy and is appalling ignorant of history, military doctrine, the religious divisions in the Middle East, the different branches within Islam, and many other issues, he can cause great damage to America.” [ Pulitzer Prize winner David Cay Johnston: “The Making of Donald Trump” ] [NOTE; Written in 2017, we now see this coming true; because this second Trump administration is full of “loyalists” – who “let Trump be Trump” ]
4]. “…perhaps the most shocking thing about his cavalier approach is that he seems to have had no idea that the Gulf would be a target. In an interview with CNN on Monday, he professed that Iran’s attacks on American allies in the Gulf were “probably the biggest surprise”. – despite the fact that just about every country in the region had warned his administration that Iran would surely attack them in retaliation for an American assault.”
5] “… Trump appears strangely uncertain about where the war is heading.” [ !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! ]
6]. “It is unsettling how often Trump affects astonishing indifference, as though the most powerful man in the world were merely a spectator to events he himself has set in motion. – and who in any case has little investment in the outcome. But that curious passivity reveals a darker truth. Trump seems to believe that he, like his fantasy America, exists on a different plane, utterly untouchable by the swirl of global events. The devastating consequences of his actions are not just someone else’s fault. They are someone else’s problem, too.”
*** “As the pressures upon him have continued to mount over the course of the last three years, the disparity between the level of competence required for running a country and his incompetence has widened, revealing his delusions more starkly than ever before.” [ Mary L. Trump: “Too Much and Never Enough….How my family created the world’s most dangerous man” ] [NOTE: read this again – and pray]
7] “And yet, Trump presses on, declaring at one point that the war could go on “forever.” In a manic briefing on Wednesday, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth promised “death and destruction from the sky all day long” over Tehran…Aime Cesaire…wrote…”The modern barbarian. The American hour. Violence, excess, waste, mercantilism, bluff, conformism. stupidity, vulgarity, disorder.”
8] “If war is God’s way of teaching Americans geography, perhaps it will also serve as a lesson to Trump. It should be a simple one: other places and other people are real, possessing their own agendas and agency. – and America’s actions have consequences it cannot control. Anything else is pure fantasy.”
***. “One of the most interesting and harmful delusions to which men and nations can be subjected is that of imagining themselves special instruments of the Devine Will.” [ Bertrand Russell ]
The Trump DICTATORSHIP – Stupidity, Cruelty, Corruption, Craziness, CLIII – ‘Melania’ the Movie As A Bribe?
*** United States Constitution: Article II, Section 4: “The President, Vice President and all civil Officers of the United States, shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for, a Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors.”
This post presents an argument that Donald John Trump should, again, be impeached; this time for Bribery. The argument by Robert Reich: “‘Melania’: The Movie. The Bribe. The Shame.” [The Progressive Populist, march, 2026]. Excerpts below:
1] “My purpose today is …to talk about its real excuse – allowing Jeff Bezos to give a big fat bribe to the president of the United States.
5] “..Ted Hope, who was instrumental in starting Amazon’s film division, wondered aloud to The New York Times, “How can it not be equated with currying favor or an outright bribe? How can that not be the case?”
*** “Corrupt influence is itself the perennial spring of all prodigality, and of all disorder; it loads us more than millions of debt; takes away vigor from our arms, wisdom from our councils, and every shadow of authority and credit from the most vulnerable parts of our constitution.” [ Edmund Burke ]
2] “Why would Bezos bribe him? Please. Bezos…owns Amazon and many other businesses that depend on the whms of the sociopath in the Oval Office.”
3]. “Friends, when the history of this sordid period of America is written – assuming it’s not written by historians trying to curry favor with a future fascist regime – I hope the leaders of American business are condemned to the hellfire they deserve for helping destroy American democracy.”
*** “By corruption, the early generations meant excessive private interests influencing the exercise of public power. An Act was corrupt when private power was used to influence public power for private ends….A person was corrupt when they use public power for private ends. There was no way for government to work without virtue, and “no substitute for good men in office.” [ Zephyr Teachout: “Corruption in America” ]
4] “Elon Musk, the world’s richest man, will have pride in place here ..[Hell].., after spending a quarter of a billion dollars getting Trump elected….But jeff Brezos, with his $75 million bribe of Trump, will deserve a special place in the innermost ring of hell.”
6]. “If America still had a Department of Justice, Bezos would be indicted fro bribery of a public official pursuant to 18 U.S. Code @ 201, which criminalizes offering or giving anything of value to a public official with the intent to influence their official actions.”
***. “…there is no way to access infinite wealth without rigging the system. No one becomes a billionaire honestly.”
[ Sarah Chayes: “On corruption In America” ]
With Justice For All 
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