*** “Wise men talk because they have something to say; fools because they have to say something.” [Plato]
1] On Tuesday, September 23, 2025 – “our” president, one Donald John Trump, illustrated fro the entire world that America is being run by fools, incompetents, ideologues, and know-nothings. In a “meandering” 56 minute rant, “Trump lectured the United Nations and other countries about how they are failing and aired a list of grievances….The White House had billed Trump’s address..as a chance for the president to lay out his vision for how the U.S. should wield its power abroad.”
“Trump undermined the scientific consensus on climate change, saying it was “made by stupid people”…called climate change the “greatest con job’ perpetrated on the world and claimed environmentalists are out to eliminate America’s cows.” On religion, Trump “falsely claimed that Muslim leaders in the West are planning to institute sharia law, while proclaiming Christianity to be the “most persecuted religion on the planet.”……
Trump ‘personally insulted the Muslim mayor of London. he bashed allies and foes around the world. He questioned whether the United Nations should even exist.” [“At the U.N., Trump slams strike near and far”; Luke Broadwater; New York Times; 9/24/25]
*** “There are some people, that if they don’t know, you can’t tell ’em.” [ Louis “Satchmo” Armstrong ]
2] On Monday, September 22, 2025, Trump warmed up for his early Halloween scarefest by attacking the use of Tylenol by pregnant women, “suggesting a connection between the widely used medication and autism…”Fight like hell not to take it.” [“Here’s what experts say about Tylenol”; Niha Masih, Ariana Eunjung Cha; Washington Post; 9/24/25]
3] On Wednesday, “The World Health Organization has joined the international pushback against the Trump administration’s warnings that acetaminophen use during pregnancy leads to autism, saying Wednesday there is ‘no conclusive scientific evidence confirming a possible link.”
“Public health leaders and organizations around the world have been sounding off since President Donald Trump called Monday to limit use of acetaminophen – the active ingredient in Tylenol and more than 600 other medications.”…
“The move is a sharp departure from the accepted guidance on a medication that many major medical associations have deemed safe..” [WHO rejects Tylenol warnings”; Vivian Ho, Karla Adam; Washington Post; 9/25/25]
***. “The wise man takes pleasure in what is honorable, but the fool is not vexed by shamefulness.” [ Plutarch ]
[A note of caution and early warning: there are three more Halloweens before January 20, 2029. Given the scary, spook-filled track record of the Trump DICTATORSHIP, it appears there will be many more. “TRICKS” performed by the CLOWNS in “your” government, but – unless YOU are a billionaire – not many, if any. “TREATS.” ]
Author: tomdolen
The Trump DICTATORSHIP – Stupidity, Cruelty, Corruption, Craziness, LXIII – Destroying The First Amendment – Suppressing Dissent, Controlling and Censoring Information, Threats
*** “Once a government is committed to the principle of silencing the voice of opposition, it has only one way to go, and that is down the path of increasingly repressive measures, until it becomes a source of terror to all its citizens and creates a country where everyone lives in fear.” [ Harry Truman, 33rd U.S, president ]
First, for perspective, just a few headlines on the Trump DICTATORSHIP’s war on dissent:
– “A step-by-step checklist toward autocracy – moving along too easily so far”. [3/26/25]
– “I Taught My Students Slavery Was Wrong. then MAGA Came After me”. [ June, 2025]
– “After Decades Trying, G.O.P. Guts PBS and NPR”. [7/19/25]
– “Trump Amplifies Attacks On Foes After Kirk Death”. [9/14/25]
– “After Kirk’s killing, calls to ostracize, fire his critics”. [9/15/25]
– “Liberal groups targeted after Kirk death” [9/16/25]
– “National park ordered to remove historic photo”. [9/17/25]
– “Kimmel is silenced, Who will be next?” [9/21/25]
– “Trump, allies seek to punish speech”. [9/21/25]
– “America Inches Closer To Authoritarian Club”. [9/21/25}
– “Kimmel Won’t Be the Last”. 9/21/25]
– “Trump’s Chilling Push To Punish Free Speech” [9/21/25]
– “Trump pushes Bondi to go after his foes”. [9/22/25]
– “Profs face increased pressure on speech”. [9/23/25]
This, OBVIOUSLY, is a PATTERN, a STRATEGY. Trump and allies using government power against speech by American citizens – BUT – ONLY, against those whom they don’t like. In principle – what is the difference between the Trump DICTATORSHIP – and. – Stalinist Soviet Union, Nazi Germany, Communist China, Putin’s Russia??? And – the McCarthyist. 1940s-1960s. “Red Scare” ???????????
***. “To announce that there must be no criticism of the President, or that we are stand by the President, right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public.”
[. Theodore Roosevelt, 26th U.S. president ]
For perspective on past suppression of dissent, consider this: “some 300 lynchings of whites transpired between 1830 and 1860″ in the American South. People were found ‘guilty” of saying the ‘wrong things” about slavery. Other, luckier people were tarred and feathered and literally railroaded out of town. [William Freehling: “the Road to Disunion”]
1]. “National park ordered to remove historic photo”. [Jake Spring, Hannah Natanson; Washington Post; 9/17/25 ]: “The Trump administration has ordered the removal of signs and exhibits related to slavery at multiple national parks..” [note: apparently telling the TRUTH about slavery is considered a “corrosive ideology”!!!!!!!!! The good news: there is a citizen group collecting photos of signs the Trump DICTATORSHIP might rip down – they’ve received over 3000 entries so far!!! YOU can help too. Please do.]
2]. “Trump is hitting the media with all that he’s got” [Jim Rutenberg; New York Times; 9/19/25}: ‘..[Trump] ..is now conducting the most punishing government crackdown against major American media institutions in modern times…to eradicate reporting and commentary with which he disagrees.”
***. “I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty, or give me death.” [Patrick Henry]
3]. “America Inches Closer To Authoritarian Club”. [Damien Cave; New York Times; 9/21/25]: “Those in China, India, Iran, Russia, Turkey and Venezuela are familiar with this scenario…[people] squeezed toward silence….President Trump with his threat on Thursday to revoke broadcasting licenses from networks with late-night hosts who joke or comment at his expense, has pushed the United States closer to that club.”
4]. “If the American ideal of freedom means anything, it is that Americans can engage in an extremely wide range of political speech…President Trump himself is a purveyor of tasteless and even threatening language…that no previous president did…Mr. Trump’s aides are drafting an executive order that could come as soon as this week…most likely target left-leaning organizations.” ………..
“Mr. Trump’s promised crackdown depends on the false premise that liberal and nonpartisan groups are part of a far-left conspiracy that promotes violence against conservatives…In fact, multiple data sources show that neither side has a monopoly on political violence, but it is more likely to come from the right. Between 2015 and 2024, 54 percent of ideologically connected killings were committed by people on the far right, according to the Anti-Defamation League…8 percent came from the political left.” [New York Times, Editorial; 9/21/25: “Trump’s Chilling Push to Punish Free Speech”]
***. “Loyalty to country always. Loyalty to government, when it deserves it.” [ Mark Twain ]
5] “On his podcast Friday, GOP Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas called it “unbelievably dangerous for government to put itself in the position of saying we”re going to decide what speech we like and what speech we don’t, and we’re going to threaten to take you off the air if we don’t like what you’re saying.” [Meg Kinnard: “Trump pushes Bondi to go after his foes”; Associated Press; 9/22/25]
6] “The campaigns to silence educators who speak critically of figures on the political right have been effective, suggesting they are likely to expand….The strategy has the endorsement of the Trump administration….Kirk’s supporters, including many in the Trump administration, have made strong statements in the past supporting free speech, no matter how ugly. but now, many of those same officials are trying to limit speech that they say could lead to more violence.”
“Kirk, who was known for making statements that were often criticized as racist, antisemitic and sexist, declared himself to be a proponent of free speech.” ………..
“Turning point’s efforts to target professors it sees as radical datws back nearly a decade, to 2016, when it began asking students to report professors who “discriminate against conservative students and advance leftist propaganda in the classroom.” [Stephanie Saul: “Profs face increased pressure on speech”; New York Times; 9/23/25]
***. “Those who begin coercive elimination of dissent soon find themselves exterminating dissenters.”
[ Justice Robert Jackson]
For perspective – read. “Red Scare,’ by Griffen Fariello, “Memories Of The American Inquisition.” Read how government power was used to ruin innocent people’s lives, loyalty oaths, the Hollywood blacklist. Read how the FAR RIGHT used government power to persecute people it didn’t like. THEN……
Read “He Bult America’s Rockets. The U.S. Deported Him Anyway.” [Kathleen Kingsbury; New York Times; 6/1/25]: “The decision to send Qian Xuesen back toChina changed world history.”
KNOW THIS: the STUPIDITY of the Trump DICTATORSHIP has ALREADY led some foreign scholars to NOT come toAmerica, or to leave. Some American scientists are also leaving.
***. “This and no other is the root from which a tyrant springs: When he first appears, he is a protector.” [Plato]
The Trump DICTATORSHIP – Stupidity, Cruelty, Corruption, Craziness, LXII – Privatizing YOUR Government
*** “For one person alone to have the Government of a people in his hands, would be too great a Temptation. It tends to excite and draw forth Pride of man, to make him unsufferably haughty; it gives him too much liberty to exert his corruptions and it encourages him to become a Tyrant and an oppressor, to dispense with Laws and break the most solemn oaths.” [ John Barnard, 1746 ]
This post is built around Cullen Murphy’s “Feudalism Is Our Future,” The Atlantic; July, 2025. Read it VERY carefully. Among other crimes against America, the Trump DICTATORSHIP is working to dismantle YOUR government – to split off government functions and give them to private companies to do for profit. PRIVATIZATION, along with. DEREGULATION, have been two major Republican goals since at least 1981. This will mean less transparency, less accountability, less concern for YOUR civil rights. Feudalism was ended to give ordinary people – like YOU – more rights, income, respect. WHY should you be surprised that the Trump DICTATORSHIP would want to bring it back?
*** “The very essence of a free government consists in considering offices as public trusts, bestowed for the good of the country, and not for the benefit of an individual or a party.” [ John C. Calhoun ]
6] “As the pace of privatization picked up in the 21st century, the idea of “neo-feudalism” began to interest scholars and theorists….Most of the scholars are profoundly wary: They foresee an erosion of transparency, a disregard for individual rights, and a concentration of power among an ever smaller group of wealthy barons, even as the bulk of the population is relegated to service jobs that amount to a modern form of serfdom.” [read & think on this again]
11]. “Oversight more broadly – of the environment, food, drugs, finance – has been drifting for decades into the hands of those being overseen. In their 2021 book, The Privatization of Everything, Donald Cohen and Allen Mikaelian documented the loss of public control over water, roads, welfare, parks, and much else. The deliberate dismantling of government in America in recent months, and its replacement with something built on privatized power and networks of personal allegiance, accelerates what was long under way.” [read & THINK on this again, and again…]
*** “The care of human life and happiness, and not their destruction, is the first and only legitimate object of every good government.” [ Thomas Jefferson ]
1] “the Trump administration are beguiled by imperial Rome. They see themselves as interpreters of its lessons – beware immigration; uphold masculinity; make babies – and inheritors of its majesty.
2]. “More and more public functions are now likely to be outsourced. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has bveen pushing for years to privatize health care for veterans…Mehmet Oz, has argued for privatizing Medicare – a program he now oversees. The administration has shown interest in taking apart the National Weather Service and spinning off some of its functions. It is looking into fully privatizing Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, which underpin the nation’s mortgage industry.”
3]. “The president has floated the idea of privatizing the United States Postal Service. On his first day in office, he issued an executive order allowing the Justice Department to again send inmates to prisons run by private companies…He has promised to deport millions of undocumented people, and elements of that effort are being privatized. Politico reported this spring that investors led by Erik Prince….had sent a proposal to the White House arguing for the creation of a private military entity to set up “processing camps” and conduct roundups, possibly with the help of private citizens deputized to make arrests. The administration…did award a $151 million contract to the charter company CSI Aviation to operate deportation flights – an opportunity “too valuable not to pursue,” according to an executive of one of CSI’s subcarriers.”
4]. “In the 1980s and ’90s, privatization started gaining traction again….Anti-government sentiment created opportunities, and entrepreneurs seized them. Privatization was also pushed by policy makers who saw outsourcing as inherently more efficient….”
5] “..even before Trump took office a second time, there were roughly twice as many people employed by private contractors to do the federal government’s business as there were federal employees.” {!!!!! read this again !!!!! twice as many people ‘privatized” doing “government” work for private companies as real federal government employees. How many of the private company workers were targeted by the. DOGE BIG. FRAUD. to be eliminated???????]
*** “I think every nation has a right to establish that form of government under which it conceives it shall live most happy, provided it infracts no right or is not dangerous to others.” [ George Washington. ]
7] “Holding a monopoly of the money supply was once a hallmark of public power. In the span of a decade, private cryptocurrencies have undermined that control while at the same time enabling a wide range of illicit activities…In the U.S., Trump and his family are heavily involved in the crypto business. in April, the president announced that he would invite the top 220 investors in his $TRUMP meme coin to a private dinner; the value of the meme coin rose within hours by 60 percent..”
8]. “A monopoly on the legitimate use of force – replacing the knights and pikemen of sundry vassals with professional standing armies – was another traditional hallmark of public power….Globe-spanning private military companies such as the Wagner Group and Triple Canopy recall the roving mercenary Landsknechte of yore….From 2007 to 2012, the U.S. alone spent $160 billion on private security contractors. Growing up alongside them – an industry even larger in size – are the private intelligence-gathering companies, such as Palantir, on which the U.S. spends a significant portion of its intelligence budget.”
9] “In the U.S., anyone with money and a need now hires private security guards, who outnumber police officers by a ratio of 2 to l. Among companies based in the U.S., the third-largest global employer – After Amazon and Walmart – is a private security firm, Allied Universal.”
10]. “Privatization has also upended the law. One example:….the growing use of compulsory arbitration, written by corporations into private contracts, as a way of settling consumer and employment disputes. The public court system is clogged. Arbitration – the “outsourcing of jurisprudence,”…- creates a parallel private system, one in which efficiency may be more highly valued than public oversight or due process.” [note – check the winners & losers under corporate forced arbitration procedures. who do YOU think the “judge’ is gonna be !!!!!!!!! ]
12]. “In 2008, desperate for cash, Chicago privatized its parking meters, selling off the rights to all the revenue for 75 years to a group of investors led by Morgan Stanley. A “true-up” provision requires the city to compensate investors for lost revenue when meters are taken out of service……………..The rights to operate toll highways have been sold off by some jurisdictions to private companies, including foreign ones. The fine print in the contracts often prevents improvements to adjacent roads on the grounds that such enhancements would create undue competition. Private prisons generally put a quota clause into their agreements. States and municipalities may be hoping….to reduce their prison populations, but the beds in private prisons must be filled regardless.” [read all this again – THIS – is “privatization”. in action. how much of this waste did DOGE end????????????]
13]. “Control and accountability are the bedrock……. in a privatized world, government becomes “diffuse, unstable, unpredictable.” and the skein of responsibility more and more attenuated. contractors hire subcontractors, who hire subcontractors of their own.”
*** “The end of all good government is to cultivate humanity, and to promote then happiness of all, and the good of every man in all his rights, his life, liberty, estate, honor, etc., without injury or abuse done to any.” [John Wise]
The GOP’s Hatred of the Middle Class
“Why Republicans want to destroy the hidden link between Middle Class wealth and democratic power” – Thom Hartmann; The Progressive Populist; August, 2025.
*** “The most perfect community is one in which the middle class is in control and outnumbers both of the other classes.” [ Aristotle ]
In this post, as well as in others, and in ANY TRUE account of where 1981-2025 America is NOT the 1947-80 America that WAS a middle class society – by design and policy. Look at the unspun TRUE numbers: wages, incomes, wealth, tax rates, home ownership….
Ask yourself: WHY have economists called the 1947-75 period “the great compression”?
Look at income ratios between CEOs and their employees, 1947-80, versus, 1981-2025.
Ask yourself WHY we’ve gone from [maybe] l billionaire in 1956 to over 900 in 2025?????
KNOW THIS: one big key to 1947-80 middle class prosperity was that American wealth was SHARED – average people made enough, to mostly, have one wage earner. That began to change in the 1970s
For those of YOU who did not live then – think in terms of. THEFT. What the rich have done to YOU is STEAL YOUR SHARE. of America’s wealth. [This has been numerically PROVEN.]
Do YOU have good health insurance? Do YOU have a DEFINED BENEFIT pension? WHY are people in Scandinavian countries annually “THE happiest people on earth’????? What do their countries do for their people that America no longer does for its people????? THE answers for American misery are found in the answers to the above questions. KNOW THIS – what has happened, 1980-2025, IS. NOT. AN. ACCIDENT. KNOW ALSO – the people and groups the FAR RIGHT blames ARE NOT the villains, as their BIG LIES claim.
*** “If you tell a big lie and tell it frequently enough, it will be believed.” [ Adolf Hitler ]
Following are excerpts from Thom Hartmann’s “Modernization Theory: The Key to Understanding the GOP’s Hatred of the Middle Class”; The Progressive Populist; August, 2025:
8] “On the other hand – and here is the GOP’s real goal – if you can do away with or diminish the wealth and political power of the middle class, you can more easily loot the government and act exclusively in the interest of the morbidly rich.” [Note: go to the numbers, 1981-2025. Just one example; WHO were the primary, and intended, beneficiaries of Trump’s 2017 tax cuts – the ones the GOP just made permanent???]
1] “A Pew poll published in late June finds that 59% of Americans say the GOP’s “Big Beautiful Bill” that cuts taxes for billionaires and raises them for working-class people “would hurt lower-income people and 51% think it would hurt middle-income people.” [Suppose you took Republican voters out of the poll – THEN what would it say?]
2] They”re correct. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office said “the bill will measurably reduce the income and spending power of low-and middle-income people whie giving a $4 trillion gift to the morbidly rich.”
3]. “So, why would Republicans want to further reduce the size and wealth of America’s middle class?….There are two good reasons that answer that question.
4] “the first and simplest is that ever since five corrupt Republicans on the Supreme Court made it legal for billionaires and big corporations to bribe politicians, the GOP has done the bidding of the morbidly rich to the exclusion of everybody else…….with their Buckley and Bellotti decisions in the late 1970s, laying the foundation for..Ronald Reagan’s war against unions and working people..”
5] “..there’s a larger reason why Donald Trump and the GOP are working so hard to immiserate and impoverish working class Americans. That reason has to do with something called “modernization theory.”….Seymour Martin Lipset, famously wrote: “The more well-to-do a nation, the greater the chances that it will sustain democracy.”
6] “As Barrington Moore noted in his book “Social Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy”: “No bourgeois [middle class], no democracy.” In 2003, researchers Carles Boix and Susan Stokes found strong evidence that wealthier countries are more likely to be democracies, and once established, democracies are far more stable in richer nations.”
7]. “Similarly, in their book “Economic Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy,’ Daron Acemoglu and James Robinson prove that when economic growth empowers new classes [especially the middle class], those groups will demand political reforms.”
*** “There is class warfare, all right, but it’s my class, the rich class, that’s making war, and we’re winning.”
[ Warren Buffett ]
9] “…multiple cross-national studies using World Bank income data and Freedom House democracy scores show a strong correlation between per capita income and democratic governance; as people become wealthier they more vigorously demand a small-d democratic political system.”
10] “By 1981, the American middle class was at its peak because of a 74% top personal income tax bracket, a 50% top corporate income tax rate, a strong and healthy social safety net, cheap health care [because hospitals and insurance companies were required to be nonprofits in most states], and free or near-free college.” [ THIS – is what we mean when we say. YOU should look at 1981-2025 America. – and see what was been STOLEN FROM YOU.]
11] “Democracy was also arguably at its peak; for the previous 40 plus years Congress had passed, one after the other, bills that primarily benefitted average working people and the middle class. Voting was easy, women and minorities were empowered, and we led the world in education and innovation.” [ THIS is what has been STOLEN FROM YOU]
12]. “When Reagan came into office in 1981 about a third of American workers had good union jobs, meaning that about two-thirds of all American families lived good middle class lives on a single paycheck….. ˇhat was the year the GOP declared war on working-class people because, in the estimation of the Nixon-and Reagan-era Republicans, our democracy had gotten out of hand…….So, in 1981 the GOP set about dismantling the American middle class with their s0-called Reagan Revolution.”
13]. “Who did this to us?” Republicans and the FAR RIGHT, from Limbaugh, Fox “News”, an Trump blame immigrants, Black people, uppity women, college students, an union bosses !!!!!!!!!!!!!!! [ THE REALLY BIG LIE ]
*** “Of all the forms of tyranny the least attractive and most vulgar is the tyranny of mere wealth, then tyranny of plutocracy.” [ Theodore Roosevelt ]
14] “The bottom line is ghat the GOP opposes democracy because it interferes with and complicates their very well-paid efforts to suck up to-and legislate on behalf of – the morbidly rich.”
*** “An imbalance between rich and poor is the oldest and most fatal ailment of all republics.” [ Plutarch ]
Thoughts on Truth; Thoughts On America’s Future
***** “You shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.” [ John 8: 32 ]
Some thoughts on America’s future from George Packer’s visit to the Phoenix area. Excerpts from “The Valley,: The Atlantic; July-August, 2024 ]:
“Democracy is..a fragile artifice. It depends less on tradition and law than on the shifting contents of individual skulls – belief, virtue, restraint. It’s durability under natural and human stress is being put to an intense test in the Valley. And because a vision of vanishing now haunts the whole country, Phoenix is a guide to our future.”………..
“If, like almost everything else in American politics, water turns deeply partisan and ideological, contaminated by conspiracy theories and poisoned with memes, then preserving this drought-stricken civilization will get a lot harder, like trying to solve Rubik’s Cube while fending off a swarm of wasps that you might be hallucinating.”…….
*** “We are dominated by the fanatic, whose worst vice is his sincerity.” [ Oscar Wilde ]
“In a place like Maryvale, you realize how righteously stupid the culture wars make both sides. There’s no reason to think that great books and moral education have anything to do with MAGA. There’s no reason reading Virgil should require banning children from changing names. There’s no reason to view Western civilization as simply virtuous or vicious, only as the one that most shaped our democracy. There’s no reason to dumb down humanistic education and expect our society to become more just. If we could do something about the true impediments to the Cortez family’s dreams – if Fabian could earn enough from his backbreaking work for the six of them to live in four rooms instead of two; if insurance could cover treatment for Ericka’s illnesses so she doesn’t have to delay seeing a doctor until her life is threatened; if the local public schools could give their daughters a safe and decent education; if America could allow the family to stop being afraid and live in the sunlight – then by all means let’s get back to fighting over name changes and reading lists.” ……….
*** ” [Our prejudices are] so deeply rooted that we never think of them as prejudices but call them common sense.”
[ George Bernard Shaw ]
“Identity is a pernicious form of political division, because its appeal is based on traits we don’t choose and can’t change. It’s inherently irrational, and therefore likely to lead to violence. Identity politicians – and Trump is one – don’t win elections and arguments about ideas, or by presenting a vision of a world more attractive than their opponent’s. They win by appealing to the solidarity of group identity, which has to be mobilized by whipping up fear and hatred of other groups.” …………..
*** “When we hate our enemies, we are giving them power over us, power over our sleep, our appetites, our blood pressure, our health, and our happiness.” [ Dale Carnegie ]
“Unlike identities, ideas are open to persuasion, and persuasion depends on understanding and reaching other people. But when partisanship itself becomes a group identity, a tribal affiliation with markers as clear as Jeff Zink’s handgun, dividing us into mutually unintelligible blocs with incompatible realities, then the stakes of every election are existential, and it becomes hard to live together in the same country without killing one another.” …………….
*** “We must learn to live together as brothers or perish together as fools.” [ Martin Luther King, Jr. ]
{Note: ironically – Charlie Kirk is mentioned for ‘the business model” of a speech he delivered……………… ]
The Trump DICTATORSHIP – Stupidity, Cruelty, Corruption, Craziness, LXI – The COST of Trump’s Policies to America, Now, and In The Future
***** “Nothing doth more hurt in a state than that cunning men pass for wise.” [ Francis Bacon ]
31] BREAKING NEWS !!!!! – “Trump lifts rules on tax shelters” [Jesse Drucker; New York Times; 9/10/25]: “The Trump administration is quietly dismantling efforts by the IRS to shut down a slew of aggressive tax shelters used by America’s biggest multinational companies and wealthiest people….bowing to pressure from industry groups, right-wing activists and congressional Republicans…The IRS crackdown was projected to raise more than $100 billion over 10 years.” [Note: Read the entire article for more!!! There’ll be NO cameo P.R. photo of Trump holding up some “document” he signed!!! YOU are NOT supposed to know about this. Just like you are NOT supposed to know about Trump’s frolics with Jeffrey Epstein!!!!]
It is quite likely that the Trump DICTATORSHIP has ALREADY caused more damage to America than any previous American government. Below, just from headlines, are SOME examples:
1]”Caught in a Doom Loop Of Thinking “Short-Term…Trump may be able to escape the consequences of his actions; the rest of us cannot” [Ben Rhodes; New York Times; 8/17/25]
2] “International Students See Asian Universities as Refuge…Higher Education in the U.S. is seen as a riskier proposition in the Trump era” [ Lydia DePillis, Jin Yu Young; New York Times; 8/17/25 ]
3]. “On Trade, The World Is Moving On Without Us…A sign of the folly of Trump’s policy is that it has inspired no apparent envy among other nations”. [ New York times Editorial; 9/7/25 ]
4] “EPA aims to scrap key policy on climate…Agency wants to rescind finding that greenhouse gas emissions are a risk”. [ Jake Spring; Washington Post; 7/24/25 ]
5]. “Diluted report on human rights dims America’s beacon’ [ John Rash; Minnesota Star Tribune; 8/16/25 ]: “Never before have the reports gone this far in prioritizing an administration’s political agenda..”
6]. “White House plan undermines the possibility of a fair and responsible AI” [ Mohammed Hosseini; St.Paul Pioneer Press; 8/10/25 ]: “The result is an ecosystem in which public research fuels private profit, reinforcing the dominance of tech giants.”
7]. “The Bill for Trumponomics Is Coming Due…White House policies are leading us to rising inflation and slowing growth”. [ Jared Bernstein, Ryan Cummings; New York Times; 8/10/25 ]
8]. “The Death of the Fourth American Republic…Trump is working in tandem with the Supreme Court” [ Jamelle Bouie; New York Times; 8/10/25 ]
9] “What Trump’s War on the Smithsonian Costs us All” [ David Firestone; New York Times; 8/10/25]: “The Trump administration..has made an aggressive effort to rewrite not only its own history but also that of the United states.”
10]. “Trump is Letting TIKTOK [And China] Win…The president’s disregard for federal law is a gift to the world’s most powerful authoritarian government” [ New York Times Editorial; 8/10/25 ]
*** “[The tyrant] is always stirring up some war or other, in order that the people may require a leader.” [ Plato ]
11] “America Is Turning Into a Doddering Giant Hooked On Oil…Smothering the electric vehicle industry is economic idiocy”. [ Robinson Meyer; New York Times; 8/10/25 ]
12]. “Federal DOJ twists attorney ethics into misconduct” [ Rob Doar; Minnesota Star Tribune; 8/11/25 ]
13]. “Appeals court grants DOGE access to American’s sensitive data”. [ Zach Montague; New York Times; 8/13/25]: – A Trump judge and a Bush II judge are the 2-1 majority !!!!!!!!!!!!
14]. “Good for Nvidia shareholders, maybe, But Bad for America” [ Washington Post; 8/17/25 ]
15]. “Defunding science? Penny wise and pound stupid…Weakening America” [ Steven Furianetto; Los Angeles Times; 8/17/25 ]
16] “The cost of Trump’s tariffs is finally coming into focus”. [ Ernie Tedeschi; St.Paul Pioneer Press; 8/24/25 ]
17] “the White House Is Undoing 80 Years of American Greatness…Gutting health and science research squanders the nation’s legacy of innovation”. [ Garrett Graff; New York Times; 8/17/25 ]
18] “Complaint says Social security data at risk…DOGE exposed details, Whistleblower says”. [ Nicholas Nehamas; New York Times; 8/27/25 ]
19]. “A Fed loyal to Trump would cost borrowers”. [ Christopher Rugaber; Assoc. Press; 8/1/25 ]: ‘..the result would likely be higher inflation and, over time, higher borrowing costs for things like mortgages, car loans, and business loans.”
20] “Trump’s Budget Will Devastate Health Care for Rural Families Like Mine…The So-called “Big Beautiful Bill” will throw millions of Americans off Medicaid and put hundreds of rural hospitals at risk of closing” [ Ta’kyla Bates; The Progressive Populist; August, 2025 ]
*** “Nothing is more terrible than ignorance in action.” [ Goethe ]
21] “PFAS change may cost taxpayers billions…EPA proposal on “forever chemicals’ would shift cleanup costs away from the polluters”. [ Hiroko Tabuchi; New York Times; 8/29/25 ]
22]. ‘If economic storm hits, the severity is uncertain…The fiscal data has turned darker amid tariffs, spending cuts”. [ Lydia DePillis; New York Times; 8/24/25 ]
23] “World Scientists look Elsewhere as U.S. Labs Reel From Trump Cuts…America is at risk of losing its long-standing pre-eminence” [ James Glanz; new York Times; 6/1/25 ]
24]. “Trump’s policy changes are making us more susceptible to terrorists…He’s taking law enforcements, assets and funding off the counterterrorism beat, and putting them at ICE’s disposal to track down immigrants.” [ Ben Weisbuch, Phil McGovern; Minnesota Star Tribune; 6/26/25 ]
25]. “Trump’s FBI Has Made America LessSafe…The White House’s political witch hunt is compromising the bureau’s effectiveness.” [ New York Times Editorial; 7/6/25 ]
26]. “Cuts Are Harming Disaster Readiness…Trump, GOP weaken research, resources, as climate change adds fuel to storms.” [ Lisa Friedman, Maxine Joselaw, Coral Davenport, Megan Mineiro; New York Times; 7/14/25 ]
27] “We are witnessing the suicide of a superpower”. [ Max Boot; Washington Post Weekly; 6/8/25 ]: “..[Trump] is doing grave and possibly irreparable damage to the real source of U.S. strength..declaring war on science, and the casualty will be the U.S. economy.”
28]. “Rivals rise as Trump dismantles Voice of America….As the U.S. lets go of its global megaphone, other powers celebrate, and seize the opportunity’. [ Tiffany Hsu; New York Times; 6/29/25 ]
29]. “Nuclear Site Grew After Trump’s Moves…some say demolished gear wouldn’t have existed if Obama’s deal hadn’t been scuttled” [ William Broad, Ronen Bergman; New York Times; 6/29/25 ]
30]. “Project 2026. Trump’s Plan To Hijack The Next Election”. [ Ari Berman; Mother Jones; September-October, 2025 ]: “Nationalizing voter suppression….Silencing Trump’s enemies….Dismantling efforts to prevent election interference….Targeting Democratic officials….Weaponizing the Justice Department….State-level voter suppression and election subversion….Trump-dominated courts gutting voting rights….Gerrymandering the states….Blocking election certification.”
*** Trump; “I have an Article II, where i have the right to do whatever i want as president.” [ George Will; ‘Dismal marks, only two months in” Washington post Weekly; 3/23/25 ]
[Note; read this list again – knowing it is only a SMALL part of the vast damage Trump is doing to America; a SMALL part of the damage he intends to do in the future – carrying out “Project 2025” s wish list
Trump’s presidency is going to cost YOU, YOUR children – in MANY ways besides money. And this before a REALLY BIG ONE: We did not mention Trump’s immoral 2017 tax cuts, which HIS Congress just made permanent. Beside being responsible for about 25% of YOUR national debt – there are all the CUTS required to pay for it – to health, education, safety net, Medicare and Medicaid, park rangers, airport safety, weather reporting…..
Trump is grievously damaging America’s reputation around the world; drastically cutting away at America’s “soft power”. around the world. YOUR children WILL pay for this.
YOU might ponder; king Louis XV of France once said: ‘After me, the deluge.” he was right – revolution, beheadings. followed him. What follows King Donald I ?????????????
The Trump DICTATORSHIP – Stupidity, Cruelty, Corruption, Craziness, LX – Armed Soldiers On American Streets
***** “any excuse will serve a tyrant.” [ Aesop ]
This post consists of excerpts from “Patrol that haunts me more was in Dupont Circle,” by Command Sgt. Major Eric Chastain; originally written for the Los Angeles Times; September, 2025.
1] “I know the look of an armed patrol. I’ve seen it in Baghdad, in Syria – in streets where fear ruled and peace was fragile. I never expected to see that same look on the subway in our own capital.
2] Chastain sees National Guard troops, talks with one. “I reminded him that the most important weapon a soldier carries in a city like this isn’t on his hip – it’s the trust of the people around him.”
3] Dupont Circle is “..a crossroads of international ideas and local community life. to see armed soldiers patrolling there is to see force imposed on a place built for conversation, exchange and civic trust.
4] Chastain “..spent nearly five years..on operations in the Middle East. through it all , what unsettled me in those places was the fragility of trust between armed patrols and the civilians around them – the uneasy sense that one spark could undo any tenuous stability. I never expected to feel that same fear, not for myself, but for our society, while riding the D.C. Metro.”
5] “What I saw last week didn’t resemble the disciplined Army I know. That should unsettle us.”
6]. “Asking them to police a city is unfair – to them, and to the people they’re supposed to serve. This is not what the Guard was built for. Its mission is to respond to disasters….not to serve as an armed show of force on city streets.”
7] “What was once extraordinary is quietly being treated as routine. ˇhat should alarm us all. The sight of soldiers with weapons patrolling D.C. and Los Angeles streets should feel jarring. Because once we accept it as normal, we begin to accept the very thing our military has always fought against – the idea that legitimacy comes from the barrel of a gun.”
8] “..my greatest worry is that by placing young soldiers in impossible positions, we are undermining the very trust between society and service members that holds our democracy together.”
***. “The shortest way to ruin a country is to give power to demagogues.” [ Dionysius ]
The Minnesota Shootings
***** “And let’s be honest about the real issue here: guns. It always comes back to the guns”
{ Sam Hasler; Annunciation parent; 9/3/25}
This post concerns excellent comments made in the 9/3/25 Minnesota Star Tribune. Excerpts follow:
1]. “Annunciation parent: This is not normal And we need to stop pretending it is.”
A] “I’m sad knowing this will happen again – in another school, in another town – and we’ll do it all again. the GoFundMes. the social posts. the trauma interviews.”
B]. “My kids are alive…but my sense of their safety is gone, and I don’t knoe how to get it back.”
C]. “Some politicians – and the people who keep them in power – have decided guns matter more than kids.”
D]. “I’m angry that the Constitution has become a convenient excuse to avoid real solutions.”
E] “But real healing, for me, would mean knowing this won’t happen again – and I don’t believe that. So how am I supposed to heal?”
F]. “How many dead children are we willing to tolerate to protect some notion of freedom?”
G]. “We are not the only country with mental illness. Or social media. Or divided politics. But we are the only one where this happens again and again – and we shrug it off and stall because regulating weapons of war is somehow off the table.”
H]. “If the right to own these guns matters more than children’s right to live, then say that out loud.”
[[Sam Hasler: “Annubciatiin parent; this is not normal”; Minnesota Star Tribune; 9/3/25]
2] “Minnesota Nice, American evil”; David Schultz; Minnesota star Tribune; 9/3/25]
A] “Evil, like the recent shooting and assassinations, festers not only because of individual pathology but because communities fail to confront it.”
B] “The shock is not only that these crimes occurred but that they happened in Minnesota.”
C] “..a convergence of psychological, cultural and structural forces that make Minnesota a case study in how American innocence shatters.”
D]. “The psychology of evil is rarely sudden. It is cumulative, hidden in plain sight.”
E]. “Part of that denial is woven into Minnesota nice.”
F] “Millions suffer from mental illness without harming others. To equate the two is to stigmatize the vulnerable while missing the obvious: So-called “law-abiding citizens” commit acts of domestic abuse, impulsive homicide and suicide every day – with firearms.”
G] “The scale of daily and ignored violence is staggering.”
H] “Evil here is not exotic. It wears familiar faces, lives next door and buys weapons at the same stores as everyone else. Yet we comfort ourselves with denial, focusing only on the mass killers, labeling them insane while ignoring the violence in our family and neighbors.”
I]. “This brings us back to the trinity of evil haunting Minnesota: Chauvin, Boelter, Westman. Each represents a dimension of violence..”
J]. “The lesson is sobering. Evil does not arrive with fanfare. It arrives with a smile, with a shrug, with a neighbor who “almost said something.” Until Minnesota and America find the courage to speak, act and legislate against the forces enabling violence, we will remain trapped in †his cycle. And the tragedies will continue to unfold – here and everywhere.”
[. All it takes for evil to succeed, it for good people to do nothing]
The Trump DICTATORSHIP, Stupidity, Cruelty, Corruption, Craziness, LIX – Trump’s. Economic. IGNORANCE
+++. “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 ]
Trumps’. Economic Ignorance
Beginning evidence for that unfortunate fact comes from “Real World Economics: Federal Reserve follies continue,” Edward Lotterman; St. Paul Pioneer Press; 8/31/25:
“The upshot is that we are $6.3 trillion, or 39.7%, above our pre-Covid bliss 4 1/2 years ago. So, in trying to force interest rates lower, Trump is demanding to further inflate an already historically high money supply even more. He is ignorant of †hat, but buyers and sellers of bonds and mortgage lenders understand it well. Trump doesn’t understand that markets, not Fed governors, are in the driver’s seat. Forcing overnight rates lower will drive long-term rates higher as inflation looms. No well-informed and sane person would want to go into the 2026 election with mortgage and medium-term farm and business loan interest rates rising, but our president seems hell-bent on that.”
Note: read the above again: “… Trump is demanding to further inflate…..He is ignorant of that…..Trump doesn’t understand…..No well-informed and sane person….seems hell-bent on that.”]
*** “A fool sees not the same tree that a wise man sees.” [ William Blake ]
*** “Where there is no vision, the people perish.” [ Proverbs 29: 18 ]
The August 27, 2025 Minneapolis church shooting – some thoughts……..
1] “A boy identified only as Victor laid on top of 10-year-old Weston Halsne during the Annunciation shooting. Victor was shot protecting his friend.
“That also means Victor has done more to protect a child during a school shooting than all the members of Congress elected in the last 30 years.” [ Jeremy powers; Minnesota Star Tribune “letter”; 8/29/25]
2] “It’s not about the ideology.
“It’s not about mental health.
“It’s not about video games.
“It’s not about social media.
“It’s not about the pronouns.
“It’s not about left or right.
“It’s not about freedom.
“It’s about the leading cause of death amoung children and adolescents in this country.
“It’s about the mass destruction that can be caused by anyone, anywhere, anytime for any reason at all.
“It’s about guns.” [John Neerland; Minnesota Star Tribune “letter”; 8/29/25]
3]. “New Zealand did something…Less than a month after the attack, Parliament voted 119-1 to introduce a nationwide ban on semi-automatic weapons and assault rifles.”…………….
“The U.K. did something….By the next year, Parliament had banned private ownership of most handguns and semi-automatic weapons, and required mandatory registration for shotgun owners. the U.K.hasn’t had a school shooting since.
“Norway did something…While Norway already had strict gun laws, they passed a ban on semi-automatic weapons in 2018, which went into effect in 2021.” [Maggie Kelly: “America grieves again and again. Other countries act.”; Minnesota Star Tribune; 8/29/25]
4] Amendment II: “A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.” Read ALL of the discussion among Founding Fathers on the Second Amendment – most importantly, WHY, they passed it.
5] James Madison’s original Second Amendment proposal contained this: an exemption from military service for those religiously scrupulous about bearing arms. It was left out of the shortened words adopted.
OBVIOUSLY – the Second Amendment was. INTENDED. to be about a GOVERNMENT military force – in 1787-91 – made up of private citizens. America now has this. It’s known as THE. NATIONAL. GUARD.
6] Get a professional English teacher to explain the rules of grammar on interpreting a sentence. the TRUE MEANING of a sentence takes into account ALL words in it. Amendment II has three sections: “A well regulated Militia.” “…the security of a free State”. ‘the right of people to keep and bear Arms.”
Obviously – people have Arms, in order to join a Militia, to protect the security of a free State. Obviously – if the “people’ aren’t in a Militia – they don’t need Arms. Which is what other, more rational and civilized nations have done
7]. CORRUPTION of the Second Amendment – was done by the CORRUPT Roberts ‘court” in 2008. they magically discovered a “meaning” that had eluded previous state and federal courts for over 200 years in numerous rulings, including multiple Supreme Court rulings.
8]. is America a “civilized’ nation. – IF – somebody, for reasons all his own – can obtain a MILITARY weapon – and then proceed to shoot up a school, a church, a store, a night club, etc. AND – our reaction is only to pray, make speeches, grieve by ourselves…. – BUT. REFUSE. to do THE. ONE THING THAT WILL STOP THS CARNAGE. – ban the weapons that do the killing and maiming????? We are not “free” – our children live in fear of being shot at school, are forced to do “live shooter drills.” We live in far for ONE REASON – some crazed person will kill us, with a gun.
It is time to elect people who WILL pass strict gun laws – like New Zealand, UK, Norway have done. PERIOD.
With Justice For All 
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