*** “The Trump presidency is about Trump. Period. Full stop. He says so himself all the time. [ David Cay Johnston, Pulitzer Prize winner: “It’s Even Worse Than It looks” ]
1] “Donald Trump’s conquering of the country is complete. The blows he’s inflicted on American democracy will take a lifetime to heal.” [ Jamie Stiehm: “Trump’s Rap Sheet vs. the People”; The Progressive Populist; September, 2025 ] Excerpts follow on specifics:
– “The president fired the Bureau of Labor Statistics chief, a woman, for a poor jobs and growth report. That is a death knell – or a deep chill – for honest government officials.
– “He shut the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, headed by a woman.
– “He’ll no longer enforce pollution laws, giving fossil fuels open season.”
– “He fired the Black chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and a woman admiral.”
– “He decimated the federal workforce.”
– “He slashed climate and weather national services as the air gets hotter, floods rise faster, blazews burn longer, and hurricanes cause havoc. Hes threatened to curb the Federal Emergency Management Agency.”
– “His volatile tariffs are hurting consumer prices and jarring the world trade system, creating uncertainty.”
– “Trump compelled the Senate to confirm his criminal defense lawyer, Emil Bove, to the federal bench, 50-49.”
– “He’s taking away health care for at least 11 million people. [ after the 2026 midterms ].”
– “He fired the librarian of Congress, a Black woman, and the Kennedy Center president, a woman – in overnight emails.”
– “He dismantled our helping hand around the world, the U.S. Agency for International Development.” [our foreign enemies LOVE this!!!!!]
– “He’s seizing federal funds from top universities.” [ this damage will unfold over years ]
– “The mainstream media bends over backwards, mainly in legal payoffs, to pacify his rage.” [too much truth]
– “He’s abducting residents with no criminal record.”
– “Trump’s Supreme Court stripped a constitutional right – reproductive rights – away from citizens for the first time in history.”
*** “If Fascism came to America, it would be on a program of Americanism.” [ Huey P. Long ]
2] For perspective, consider these charges from “The Declaration of Independence”. against King George III:
– “He has refused his Assent to laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public Good.”
– “He has obstructed the Administration of Justice..”
– “He has made judges dependent on his Will alone..”
– “He has kept among us, in Times of Peace, Standing Armies, without the consent of our Legislatures.”
– “He has affected to render the Military independent and superior to the Civil Power.”
– “He has combined with others to subject us to a Jurisdiction foreign to our Constitution..”
– “For cutting off our trade with all Parts of the World. – for imposing taxes on us without our consent; for depriving us, in many Cases, of the Benefits of Trial by Jury; for transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended Offenses..”
– “He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of His Protection and waging War against us.”
– “He has excited domestic Insurrections amongst us..”
– “In every stage of these Oppressions we have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble Terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated Injury. A Prince whose Character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the Ruler of a free people.”
*** “Government is a trust, and the officers of the government are trustees; and both the trust and the trustees are created for the benefit of the People.” [ U.S. Representative, Senator, Secretary of State. – Henry Clay ]
[NOTE: What’s the practical difference between King George III, and King Donald I ??? George ruled by “divine right”; Donald rules by “Project 2025,” says God’s protecting him.. George was surrounded by rich nobles. Donald is surrounded by rich billionaires
King Donald I talks about “my judges,” “my generals,” “my Justice Department,” ‘my legislators.” King Donald I’s best foreign friends are dictators; he just pardoned an ex-leader convicted of smuggling “tons’ of cocaine into America. King Donald I attacks, persecutes, prosecutes ANY person or group telling the truth about him – what kings and dictators do.
YOU tell me – when Congresspeople say “we’re all afraid”; when the acknowledged goals of Trumpian rhetoric and actions are FEAR and CRUELTY – what’s the practical difference between King George III and King Donald I ???? ]
*** “The accumulation of all powers, legislative, executive and judiciary, in the same hands, whether of one, a few, or many, and whether hereditary, self-appointed, or elective, may justly be pronounced the very definition of tyranny.” [James Madison, Founder, 4th U.S. President]
Tag: history
The Trump DICTATORSHIP – Stupidity, Cruelty, Corruption, Craziness, LXXXIII – Trump As Bully In Chief
***. “You do not lead by hitting people over the head – that’s assault, not leadership.”
[Dwight D. Eisenhower, 34th U. S. President, World War ii Commanding General ]
“In social media posts near midnight on thanksgiving, [Trump] threatened to strip citizenship from naturalized migrants “who undermine domestic tranquility.” [“Shooting sets Trump on angry path”; Shawn McCreesh; New York Times; 11/29/25]
Stop laughing! Think hard – is there ANYBODY in the United States of America, who, since 2015, has dome more to “undermine domestic tranquility” than Donald John Trump ???????
***. “Dictators are the popes of nationalism.” [ Aldous Huxley ]
“Gov. Walz knows how bullies operate.” [ Jennifer Brooks; Minnesota Star Tribune; 11/29/25]:
1] “Trump’s words and deeds – the time he mocked a reporter with with a physical disability; the times in recent weeks that he called women “stupid,” “ugly,” and “piggy” – tend to get shrugged off as Trump being Trump.”
“This is not both-sidesism,” Walz said. “This is clearly one side – Donald Trump – hat is clearly trying to divide this country and thinks that it’s beneficial to him, politically.”
2] “There’s a pattern to Trump’s holiday greetings: Subject. + verb +. insult.”
***. “It is the old practice of despots to use part of the people to keep the rest in order.”
[. Thomas Jefferson, 3rd U.S. President; 1798 ]
3] “Trump’s tradition of wrapping holiday greetings around insults dates back at least to Memorial Day. 2015: “I would like to wish everyone, including all haters and losers [ of which, sadly, there are many ] a truly happy and enjoyable Memorial Day!” “Mother’s Day? “Happy Mother’s Day to ALL, in particular the Mothers, Wives and Lovers of the Radical Left Fascists, Marists, and Communists who are doing everything within their power to destroy and obliterate our once great Country.” “Christmas. 2024: “Go To Hell!”
4] “People who do things like this, you don’t associate with,’ Walz said. “I really wish America would start to understand that this has nothing to do with conservative tax policy, it has nothing to do with climate change. “It has everything to do with – at heart – just being cruel,’ he added. “The cruelty is at the center of the agenda.”
*** “If you can’t say something nice, don’t say nothing at all.” [ Thumper, 1942, Disney’s “Bambi” movie ]
*** “No circumstances can repair a defect of character.” [ Ralph Waldo Emerson ]
***. “The best index to a person’s character is [a] how he treats people who can’t do him any good, and [b] how he treats people who can’t fight back.” [ Abigail Van Buren; 5/16/ 1974 ]
The Trump DICTATORSHIP – Stupidity, Cruelty, Corruption, Craziness, LXXXI – Trumpism is. UNDERMINING what is REALITY, what DID make America great
***. “At what point, then, is the approach of danger to be expected? I answer, if it ever reach us, it must spring up amongst us; it cannot come from abroad. If destruction be our lot, we must ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of freemen, we must live through all time, or die by suicide.” [ Abraham Lincoln, 1837 ]
The murderer of America, as a great nation, as a society – is Donald John Trump. The STUPIDITY and DESTRUCTIVENESS of his rhetoric, his actions, his policies is. UNMATCHED in American history. He just might be the real. “Manchurian Candidate,” or, perhaps, “the useful idiot.”
Ponder the thoughts below:
This post – “America’s Formula for Greatness Is Under Threat” – is inspired by Nicholas Kristof’s 11/16/25 New York Times article of that title. Excerpts follow:
1] “What’s the secret formula that has made the United States the dominant superpower in the world today? I’d point to three fundamental ingredients, each of which is now being weakened. When I think of the historical legacies of our generation and of President Trump, I wonder if they will be less about the political battles in the headlines and more about the slow shriveling of America’s global standing. Patriotism is less about waving flags and more about defending these three that over two centuries have made America pre-eminent:
A] A commitment to education at every level, resulting in global leadership in science and technology.
1] “America became the world’s leading nation largely because of its emphasis beginning in the 19th century on mass education….later, American research universities became global leaders and nurtured technology hubs….American excellence in science drives economic competitiveness and well-being. Yet Trump is winding down mRNA vaccine programs that are full of promise for tackling cancer and has slashed investments in medical research.
B] An inclination toward free markets and free trade, supported by the rule of law.
1]. “Trump has systematically chipped away at some of the underpinnings of a market economy. Markets thrive with prudent fiscal and monetary management, yet his tax cuts lead to a soaring national debt even as he tries to crush the independence of the Federal Reserve. Corruption is a bane of capitalism, yet his family has seemed to use the presidency as a A.T.M.”
2] “And the rule of la?….Trump has periodically defied lower courts and used the Department of Justice to punish his political opponents. Mark l. Wolf, a federal judge appointed by President Reagan..[resigned]…to be able to speak openly about the Trump administration’s “assault on the rule of law” and the way that it poses an “existential threat to democracy.”
C] Immigration and the absorption of some of the brightest minds from around the world.
1]. “..Four of the Magnificent Seven tech companies are led by immigrants, and 46 percent of Fortune 500 companies were founded by immigrants or their children..”
AGAIN – if doubtful of this commentary – we refer YOU to the Constitution’s Preamble and the goals of the Founders: “..Union..Justice..Tranquility….promote the general Welfare..secure the Blessings of Liberty..” Few, if ANY, Trump policies, actions, and most of all his hateful rhetoric pass the Founder’s test. BUT. – YOU don’t need to believe me. – read comments from around the world on the STUPIDITY and the DESTRUCTIVENESS of Trump’s policies, actions, rhetoric. Her has routinely offended former friends and allies – symbolized by Canada. Trump has, single-handedly, managed to sabotage a 200 year friendship UNMATCHED. anywhere in the world with Canada.
He is sabotaging the security of Europe by giving Vladimir Putin whatever he wants – a point Europeans are now openly saying and working to offset.
America won World War II and the Cold War. – because w had friends and allies. THE threats to world peace, democracy, stability. – are. Russia and China. Trump is sabotaging America’s ability to have the NEEDED support to combat the threats of Russia and China
Trump is sabotaging. YOUR present, future, economic security by ‘giving away the farm” to his main friends – America’s and the world’s. billionaires. His 2017 and 2025 tax cuts are THE single most destructive attack in American government’s ability to finance NECESSARY functions. America now has a record number of billionaires. Trump’s 2017 tax cut for them is responsible for 25% of our, YOUR, ballooning national debt. Making PERMANENT his 2017 tax cut for the obscenely rich. – will soon be used to cut YOUR Social Security and Medicare/Medicaid benefits. [that YOU worked for].
*** “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, LXXVIII – Being Vague So. The Trump DICTATORSHIP. Can. Write. Its. Own. Rules
***. “It will be of little avail to the people that the laws are made by by men of their own choice, if the laws be so voluminous that they cannot be read, or so incoherent that they cannot be understood; if they be repealed before they are promulgated, or undergo.such incessant changes that no man who knows what the law is today can guess what it will be to-morrow.” [ James Madison, Founding Father, 4th U.S. President – 1788 ]
This post presents excerpts from Matthew Purdy’s “The Fog of Trump” [New York Times Magazine; 11/16/25]. READ. THE ENTIRE. ARTICLE!!! It describes how the Trump DICTATORSHIP is INTENTIONALLY vague so it can apply government power against. YOU. – if YOU make Trump unhappy.
2] “..Trump is creating a system of rules and punishments all his own. And when those rules are vaguely defined – unlike, say a speed limit or even compex financial regulations – there is no assurance that anyone can be safely outside the zone of violation. Therefore, there is no telling who might be found out of bounds next and what punishment might be imposed.”
5]. “Vagueness has been seen as antithetical to due process and the rule of law since the earliest days of American democracy…. Vagueness thrived in the dark corner of anti-vagrancy laws. Under the post-Civil War Black Codes, the authorities arrested and sometimes effectively re-enslaved Black people…A hundred years later, vagrancy laws allowed police to detain people for such broadly defined crimes as “wandering or strolling around from place to place without any lawful purpose or object……In 1972, the Supreme Court reaffirmed the concept that laws could be “void for vagueness”…the law furnished “a convenient tool for ‘harsh and discriminatory enforcement by local prosecuting officials, against particular groups deemed to merit their displeasure.'”
3] “Vagueness breeds trepidation, perhaps the desired result. “We want you to fear,’ Steve Bannon, a former Trump aide and prominent cheerleader, said last year, anticipating a second term. Tom Ginsburg, an international law professor at the University of Chicago who has written about the decline of democracies around the world, says inducing worry is effective. “You get a lot of anticipatory compliance, which is cheap. And vagueness is part of the tool kit.”
***. “I do not see why men should not be just as cruel as nature.” [ Adolf Hitler ]
1] “..[Judge Young]..said diversity, equity and inclusion efforts in particular were set up as “some sort of boogeyman” in Trump’s executive orders, with “no operative definition.” Administration officials, he concluded, “decided they are going to ‘eradicate’ something that they cannot define.” Federal District Court judges across the country and across the political spectrum…have echoed Young’s critique, faulting the administration for using broadly cast executive orders and policies to justify “arbitrary and capricious” actions…..But vagueness has become fundamental to the way Trump operates.”
4] “Fear can seep in anywhere…its depth is perhaps best measured in more ordinary spaces, like middle school classrooms. Valerie Wolfson, the 2024 New Hampshire history teacher of the year, is wrestling with a federal order accusing all schools of “indoctrinating” students about racism…it remains a quandary for Wolfson, whose post-Civil War curriculum includes Reconstruction, the rise of the K.K.K. and the Jim Crow era. “I do not know how I could discuss them without creating a risk of being accused of presenting a narrative of the United States as racist”..”
*** “Every tyrant who ever lived has believed in freedom – for himself.” { Elbert Hubbard ]
7]. “For decades, the United States has held itself out to the world as the paragon of ‘laws not men” governance. During the first Trump administration, as vague laws aimed at suppressing dissent spread in Eastern Europe and beyond, the U.S. Embassy in Tbilisi, Georgia, issued a statement underscoring that tradition. The statement, titled “Authoritarian Regimes’ Unclear Laws make Anyone a Suspect,” distinguished between vague laws used by authoritarians and American laws designed to guard against arbitrary power……Today, the ruling of some American judges critical of Trump administration policies echo the language in that statement.” [ Irony, anyone !!!!! ]
8]. “Trump did not hide that he was seeking revenge, nor was it lost on the judges. In the case of another law firm, WilmerHale, Judge Richard J. Leon, a George W. Bush nominee, said he agreed with the firm’s assertion that the executive order left “no doubt that WilmerHale is being punished because it has represented some of the president’s political opponents and advanced positions with which he disagrees.” “The order essentially leaves it to WilmerHale to predict which causes and which attorneys the president personally dislikes and then steer clear of those causes and attorneys,’ he wrote. “This chilling effect triggers serious vagueness concerns.”
*** “The tyrant confuses those he can’t convince, corrupts those he can’t confuse, and crushes those he can’t corrupt.” [Anonymous]
{NOTE: a reminder – this site has often said. – THE TEST. – of any president, of any American government is this: from the Preamble of the U.S. Constitution: “We the People…more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility….promote the general Welfare..” We have now provided 78. examples of WHY the Trump DICTATORSHIP is a threat to American democracy, American national security, America itself – because it has, usually deliberately, FAILED to provide Union, Tranquility, Justice, promote the general Welfare. As bad as the first Trump administration was, the 2025-2029 Trump DICTATORSHIP is a PLANNED assault on all hat America became, 1933-73, because. “Project 2025,” written by far right reactionaries – many of its major authors hold positions of power in Trump’s administration are working to implement that infamous plan. Their goal; make America a plutocratic theocracy. They’ve had numerous successes already. THE QUESTION: What are YOU going to do to protect YOUR family?????????????? ]
The Trump DICTATORSHIP – Stupidity, Cruelty, Corruption, Craziness, LXXV – “Americans go hungry while Trump parties like Gatsby”
***. “Just tell your readers that you have a source who knows a lot about the Republican Party from long experience, that he knows all the key movers and shakers, and he has a bit of advice: people should not vote for ANY Republican, because they’re dangerous, dishonest, and self-serving… I have come to realize the Democrats really do care about people who most need help from the government; Republicans care most about those who will only get richer because of government help. The government is truly broken, particularly in dealing with national security, and another four years, and heaven forbid not eight years, under Republicans, and our grandchildren will have to build a new government, because the one we have will be unrecognizable and unworkable.” [commentary “by a lifelong Republican…who voted for Bush and Cheney twice, because he knows them both personally,” in John W. Dean’s “Broken Government…How Republican Rule Destroyed the Legislative, Executive, and Judicial Branches}
{NOTE: America did NOT listen – and we have now had 4 years, 9 months of Republican rule this man FEARED. AND – from daily headlines, the Trump DICTATORSHIP. IS working to make American government, America itself, “unrecognizable and unworkable.” ]
This post presents excerpts from Ka Vang’s. “Americans go hungry while Trump parties like Gatsby” [ St. Paul Pioneer Press; 11/6/25 ]:
1] “President Donald Trump threw a “Great Gatsby” party this past weekend at Mar-a-Lago while millions of Americans lost their snap benefits. It’s one thing to eat cake and drink champagne while others starve; it’s another to rent a jazz band, pour champagne into a tower, and rub it in our faces while calling it presidential leadership.”
2] “Trump’s Gatsby soiree was his Marie Antoinette let-the-eat-cake moment, except the cake was gold-leafed, the cavier imported, and the guest list limited to people who don’t know the price of a gallon of milk.”
3] “Meanwhile, the SNAP program – born in the 1960s as a bipartisan way to ensure Americans didn’t starve in one of the richest countries on Earth – was being gutted. SNAP isn’t charity. It’s the reason millions of children, seniors and working parents eat.”
*** “Wherever there is lost the consciousness that every man is an object of concern for us just because he is a man, civilization and morals are shaken, and the advance to fully developed inhumanity is only a question of time.”
[. Albert Schweitzer ]
4] “With the payments cut off amid the federal government shutdown, many families across Minnesota are going down to one meal a day. The Trump party didn’t just ignore them. It mocked them with every bottle of $500 champagne that could’ve fed a family of four for a week.”
5]. “I keep picturing Trump dancing with Melania in a designer sequined gown, pretending to be Gatsby and Daisy, when really they’re more like Edgar Allen Poe’s Prince Prospero and his courtiers in “The Masque of the Red Death.”
6] “On Monday, Trump’s administration said it will partially fund SNAP for November, but only after two judges issued rulings requiring the government to keep the nation’s largest food aid program running. It didn’t feed hungry families out of compassion; it was forced to do it.”
7]. “And in real life – and in books – the party always ends when the people outside get tired of starving. Just ask Marie Antoinette and Jay Gatsby how their parties ended.”
*** “There will be no loyalty, except loyalty toward the Party. Tere will be no love, except the love of Big Brother. There will be no laughter, except the laugh of triumph over a defeated enemy…..Always, at every moment, there will be the thrill of victory, the sensation of trampling on an enemy who is helpless. If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stomping on a human face – forever.” [ George Orwell: “1984” ]
{NOTE: The Trump DICTATORSHIP story is on of CONTEMPT. While there is chaos in airports and 42 million Americans worry about their next meal. – “your” president is playing golf. While 300 million live paycheck-to-paycheck. – “your” president DEMANDED. hat his. IMMORAL 2017 tax cut for billionaires be made permanent. The boot that is stomping on human, non-billionaire faces, FOREVER, is worn by Donald John Trump, who views America democracy, the rule of law, and YOU – with CONTEMPT. ]
{Note: If YOU have ANY doubt about what a truly rotten, selfish, dishonest, damaging, antidemocratic ‘person” Donald John Trump really. IS. – read just a part of any of the following books written by Pulitzer Prize winning investigative reporters:
– “It’s Even Worse Than You ThinK – David Cay Johnston
– “Confidence Man”. – Maggie Haberman [“The Making of Donald Trump and The Breaking of America”]
– “Injustice” – Carol Leonnig, Aaron Davis [ how Trump has DESTROYED ‘the rule of law’}
The Trump DICTATORSHIP – Stupidity, Cruelty, Corruption, Craziness, LXXI – “Bow To The Emperor
*** “The accumulation of all power, legislative, executive, and judiciary, in the same hands, whether of one, a few, or many; whether hereditary, self-appointed, or elective, may justly be pronounced the very definition of tyranny.” [James Madison, 1788}
THE GOOD NEWS: on October 18th, 7 million PATRIOTIC Americans turned out for 2000 rallies held in all 50 states. Other rallies occurred in foreign nations. The NO KINGS” rallies showed Americans are waking up to Madison’s warning. King Donald I NOW controls all 4 branches of the U.s. government – House, Senate, Executive, Judiciary. Daily examples of STUPIDITY, CRUELTY, CORRUPTION, CRAZINESS are reported. Many more not reported.
THE BAD NEWS: The Trump DICTATORSHIP’s war on the “rule of law” continues. This post centers on Emily Bazelon”s “Bow To The Emperor” article in the 10/19/25 New York Times Magazine. If YOU. are a patriotic American – this is a MUST read. Some excerpts presented here. Read the entire article. Look at WHO is talking – 50 members of the legal establishment, 25 Republicans, 25 Democrats. look at WHAT they’re saying – the Trump DICTATORSHIP is a BIG threat to American “rule of law.” Look at WHY they say this. look at the fact their level of CONCERN has increased in Trump’s 9 months in office. Look at their FEARS.
*** “The most odious of all oppressions are those which mask a justice.” [ Justice Robert Jackson]
1] “A majority of our respondents told us they were alarmed about a potential second Trump term given the strain he put on the legal system the first time around……”What’s happening is anathema to everything we’ve ever stood for in the Department of Justice.”…..almost universal fear and anguish over the transformation of the Justice Department into a tool of thenWhite House.”
2]. “Just as chillingly, the new survey reflects near consensus that most of the guardrails inside and outside the Justice Department, which in the past counterbalanced executive power, have all fallen away…..But many of them – more so than last year – don’t want to speak on the record. These are people with stature in their world…But now they’re worried about retribution, for their law firms or their family members, if they draw Trump’s ire
3] “All but one of the respondents rated Trump’s second term as a greater or MUCH greater threat to the rule of law than his first term. They consistently characterized the president’s abuses of power – wielding the law to justify his wishes – as being far worse than they imagined before his re-election…….And every single one of the 50 respondents believe that Trump and his attorney general, Pam Bondi, have used the Justice Department to go after the president’s political and personal enemies and provide favors to his allies.
*** “Power does not corrupt men; fools, however, if they get into a position of power, corrupt power.” [George Bernard Shaw]
4] “To measure the degree to which the Department of Justice has changed…at the end of his first presidency, Trump insisted that the department investigate ‘fact free claims”….Barr had been Trump’s close ally. but in late December 2020, he resigned rather than give in to the president’s demands….other remaining top officials said that they too would resign rather than use the department to seek to overturn the election….”No one in the room now will say no,” said the Justice Department official from Trump’s first term.
5]. “Several legal experts told us they began worrying on the day Trump retook office…pardons and commutations to the Jan. 6 rioters – unraveled the work of what prosecutors have said is the Department of Justice’s largest-ever investigation. Trump alsofired lawyers who worked on the Jan.6 cases.”….
“..in February, Emil Bove..was appointed second in command at the Justice Department, ordered Danielle Sassoon..to drop an active corruption case against Mayor Eric Adams. Sassoon resigned, saying…It was a clear example of quid pro quo….At least 10 more career prosecutors resigned…..”
6] “In June, Trump nominated Bove for a lifetime appointment to a federal judgeship…..Several respondents raised Bove’s ascension as a sharp break from the past. Trump also stunned many of them when he issued a flurry of executive orders in march and April targeting big law firms perceived as being aligned with Democrats.”
***”Great is the mischief of a legal crime.” [ Ralph Waldo Emerson ]
7]. “Just as notable, in the eyes of many of our respondents, is the work these firms and others are NOT doing for fear of Trump….Thirty-three said that big firms as a group are doing little or nothing to constrain excessive uses of presidential power.” [Note re-read this, think what it means]
8} “More than any step the president has taken, according to a lawyer from the Reagan solicitor general’s office, Trump’s bullying of law firms has undermined the rule of law.” [NOTE: read THIS again, PATRIOTIC American}
9]. “In Trump’s Justice Department..retribution has been institutionalized. In February, Bondi created a “weaponization working group” to investigate “abuses of the criminal justice process.” She instructed the group to look into people who prosecuted Trump. To the dismay of some of our respondents, the head of the working group, Ed Martin, promised to smear the reputations of any target he couldn’t indict…a clear violation of Justice Department policy.”
***. “Crime is contagious. If the government becomes lawbreaker, it breeds contempt for the law; it invites every man to become a law unto himself; it invites anarchy.” [ Justice Louis Brandeis ]
10]. “In September, Trump trampled whatever remaining hope prosecutors had of exercising their judgment independent of the president. Trump forced the resignation of Erik S. Siebert, the U.s. attorney in Eastern Virginia who had concluded there wasn’t enough evidence to charge Comey….On social media, Trump ordered Bondi tontake action ‘NOW!!!” against Comey…Adam Schiff…Letitia James……The next day, news broke that Trump’s Justice Department COLSED an investigation into Tom Homan, Trump’s so-called border czar, who was recorded last year accepting a bag with $50,000 in cash in an undercover F.B.I. investigation.” [NOTE; read this again – this is “justice’ in Trump’s “America.” ]
11]. “The firing of the Jan. 6 prosecutors, the resignations over the Adams case, Martin’s conduct and the indictment of Comey – each step corroded the Department of Justice in the eyes of our respondents. “It’s all about dismantling the institution”…”And the message to everyone in the department is that if you speak up, something could happen…you’d better bow to the emperor.” [Note: read this again – patriotic American]
12] “..all 50 believe that Congress, which framers intended to be the most powerful branch…is doing very little – or nothing at all – to fulfill its role of restraining the president. “The greatest threat,’ said Stuart Gerson, an assistant attorney general for President George H.W. Bush, “comes with the probability that the president is on the road to assuming autocratic powers and that the Congress has allowed its countervailing constitutional powers to wither.”
*** “Power may be justly compared to a great river which, while kept within its due banks is both beautiful and useful; but when it overflows its banks, is then too impetuous to be stemmed, it bears down all before it and brings destruction and desolation wherever it goes.” [ Alexander Hamilton ]
13]. “Some former officials said the Supreme Court set the country up for disaster by ruling in July 2024 that presidents are immune from criminal prosecution for most of their official actions…Nancy Gertner ..[said].. “I believe that they are fully on board with enabling him.” {NOTE: Patriotic Americans, knowing that “impeachment’ is in the Constitution by SPECIFIC Founders’ intent, think on this – which MANY other scholars have said}
14] “All but one of our respondents said they were concerned or very concerned about Department of Justice attorneys failing to tell the truth in court, which judges across the country have complained about….The reactions of judges like Alsup signal how lawyers who used to uphold the standards of the legal profession are compromising them to adapt to the Trump era. “ThenD.O.J.’s loss of credibility is devastating to the rule of law,” said William Yeomans..”
15] >>”>>>Trump is cowing people and institutions in a way that could change the foundation of America’s system of government.” [NOTE: PATRIOTIC American, think on THIS]
*** “Wherever Law ends, Tyranny begins.” [ John Locke ]
The Trump DICTATORSHIP – Stupidity, Cruelty, Corruption, Craziness, LXX. – TrumpGate Worse Than Teapot Dome and Watergate
*** “I have always tried to treat white-collar criminals like other criminals. It still bothers me that Richard Nixon escaped that equal treatment….If Nixon had had the character of President Eisenhower, or any honest president, this scandal [Watergate] would never have happened….I hope no political party will ever stoop so low as to embrace the likes of Richard Nixon again.” [ John J. Sirica, former federal judge ]
This post presents excerpts from Jacob Silverman’s. “Teapot Dome and Watergate: They’re Nothing Next to this”. [New York Times; 10/19/25]:
1] “If you were an authoritarian seeking to influence another head of state, you might offer him a luxuriously appointed Boeing 747 airplane. You might spend big at his hotels or invest in one of many companies owned by him and his children. You might buy his sneakers, NFT’s and other branded products. In the case of President Trump, a potential influence peddler has a vast menu of choices.”
***. “No punishment, in my opinion, is too great for the man who can build his greatness upon his country’s ruin.” {George Washington; 12/12/1778]
2] “With World Liberty, Mr. Trump has created a powerful vehicle for those seeking influence. Anyone – you, me, an Emirati prince – can put money in his pocket by simply buying the tokens the company issues. The key is the convenience factor.”
***. “..no Person holding any Office of Profit or Trust under them, shall, without the Consent of Congress, accept any present, Emolument, Office, or Title, of any kind whatever, from any King, Prince, or foreign State.” [ U.S. Constitution, Article I, Section 9 ]
3]. “We’ve never seen anything like this before. You can tick off notorious executive branch scandals…but none of them featured this scale of mixing of personal and government interests, much less the sheer accumulation of profit, of Mr. Trump’s multibillion-dollar crypto windfall.”
***. “Uncontrolled power, in the hands of an incensed, imperious and rapacious conquerer, is an engine of dreadful execution; woe to that country, over which it can be exercised.” [ Thomas Paine, 1780 ]
4]. “But the greater risk concerns Mr. Trump and the huge amount of money that powerful overseas actors can potentially funnel toward him. if you are a head of state, it is in your direct political interest to buy Mr. Trump’s tokens or invest in one of his crypto ventures.” [ Question – just asking – Vladimir Putin is said to be one of the world’s richest men. “Our” president has consistently refused to REALLY stop Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Just asking. – do YOU suppose Putin has bought a considerable of Mr. Trump’s “crypto ventures”? – Just asking………… ]
***. “There is no more dangerous menace to civilization than a government of incompetent, corrupt, or vile men.” [Ludwig von Mises]
5] “In another era [in other words, a few years ago] we would have already had congressional hearings and law enforcement investigations into the president’s crypto business interests. But the Supreme Court’s recent decision related to presidential immunity signals that such moves could end up being practically superfluous.”
***. “The point is you can’t be too greedy.” [ Donald John Trump – “The Art of the Deal” ]
6]. “>>>to start his term, Mr. Trump fired 18 inspectors general, who might otherwise have been able to investigate and shine light on the crypto activities of this administration. In February, he ordered the Justice Department to suspend enforcement of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, which prohibits the bribery of foreign officials.” Note: items 1-6: Jacob Silverman: “Teapot Dome and Watergate; They’re Nothing Next to This”; New York Times; 10/19/25]
***. “Wherever there is power, greed, and money, there is corruption.” [ Ken Poirot ]
We close this post with words from Pulitzer Prize winner David Cay Johnston’s. “It’s Even Worse Than You Think,” written in 2018 about Trump’s first term:
“Our Constitution is not written to handle someone like Trump,” the political scientist Jason Johnson told me. “That is the greatest danger and harm he is to our country.”………….
“For the next thirty-five years or so, the standard for what you can get away with as long as you are in power and stay in power has been lowered to a level I don’t think any of us can fully appreciate today,’ he said.”
[Note: Trump ordered the demolishing of the White House’s East Wing – without going through proper procedures – AND – despite his assurance that nothing like this would happen – AND – supposedly, it is being paid for by his billionaire friends !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! ]
The Trump DICTATORSHIP – Stupidity, Cruelty, Corruption, Craziness, LXVI – Trump Declares War On American Citizens
*** “With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation’s wounds…to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves…” [ Abraham Lincoln; Second Inaugural Address ]
Well, Trump has officially done it – admitted he thinks some American citizens are “disloyal,” must be rooted out, jailed, perhaps exiled or executed. He, of course, won’t do the dirty work, as usual, he’ll have somebody else do it, in this case, the U.S. military – on American streets…….
1]. “president Donald Trump on Tuesday proposed using American cities as training grounds for the armed forces and spoke of needing U.S. military might to combat what he called the “invasion from within.” [“Trump urges military brass to quell ‘invasion from within'”; Ben Finley Konstantin Toropin, Evan Vucci; Assoc. Press.; 10/1/25]
*** “The very first essential for success is a perpetually constant and regular employment of violence.” [Adolf Hitler]
2] “It’s a war from within,” [Trump] said. In that moment, the president again pitted himself against the wishes of the country’s founding fathers, historians and former military leaders say. Mr. Trump’s suggestion hat ‘we should use some of these dangerous cities as training grounds for our military” is in tension with a core principle that the country’s armed services have long sought to preserve – that the military should be nonpartisan.”
“This principle, with its deep roots in American democratic traditions, is meant to ensure that the standing army initially feared by the country’s founding fathers serves the nation as a whole, and not one political party or leader.” [Helene Cooper: “Trump’s Military Goals Contradict Nonpartisan Roots”; New York Times; 10/3/25]
***. “May we never confuse honest dissent with disloyal subversion.” [General, 34th President – Dwight Eisenhower]
Note; for perspective – research details on the May 4, 1970 tragedy at Kent State for context of what could happen if U.S. troops are called out to deal with ‘the enemy within.”
*** “Our government has kept us in a perpetual state of fear – kept us in a continuous stampede of patriotic fervor – with the cry of grave national emergency.” [ General Douglas MacArthur ]
3] “I don’t understand the reasoning of several recent letter writers who have protested use of the term “fascist” to describe the behavior of the Trump administration.”
“Merriam-Webster describes ‘fascism” as “a populist political philosophy, movement, or regime…that is associated a centralized autocratic government headed by a dictatorial leader, and that is characterized by severe economic and social regimentation and by forcible suppression of opposition.”…
“Trump has violated and disregarded the law, condemned legal decisions he disagrees with, attacked individual judges and launched criminal investigations of attorneys who pursued cases against him. With his draconian cuts to federal spending, he has usurped powers reserved for Congress. he violated the Posse Comitatus Act when he deployed the national Guard to Los Angeles, D.C., Memphis and now Portland, and again when he directed 600 military lawyers to serve as temporary immigration judges. Trump has targeted universities, journalists, corporate executives and governors. unable to stomach an election loss, he incited an angry crowd to attack legislators and law enforcement officers at the Capitol, then pardoned all who were convicted of these offenses. Now Trump has urged military officers to use U.S. cities as ‘training grounds’ and to suppress ‘the enemy from within.” [J.N.: letter to the editor; Minnesota Star Tribune; “This ‘enemy’ talk should make you nervous”; 10/2/25]
*** “{The tyrant} is always stirring up some war or other, in order that the people may require a leader.” [ Plato ]
FOR CONTEXT: research the 1940s-60s McCarthy era “Red Scare,” when the power of “our” federal government was used to persecute innocent people accused of being “communists” [the enemy within]. Thousands had their lives ruined, lost their jobs, were blacklisted, were required to take “loyalty oaths.” Griffin Fariello’s oral history, “Red Scare,’ called it ‘the American Inquisition.” And/or – read David Caute’s “The Great Fear.”
Make sue YOU research attorney Joseph N. Welch, who’s question to Senator McCarthy lives on in American history as one of our “finest hours.” During the 1954 McCarthy-Army hearings, Mr. Welch, in exasperation, said to Senator McCarthy: “Have you no sense of decency, sir, at long last?”
This won’t work with “our’ president, because Donald J. Trump has NO sense of decency or shame – BUT – we are waiting for somebody to ask him precisely that.
***. “It is the first responsibility of every citizen to question authority.” [ Benjamin Franklin ]
NOTE: We will post more shortly on Nazi Germany 1933-38. What YOU need to know now: Hitler used government power against German citizens; people were required to pledge “loyalty” to Der Fuhrer; independent sources of power were eliminated/controlled. Sound familiar????????????
***. “I do not fight fascists because I will win. I fight fascists because they are fascists.” [ Chris Hedges ]
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 ]

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