***. “The children who go to bed hungry in a Harlem slum or a West Virginia mining town are not be deprived because no food can be found to give them; they are going to bed hungry because, despite all our miracles of invention and production, we have not yet fond a way to make the necessities of life available to all of our citizens. – including those whose failure is not lack of personal industry or initiative, but only an unwise choice of parents.”
[ Senator J. William Fulbright; 1964 ]
This post presents excerpts from “Life Was Impossible, and Then It Got Worse”. [ Nicholas Kristof; New York Times; 8/2/26 ]: “Millions of Americans struggle today in sometimes unimaginable ways.”
4] “..this pain across America is now magnified by President Trump’s cuts in food stamps, Medicaid, mental health funding for children, pregnancy prevention initiatives and other social programs, as well as by rising gas and food prices.”
6] “A recent Washington Post-Ipsos poll found that two-thirds of Americans consider groceries unaffordable.”
11]. “..the age group most likely to live in poverty. – by far — is children, particularly children 2 years old and under; and they can’t be accused of fraud, laziness or personal irresponsibility. Yes, many of them end up making bad choices, but we fail them before they fail us.”
*** “Jesus said to him, “If you will be perfect, go and sell what you have, and give to the poor, and you shall have treasure in heaven, and come and follow me.” [ Matthew 19: 21 ]
1] “..[Trinity]..Johnson, 44, survives by selling blood plasma twice a week. she had $3.78 in her checking account, one cent in her savings account to keep it open, and sic pennies in her piggy bank.”
2]. “She dwells in an America that many of us might have trouble imagining. For five years she staved off homelessness only by staying in the home of a man who was not a romantic partner but who took advantage of her vulnerability, she said, by regularly demanding sex.”
3]. “Food stamps, $298 a month, sustain her, but they can’t be used for toilet paper or feminine hygiene products. So she searches for them at church-run pantries – lifelines in much of America.”
5]. “Republicans are also imposing tougher work requirements for benefits; this is reasonable in theory, but in practice such requirements have proved costly and end up mostly just driving people into poverty.”
***. “Many people consider the things government does for them to be social progress, but they regard the things government does for others as socialism.” [ Chief Justice Earl Warren ]
7] “I asked Goodman what message she would have for Trump as the cuts and work requirements he ordered ripple across the land. “You do not know what you’re doing to people who are struggling to live,’ she said. “You got money in the bank. You don’t know how it feels to struggle. Live in my shoes for one day. You wouldn’t be able to handle it.”
8]. “Nationwide, some 1.5 million children have lost food stamps under Trump’s crackdown over the last year, according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.”
9]. “THe push to cut benefits for struggling Americans is partly rooted in a desire to trim federal spending, but that’s hard to square with the expense of the Iran war, as well as the subsidies for private planes and tax cuts for the wealthiest. It’s also based on a perception that the “undeserving poor” are exploiting the system.” [NOTE: SO…in Donald John Trump’s mythical America – there are NO, NONE, ZERO. – “undeserving rich”???????????]
10] “As of 2019, according to ProPublica, the place in America with the highest percentage of tax audits was not a haven of billionaires but rather Humphrys county, Miss., with a majority Black population and a median household income then of roughly $26,000.” [ NOTE: THIS is a major summary of Trump’s policies. ]
***. “Poverty is a great enemy to human happiness, it certainly destroys liberty, and it makes some virtues impracticable and others extremely difficult.” [ Samuel Johnson; 12/7/1782 ]
12] “Trump initially proposed eliminating Head Start, the federal program with bipartisan support that serves those vulnerable children in poverty. He later backed off that idea, but congressional investigators found that his administration illegally withheld $12 billion from the program for several months, causing great hardship.”
13] “It’s understandable that many working-class Americans feel betrayed….One reason for the complacency is that the problems…are often invisible. Americans may see a homeless person shooting drugs, but they won’t see the arc of hopelessness that began with, say, foster care. – which at it’s worse is a government system of child abuse.”
14] “Some of Williams’s earliest memories are of men sexually assaulting her, perhaps when she was 3 or 4. Her mother was a prostitute with addictions, she said, and at age 6 she saw her younger sister killed and was then put in foster care.”
15]. “..if we want to talk about lack of responsibility, we also have to have a conversation about our collective lack of responsibility, about the way we treat some kids as throwaways. – or the way we’re now taking food stamps from 1.5 million children.”
***. “Poverty is not merely the lack of adequate financial resources. It entails a more profound kind kind of deprivation, a denial of full participation in the economic, social, and political life of society and the inability to influence decisions that affect one’s life. It means being powerless in a way that assaults not only one’s pocketbook but also one’s fundamental human dignity.” [ National Conference of Catholic Bishops; 1986 ]
Tag: books
The Trump DICTATORSHIP. – Stupidity, Cruelty, Corruption, Craziness, CLXXXIX. – INCOMPETENCE And Stupidity In Foreign Affairs
*** “Orthodoxy means not thinking – not needing to think. Orthodoxy is unconsciousness.”
[ George Orwell: “1984” ]
This post provides YOU with information from only a FEW of the many reports on the Trump DICTATORSHIP’s monumental record of rigid, often fact-free, INCOMPETENCE and Stupidity in dealing with the Middle East. By the time you read this post, things will likely have gotten worse. The possibility is substantial that Trump’s “war of choice” will devastate the WORLD economy. The origin of much of this INCOMPETENCE and Stupidity is Trump’s own ego and desire for revenge. Some excerpts from only a few reports follow:
A] “State Dept. cut jobs with expertise in Middle East”. {Byron Tau; Associated Press; 3/20/26:
3]. “These kinds of personnel and management choices – coupled with President Donald Trump’s moves to shrink government and confine decision-making to a tight circle – are limiting the ability of the United States to handle a global emergency..”
1]. “The Trump administration for a time put mora Namdar, a lawyer of Iranian descent with limited management experience in charge…One of her credentials was her contribution to Project 2025”..
2]. “Namdar’s last Senate-confirmed predecessor was a long-time middle East expert who had been with the department since 1984 an had served as the U.S. ambassador to the United Arab Emirates.” [ !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!///!!!!!!!!!!! ]
***. “Based on my reporting, Trump’s language and conduct has at times presented risks to national security – both during his presidency and afterward. Many of Trump’s former top cabinet officers and aides have said publicly that Trump should not be president again and should not even be on the ballot.” [ Bob Woodward: “War” ]
B] “War poses test for DOJ”. [ Alan Feuer, Glenn Thrush; New York Times; 3/8/26 ]:
2] “..hardball personnel and policy directives, often at the command of the Trump White House, has led to an exodus of experienced investigators and prosecutors…The priority placed on Trump’s directives has also diverted agents from national security matters to immigration enforcement or other ancillary tasks…” [NOTE: is this sabotage?]
1] “after a year of constant firings, resignations and other disruptive distractions, elite counterterrorism and counterintelligence units have been stretched thin and left short-handed..” [NOTE: sooo – catching the woman who babysits YOUR child is more important than catching a Chinese spy or a terrorist who’ll blow up YOUR kid’s school???]
3] “some of those let go included agents who worked on efforts to stem Iran’s ability to operate stealthily in the United States..” [ !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!??????????!!!!!!!!!!!!!??????? ]
***. “All American presidents before Trump had, in varying degrees, modulated their remarks to avoid exacerbating the centuries-old rivalries within Islamic countries…to balance American interets among those contending factions. Abandoning that history of thoughtful diplomacy, Trump…” [Pulitzer Prize winner David Cay Johnston: “It’s Even Worse Than You Think” ]
c] “Depleted FBI, DOJ on guard for terror” [ Eric Tucker, Alanna Durkin Richer; Associated Press; 3/5/26 ]:
3] “The Justice Department’s National Security Division was established in 2006 to address threats of terrorism, espionage and other concerns. In the last year, lawyers in the division found themselves assigned to review the Jeffrey Epstein files…and elite sections dedicated to prosecuting terrorists and catching spies have endured turnover.”
4]. “This is not an exaggeration to say that the are not as capable as they were a year ago,” Matthew Olsen, who led the national Security Division…”they’ve lost, forced out, fired, the most capable, the most experienced FBI agents, FBI officials and DOJ prosecutors that were working on the Iran threat.” [Note: sabotage???]
1]. “The firings and resignations, along with the diversion of resources and personnel over the last year to meet the Trump administration priorities, have fueled concerns about the capability to head off a potential surge in threats.”
2] “So much experience has been decimated from the ranks,”…”The folks that were best positioned to get to the bottom of it before something really bad happened”. are in many cases no longer with the government..”
*** “Ive served the man for two years. [Trump’s]..a long-term and immediate danger to the country,” a senior national security official told us. Another senior administration official said, “The guy is completely crazy.”
{ Pulitzer Prize winners Philip Rucker, Carol Leonnig: “A Very Stable Genius” }
D]. “The U.S. desperately needs functional counterterrorism”. [ Jacob Ware, Colin Clarke: Los Angeles Times; 3/22/26]:
3] “..the Trump administration has repeatedly invoked Iran’s history of support for terrorist proxies to justify the conflict…But without a more defined strategy, America will likely struggle to mount an effective response.”
1] “Without a strategy that clearly lays out American priorities and responses, America’s counterterrorism defenses are divided, disorganized and under-resourced.”
2]. “The home-grown backlash to the Iran conflict began on March 1… The diversity of the attacks and the perpetrators makes matters worse..”
*** “Mattis, Tillerson and Coats are all conservatives or apolitical people who wanted to help him and the country…They concluded that Trump was an unstable threat to their country.”
Pulitzer Prize winner Bob Woodward: “Rage” ]
E] “Gulf allies say U.S. ignored their warnings on Iran”. [ Samy Magdy, Michelle Price, Aamer Madhanl; Associated Press; 3/7/26]: This title says it all!!! INCOMPETENCE and Stupidity. Plus not really caring what happened to these small ‘allies” of the U.S.. Read the article for specific quotes. Note their disappointment. Will they still be ‘allies” when this is over???
*** “when his performance as president is taken in its entirety, I can only reach one conclusion: Trump is the wrong man for the job.” [ Bob Woodward; “Rage” ]
The Trump DICTATORSHIP – Stupidity, Cruelty, Corruption, Craziness, LVII – The Corruption of the American Soul
***** “How can you say to your brother, “Let me pull the speck out of your eye,” and behold, a plank is in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take out the plank from your own eye, and then shall you see clearly to take out the speck from your brother”s eye.” [ Matthew. 7: 3-5 ]
Of all the crimes against America and Americans by Donald John Trump, perhaps the worst, the most insidious, likely the longest-lasting, will be the egregious damage and corruption of the American soul. The Trumpian virus eats away at America’s aggregate humanity and simple decency. Trump has inspired hate, not love; fear, not optimism; suspicion, not trust. This has, will continue, to take a great toll on how WE as ordinary Americans treat each other.
1]. “Trump’s perverse genius, and he follows in the footsteps of cult leaders and dictators alike, is to convince his followers that the world is a dangerous place that only he can fix.”………..
“According to Malkin, political leaders such as Hitler, Vladimir Putin, and Kim Jong-un exhibit malignant narcissism. As Robert Jay Lifton notes in “The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump,” such narcissism in a leader can lead to “malignant normality”…people can come to accept aberrant and even pathological behavior as the new norm, especially when it is exhibited by an authority figure. He applies this to Trump..” [Steven Hassan: “The Cult of Trump”]
Note: “…”malignant normality”…people can come to accept aberrant and even pathological behavior as the new norm..” This is painfully becoming obvious in America – after 9 years plus of Trump’s insults and public put-downs, a new brutality has been unleashed. The necessary self-restraints and norms about how decent people treat each other in a “civilized society’ have, are, being ripped away. So ordinary people feel “justified’ in cruelty.
*****. “Instead of clearing his own heart, the zealot tries to clear the world.” [ Joseph Campbell ]
2] “Trans panic zealots are following girls into the bathroom now, I guess”. [Noor Adwan; Minnesota Star Tribune; 8/l4/25]:
A]. “A Minnesota nonprofit filed a discrimination charge against a Buffalo Wild Wings location in Owatonna, Minn., on Tuesday after a server allegedly followed an 18-year-old into a bathroom, then proceeded to bang on the stall door demanding that the teen prove she was a girl.”
B]. “According to the news release from Gender justice, the high schooler – feeling trapped and humiliated – resorted to unzipping her hoodie to ‘show she had breasts”. in order to make it stop.”
C]. “Here’s the thing, though: G.M., the teen on whose behalf the charge was filed, isn’t trans. but it’s no secret that this type of moral panic is simply a way of alienating and shaming those who don’t conform to societal expectations of gender expressions.”
D]. “We know G. was targeted because of how she looks, [her step-mother]. is quoted as saying in the news release.”
*****. “Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, just as God for Christ’s sake has forgiven you.” {Ephesians. 4: 32]
BUT – CRUELTY is a major part of the Trump strategy. Important people around Trump, in his administration, have publicly stated, bragged, this is their INTENT. Be intentionally cruel to create fear. It’s worked. there are ever increasing cases like the young girl of this post. – instances where ‘ordinary’ Americans felt “justified” to treat other Americans with malice and cruelty.
***** “Liberty lies in the hearts of men and women; when it dies there, no constitution, no law….no court can save it.” [ Judge Learned Hand ]
