***. “Anyone who has proclaimed violence his method inexorably must choose lying as his principle.”
[ Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn ]
this post is the 5th in a series examining the conduct of Donald John Trump, unfortunately president of the United States. Many have concluded Trump has serious mental issues. In 2017 and 2019, 37 psychiatrists and mental health experts expressed alarm in “The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump.” Several years later, another group examined Trump’s speech patterns over a multi-year span. – expressed alarm. Even if Trump is “norma,” there is NO debate he is THE anti-George Washington. Now, he has embroiled America, the Middle East, the world in a war of choice. And, of course, he has already told numerous lies and falsehoods.
This post presents excerpts from: “Americans Deserve The Truth About Iran” [ New York Times Editorial; 3/22/26 ]:
10] “Whatever short-term gain mr. Trump thinks he is getting by lying about the war in Iran is far exceeded by the cost, for him, the country and the world.”
3] “..lying about war is uniquely corrosive. When a president signals that the truth does not matter in wartime, he encourages his cabinet and his generals to mislead the country and one another about how the war is going. He creates a culture in which deadly mistakes and even war crimes can become more common. He makes it harder to win by hiding the realities of conflict and by making allies wary of joining the fight. Ultimately, her undermines American values and interests.”
9]. “Lies about war also make it harder to achieve victory: The more one spreads falsehoods, the less one feels obligated to face reality. In one respect, Americans understand that their leaders’ refusal to confront the truth in Iraq and Vietnam led to strategic errors. This pattern is repeating. Before Mr. Trump began this war, he brushed aside warnings from his top military advisor that Iran could close the Strait of Hormuz to traffic it does not approve. The global economy is now dealing with the consequences of his overconfidence.”
4] “There is a reasonable debate to have about the wisdom of this war. Iran’s murderous government does indeed present a threat. – to its own people, to its region and to global stability. Mr. Trump could make a fact-based argument for confronting the regime now, especially to prevent it from menacing its neighbors and, above all, from developing a nuclear weapon…. Mr. Trump is not making it. Instead, he has lied about the reasons for the war and about its progress, an an apparent attempt to disguise his poor planning and the war’s questionable basis.”
***. “The first casualty of war is truth.” { Aeschylus ]
1] “From his first announcement of the attack on Iran on Feb. 28, President Trump has issued a stream of falsehoods about the war..”
2] “Lying is standard behavior for Mr. Trump, of course. His political career began with a lie about Barack Obama’s birthplace, and he has lied about his business, his wealth, his inauguration crowd size, his defeat in the 2020 election and so much more. A CNN tally of Mr. Trump’s falsehoods during one part of his first term found that he averaged eight false claims per day.”
5]. “the president was only minutes into his Feb. 28 announcement of the start of the conflict when he offered an obviously contradictory rationale for it….The lies have continued since then.”
*** “If you tell a big enough lie and tell it frequently enough, it will be believed.” [ Adolf Hitler ]
6]. “he has also asserted that “nobody” believed Iran would retaliate by attacking Arab countries. On Monday, he said that “no, the greatest experts, nobody thought they were going to hit” neighboring countries. In truth, some experts had warned of precisely this scenario.”
7]. “In another instance, Mr. Trump has used false information to continue his alarming penchant to portray people who contradict him as un-American.”
8]. “A shocking falsehood came on March 7, when Mr. Trump claimed in his typically offhand way that a strike on an elementary school in the town of Minab in †he first hours of war “was done by Iran.” …The U.S. military has conducted an investigation and preliminarily concluded taht an American missile mistakenly hit the school.”
***. “To announce that there must be no criticism of the President, or that we are to stand by the President, right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public.”
[ Theodore Roosevelt; Republican; 26th U.S. President ]
Tag: news
The Trump DICTATORSHIP. – Stupidity, Cruelty, Corruption, Craziness, CLVIII. – Trump as Incompetent, Stupid, Dangerous. War leader, II
***. “The statement that war is a continuation of policy by other means has become a catch-phrase and is therefore dangerous. We can say with equal truth: War is bankruptcy of policy.” [ German General Hans Von Seeckt ]
This post is the second in a series examining the conduct of one Donald John Trump, unfortunately president of the United States. As has been said many times: he is a deeply flawed person; seems to operate on whims, grudges, delusions, LIES. It has been said he is UNFIT to be president – by serious observers citing examples, not wild assertions. He IS the anti-George Washington. the anti-Abraham Lincoln.
***. “I now know that wars do not end wars.” [ Henry Ford ]
This post presents excerpts from: “President Donald Trump is an incompetent commander in chief” [ Stephen Young; New York Times; 3/27/26 ]:
10] “As far as I can tell, given Clausewitz’s criteria for winning a war, Donald Trump doesn’t, and can’t, pass muster as a commander in chief.”
2] ‘Clausewitz’s famous [because it’s true] law of war is that “war is a mere continuation of politics by other means.” To ignore politics in waging war is to lose. Does Trump know that?”
8] “Most important..is the human element brought to the fight by the commander. A commander must have determination, but if that determination hardens into blind self-confidence, it becomes a liability rather than a strength. The commander who is too self-assured or conceited becomes dangerous because he stops questioning his own assumptions. in war, where uncertainty dominates, this leads to performative decisions that don’t adapt to reality.”
5] “It seems Trump never read Clausewitz. He was, after all, a draft dodger refusing to serve his country in Vietnam.”
9] “Most importantly, Clausewitz advised, the mind of the commander must be free to think while not being captured by prejudice. For Clausewitz such freedom of the mind is indispensable if the commander is to dominate events, not to be overpowered by them.”
*** “Perhaps the most central characteristic of authentic leadership is the relinquishing of the impulse to dominate others.” [ David Cooper ]
1]. “After four weeks as a wartime commander in chief, Donald Trump now wants to pull his burning chestnuts out of the fire. Why. – the war not going as he has foreseen? The Iranian theocrats not willing to give in?”
3]. “What does Trump know of the hearts and minds of his Iranian enemy, or of the Iranian people in general? After four weeks of intensive bombing, the killing of dozens of religiously driven leaders and the straits of Hormuz being closed against his wishes, how close is our president to victory?”
4] “For Clausewitz the heart and soul of politics is will and morale. You wein when your enemy loses the will to continue, falls into an irresistible collapse of morale, just throws in the towel. So, Clausewitz says, the art of war is how to bring about such a collapse of will. In short, politics.”
6]. “Clausewitz defined war as an act of violence intended to compel our opponent to fulfill our will. Thus, we must proportion our efforts to the enemy’s powers of resistance. So our efforts must be proportional to the enemy’s will. – weapons and tactics which do not degrade the enemy’s will cannot win a war.”
7] “Thus, the Chinese master of the art of war, Sun Tzu, taught: first of all, study your enemy. He wrote simply: “[W]hat is of supreme importance in war is to attack the enemy’s strategy.” Bombs can’t do that. They only target enemy combatants and weapons systems. A conviction that bombing could ever be a war-winning strategy is an illusion.”
*** “One should never forbid what one lacks the power to prevent.” [ Napoleon ]
The Trump DICTATORSHIP. – Stupidity, Cruelty, Corruption, Craziness, CLIV – Affordability. – Trump Lies About, Contributes To It, II
*** “Future historians will record the volatility of the president’s decision-making, as well as the internal struggles of a government for4ced to grapple with it. They will write that his advisors came to find him unfit for the job. He couldn’t focus on governing, and he was prone to abuses of power, from ill-conceived schemes to punish his political rivals to a propensity for undermining vital American institutions. They will document how officials considered drastic. – some might say desperate. – measures to warn the American people.” [ Anonymous: “A Warning” ]. [NOTE: this book, written in 2019, was a warning to America about Donald John Trump – and the damage he already was doing]
This post is volume two on Trump’s contributions to, and lies about, his own policies and rhetoric for the “affordability” struggles most Americans face. As post CLIV noted, Trump will likely have NO empathy for their struggles. – as he seldom has ANY empathy for ANYBODY outside a small circle [ like billionaires!!!]. He will likely spend the next 7 months trying to sell. YOU on the FRAUD. that he has no responsibility for YOUR. struggles, and, trying to convince YOU. it doesn’t exist, or – is a “hoax” made up by “the enemies of the people” – news media, economists, statisticians – all of whom look at. REAL. numbers, listen to REAL. ordinary people – like YOU.
This post examines three major “affordability” crises: health care, housing, chuld care:
Health Care
A]. “One-third of Americans – an estimated 82 million people – say they are making sacrifices, including skipping meals or driving less, to pay for care….people also said they had delayed making major changes to their lives, like hacing a child or retiring..” [Reed Abelson: “Medical costs are squeezing Americans”; New York Times; 3/13/26]
B] “Over the past five years, the price of health coverage for an employee’s family has risen 26 percent, to $27,000 annually….About 32 percent of Americans said they were “very worried” about health care bills.” [Peter Whoriskey: “Americans’ top worry is now the cost of health care”; Washington Post Weekly; 2/1/26]
C] “We don’t talk about it much, but the numbers tell the story plain: about four in 10 adults in America carry medical or dental debt, and rural folks are more likely to struggle with it than people living in urban areas. Research shows medical problems and bills are among the leading contributors to personal bankruptcy…. Other nations have made different choices about how to care for their people..” [Andrew Tate: “The Cost of Care in the Land of Plenty”; The Progressive Populist; January, 2026]
Housing
D]. “President Trump’s proposed housing policies would put hundreds of thousands of Americans out on the streets.” [Farrah Hassen: “It’s Not only the White House Getting Demolished. Trump’s Gutting Affordable Housing”; The Progressive Populist; December, 2025]
E] “Home prices have risen more than 50 percent since the start of the pandemic. About a third of American households now spend more than 30 percent of their income on housing….The core of the problem is simple: Too much money chasing too few homes.” [Note; the solution is known: built more homes]. [Ezra Klein: “Our Housing Crisis, in One Chart”; New York Times; 1/30/25]
F} “I don’t want to drive housing prices down,” ..[Trump].. said. I want to drive housing prices up for people that own their own homes.”….Economists across the ideological spectrum have diagnosed the United states with an acute housing shortage ghat has raised home prices and rents. The remedy, they argue, is to focus on policies that increase the supply of housing..” [Connor Dougherty: “Trump Is Seeking To Drive Up Housing Prices”; New York Times; 2/9/26]
G] “ICE Surge Drags Down Home Construction”. [Dee Depass; Minnesota Star Tribune; 2/10/26]: “Twin Cities homebuilders are falling behind schedule as the federal immigration crackdown in Minnesota has fueled a shortage of roofing, drywall and other construction workers..”
H] YOU can also rad; “Homewreckers”. [Aaron Glantz]: “a shocking investigation into America’s housing crisis and the modern day robber barons – among them Donald Trump and his inner circle – who are making a fortune off the backs of the disenfranchised working class and middle class.”
Child Care
I]. “Nationally, the cost of child care now significantly outpaces inflation, rising 8% since June 2024, compared with a 4% increase in general inflation……New York Times/Siena University polling, which found that affordability concerns are largely about the costs of family life….In most states, the average price of child care is even higher than in-state college tuition.” [Asmaa Elkeurti, Claire Cain Miller: “For Many, Child Care Seems less Affordable Than Ever”; New York Times; 3/22/26]
*** “Trump lacks the emotional stability, knowledge, critical-thinking skills, and judgment to be commander-in-chief…..Even by the standards of the incurious George W. Bush, Trump is appallingly ignorant….More surprising than Trump’s lack of knowledge of geopolitics is his ignorance of economics, the field in which he was given a bachelor’s degree..” [ Pulitzer Prize winner David Cay Johnston: “It’s Even Worse Than You Think” ]
***. “In a president, character is everything.” [ Peggy Noonan ]
The Trump DICTATORSHIP – Stupidity, Cruelty, Corruption, Craziness, CLIII – ‘Melania’ the Movie As A Bribe?
*** United States Constitution: Article II, Section 4: “The President, Vice President and all civil Officers of the United States, shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for, a Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors.”
This post presents an argument that Donald John Trump should, again, be impeached; this time for Bribery. The argument by Robert Reich: “‘Melania’: The Movie. The Bribe. The Shame.” [The Progressive Populist, march, 2026]. Excerpts below:
1] “My purpose today is …to talk about its real excuse – allowing Jeff Bezos to give a big fat bribe to the president of the United States.
5] “..Ted Hope, who was instrumental in starting Amazon’s film division, wondered aloud to The New York Times, “How can it not be equated with currying favor or an outright bribe? How can that not be the case?”
*** “Corrupt influence is itself the perennial spring of all prodigality, and of all disorder; it loads us more than millions of debt; takes away vigor from our arms, wisdom from our councils, and every shadow of authority and credit from the most vulnerable parts of our constitution.” [ Edmund Burke ]
2] “Why would Bezos bribe him? Please. Bezos…owns Amazon and many other businesses that depend on the whms of the sociopath in the Oval Office.”
3]. “Friends, when the history of this sordid period of America is written – assuming it’s not written by historians trying to curry favor with a future fascist regime – I hope the leaders of American business are condemned to the hellfire they deserve for helping destroy American democracy.”
*** “By corruption, the early generations meant excessive private interests influencing the exercise of public power. An Act was corrupt when private power was used to influence public power for private ends….A person was corrupt when they use public power for private ends. There was no way for government to work without virtue, and “no substitute for good men in office.” [ Zephyr Teachout: “Corruption in America” ]
4] “Elon Musk, the world’s richest man, will have pride in place here ..[Hell].., after spending a quarter of a billion dollars getting Trump elected….But jeff Brezos, with his $75 million bribe of Trump, will deserve a special place in the innermost ring of hell.”
6]. “If America still had a Department of Justice, Bezos would be indicted fro bribery of a public official pursuant to 18 U.S. Code @ 201, which criminalizes offering or giving anything of value to a public official with the intent to influence their official actions.”
***. “…there is no way to access infinite wealth without rigging the system. No one becomes a billionaire honestly.”
[ Sarah Chayes: “On corruption In America” ]
The Trump DICTATORSHIP. – Stupidity, Cruelty, Corruption, Craziness, CL. – “A Blank Check For Brutality”
*** “Men with power have an extraordinary capacity to convince themselves that what they do conincides with what society needs done for its [own] good.” Raymond Vernon ]
This post presents excerpts from “Return of The Big Stick…..Hoe Donald Trump’s Embrace of ‘Realism’ is Becoming a Blank Check for Brutality”. [ Linda Kinstler; New York Times Magazine; 1/25/26 ]:
10] “..for Trump, the threats posed at home and abroad are seemingly the same, and so is his response. Armed government agents have arrested and killed U.S. citizens as part of Trump’s immigration policies; the federal government has strong-armed universities into accepting its agenda by withholding research funding; the Federal Communications Commission uses mergers as leverage to influence media coverage.”
11] “The second Trump administration may very well mark the start of a violent global age of Machtpolitik. “Trump is different than all of his predecessors because of his contempt for international law and international institutions,” Mearsheimer said …past presidents…correctly understood that those laws and institutions were in America’s interest..”
9] “For Porter, it is not realism that defines the Trump era but rather its “corrupt cousin,” Machtpolitik, which pursues power for its own sake and is defined by a “sort of violent exhilaration of destruction, nihilism and vengeance.” Trump’s penchant for theatrics and bombast, his obsession with status and his use of power to enrich himself and his family – all these are characteristic elements of his darker ideology….”By losing all restraints, you destroy yourself, Porter said.”
*** “Absolute power does not corrupt absolutely, absolute power attracts the corruptible.” [ Frank Herbert ]
1] “President Trump’s aide Stephen Miller blithely articulated the outlook that has taken hold of the White House. “We live in a world, in the real world, that is governed by strength, that is governed by force, that is governed by power,” Miller said. “These are iron laws of the world since the beginning of time.”
2] “That National Security Strategy, released in early December, gave a name to one of the organizing principles supposedly governing the administration’s foreign. policy: ‘flexible realism.”
3] “The realist school of foreign policy is rooted in the belief that the world is fundamentally ungovernable and that politics comes down to power.”
***. “Power is in inflicting pain and humiliation. Power is in tearing human minds to pieces and putting them together again in new shapes of our own choosing.” [ George Orwell: “1984” ]
4]. “While the varied strains of realism are plentiful and sometimes contradictory, the Trump administration is channeling one of the crudest forms….By invoking realism to justify their actions abroad, Trump and his associates are treating it as an alibi for a distinctly American imperialism, a pretext for belligerence.”
5] “There are iron laws of world politics that they don’t understand,” said Stephen Walt, a professor of international affairs at the Harvard Kennedy School. “Realism is all about realizing that in a competitive world, you want to be smart and go for genuine strategic advantage, not just pointless displays of power.”
6] “Critically. 20th-century realists accepted that all power is necessarily bound by constraint, hemmed in by the limitations of geography, politics and human nature. To lose sight of this is to risk slipping into much darker territory.”
*** “My power depends on my glory, and my glory on my victory. My power would fall apart were I not to support it with new glory and new victories. Conquest has made me what I am, and conquest alone can maintain me.” [Napoleon]
7]. “For Walt and other realist thinkers, Trump’s aggressive and chaotic actions on the world stage – his antagonism of U.S. allies, threats of territorial conquest and assertions that the U.S. is not afraid of putting “boots on the ground”. – undermine any claim he could make to practicing a realist foreign policy.”
8] “The incoherence of Trump’s foreign policy is explicitly memorialized in the National Security Strategy.” [Which is criticized in point #9 above]
12]. “Trump and his deputies have revealed how profoundly they disdain the norms of global governance and demonstrated their willingness to use force to get what they want. On Jan. 9, the president signed an executive order withdrawing the United States from dozens of international organizations.”
*** “In public affairs, stupidity is more dangerous than knavery.” [ Woodrow Wilson; 28th U.S. President ]
The Trump DICTATORSHIP. – Stupidity, Cruelty, Corruption, Craziness, CXXXXVIII. – Trump Builds The Corporate State
*** “Fascism should more properly be called corporatism because it is the merger of state and corporate power.”
[ Benito Mussolini ]
This post takes YOU back to review the “Public citizen News” of Sept./Oct., 2025. A quick read of headlines helps YOU understand HOW the Trump DICTATORSHIP has quickly built a corporate state.
a]. “Not a Border Crisis, but a “Free Trade” Crisis” [Meena Rakasi]
1]. “…how decades of corporate-led trade agreements have displaced millions of people, stripping them of their livelihoods and forcing them to migrate to survive.”
2] “U.S. manufacturing workers have long decried free trade agreements that empty out factories and create ghost towns.”
B] “Revolving Door Trump 2.0 Officials Create Fossil Fuel Playground”. [Alan Zibel]
1] “On the first day of his second term…Trump declared a “national energy emergency,” falsely blaming the Biden administration’s push for a transition to renewables for a supposed crisis….it laid the groundwork for a sweeping attack on federal agencies and states to serve fossil fuel interests.”
***. “We can either have democracy in this country or we can have great wealth concentration in the hands of a few. but we can’t have both.” [ Justice Louis Brandeis ]
C] “Litigating for Democracy: Public Citizen’s Fight Against Trump’s Power Grab”. [editorial]
1] ‘..the Trump administration is unilaterally and unconstitutionally dismantling the federal government..”
2]. ‘That data base went dark after Russell Vought – one of the primary architects of the infamous Project 2025 manifesto – took charge of the Office of Management and Budget…Vought believes that Trump has virtually limitless power – including the power to ignore Congress.”
D] “How Insurance Regulators Fuel Climate Change Profiteering” [Rick morris]
1]. “Homeowners and renters across the U.S. are feeling the sting of skyrocketing insurance rates…insurance corporations are exploiting the crisis to line their pockets…most profitable year in history…record bonuses.”
2] “Regulators are supposed to stand for the public interest over corporate power. But..they’re handing the pen to the insurance industry to write the rules…This isn’t just regulatory capture – it’s regulatory surrender….”
*** “Perversely, Trump’s drain-the-swamp administration proceeded to crystallize and put into practice. – in barefaced ways unseen in the United states for a century. – exactly the type of systematic corruption Americans decry.”
[ Sarah Chayes: “On Corruption in America” ]
E] “Trump Puts Big Tech Above the Law”
1] “…Big Tech’s lavish support for Trump’s inauguration and campaign has already paid dividends in dropped federal investigations and weakened oversight.”
2]. “Many of the tech leaders represented companies under active federal investigation….has already dropped or halted a third of the tech-related federal enforcement actions inherited from the Biden administration.”
F]. “Trump Administration Aims to Shut Down Public Participation in Federal Rulemaking” {David Rosen}
1] “The Trump administration is advancing a deregulatory strategy that strikes at the heart of democratic accountability: eliminating the public’s right to weigh in on federal rules.”
2] “To advance its corrupt agenda, the Trump administration is arguing that agencies can ignore public participation requirements…when the president directs them to do so. – a position that has no basis in law.”
***. “We are on the road not just to a highly unequal society, but to a society of an oligarchy. A society of inherited wealth. When you have a few people who are so wealthy they can effectively buy the political system, the political system is going to tend to serve their interests.” [ Paul Krugman; Nobel Prize Winner; Economics ]
G] “Political Games: Trump’s Rescissions Law Threatens Lives and Democracy”. [Sara Faraj]
1] “the Trump administration is playing political games with human lives. A so-called ‘rescissions bill,” permitting the Trump administration not to spend previously appropriated money..”
2] “The rescission model threatens to undermine Congress’s constitutional power of the purse and concentrate authority in the executive. if a president can rescind funding that Congress has already enacted, no public program is truly safe.”
H] “Trump and Allies Threaten to Worsen Health Care, Putting Lives at Risk”
1] ‘..Trump has disrupted, depleted, and desecrated our nation’s already fragile health care system, putting millions of lives in jeopardy.”
2] “The report highlights the threat posed by Trump’s health officials…..Kennedy….Oz…O’neill..”
3] “The report also describes the chaos Trump and his allies unleashed in the early months of his second term..”
4]. “Trump fired several inspectors general who were ensuring that agencies are accountable to the American people..”
*** “…there is absolutely nothing to be said for government by a plutocracy, for government by men very powerful in certain lines and gifted with the “money touch”. but with ideals which in their essence are merely those of so many glorified pawnbrokers.” [ Theodore Roosevelt; Republican; 26th U.S. President ]
The Trump DICTATORSHIP. – Stupidity, Cruelty, Corruption, Craziness, CXXXXVI – Corrupting The “Department of Justice”
*** “Crime is contagious. If the government becomes a lawbreaker, it breeds contempt for law; it invites every man to become a law unto himself.” { Justice Louis Brandeis ]
“The Unraveling of the Justice Department”. [Emily Bazelon, Rachel Power; New York Times Magazine; ll/30/25. Some excerpts below from “more than 60 attorneys” who worked in the Justice Department:
20]. “I wouldn’t even call it the Justice Department anymore. It’s become Trump’s personal law firm.”
[Note: Read this again – think what this means for “the rule of law.”]
15] “Trump pardoned a series of white-collar offenders….His family was wealthy…someone who defrauded everyday folks in Ohio….they’re better off spending their money on a political donation, drawing Trump’s attention..”
8]. “The way we did investigations drastically changed….That process turned upside down. it was outcome driven.”
[Note; FACTS didn’t count – ideology and connections did]
4]. “It was inconceivable to me they’d fire people for no reason except they’d worked on cases that were now disfavored….It flipped the culture of the institution. it’s a culture now of fear. And they are losing people all the time, very good people, who were the future of the department.”
*** “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.” [ Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. ]
1] “President Trump’s second term has brought a period of controversy…Trump and his appointees have blasted through walls designed to protect the nation’s most powerful law enforcement agency from political influence; they have directed the course of criminal investigations, openly flouted ethics rules and caused a breakdown of institutional culture.” [Note; read this again, word-by-word. this IS the destruction of “the rule of law.”]
2] “..the lawyers narrated the events that most alarmed them…described being asked to drop cases for political reasons, to find evidence for flimsy investigations and to take positions in court they thought had no legitimate basis. they also talked about the work they and their colleagues were told to abandon. – investigations of terrorist plots, corruption and white-collar fraud.” [ Note; read this again! – the Trump DICTATORSHIP is deliberately sabotaging American security]
3] “On his first day in office, President Trump made ir clear that lawyers loyal to him would lead the Justice Department.” [Note: – just like in any other dictatorship]
5]. “Pam Bondi..issued a first-day flurry of 14 memos that radically redefined the department’s mission. One mandated that government attorneys “zealously defend” the president’s agenda..” [Note; thus the title of this article!!!]
*** “I don’t want to know what the law is, I want to know who the judge is.” [Roy Cohn – check his biography!!!]
6] “What happened to PIN was an alarm blasting everywhere. that’s when I was like, “They’re just going to break every rule. They don’t care.”
7]. “The E.P.A. found in 2021 that the new standard would save thousands of lives and that the health benefits would outweigh the cost of compliance. The Trump administration put the litigation on hold in preparation for rolling back the regulation.” [Note: Trump just decided to endanger YOUR. health. Big Question: WHO asked him to do this???]
9]. “The idea of the investigation was that Perkins Coie supposedly engaged in illegal discrimination against white men. But Perkins Coie is an extremely white firm – only 3 percent of the partners are Black. When my colleague pointed that out, the leadership didn’t care. They’d already reached their conclusion.” {!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!]
10] “Our laws gave American companies cover so they could resist shakedowns to pay bribes….People across the political spectrum saw promoting the rule of law abroad as important for promoting American interests and national security. You could see these ideals fall away quickly in the moves the administration made.”
***. “When is conduct a crime, and when is a crime not a crime? When Somebody Up There – a monarch, a dictator, a Pope, a legislator. – so decrees.” [ Jessica Mitford ]
11]. “Mel Gibson has a history of domestic violence….It was strongly suggested to me that Mel Gibson is someone who had a personal relationship with the president and that really should be all I needed to know.” [!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!]
12] “Erez Reuveni, acknowledged in court that the Trump administration wrongfully deported Kilmar Abrego Garcia….In previous administrations, including Trump’s first term, the government routinely worked to get people back when they were deported without legal authority. In this case, however, Bondi put Reuveni on leave and trhen fired him.” [Note; a highly respected attorney is fired because he told the truth. What else do YOU need to know?]
13] “When the president issued his executive order related to voting, the Civil Rights Division was initially charged with defending it. But many provisions of it were an unlawful power grab..”
14]. “It’s unprecedented to shift resources away from national security to this degree….You have to have good, experienced, trained people doing this work on a daily basis. If you don’t, because you demand they do immigration shifts, there is real danger to national security and public safety.” Note: apparently, to the Trump DICTATORSHIP, a few undocumented immigrants are a bigger danger than Russia or China]
***. “My task is not to make men better but to make use of their weaknesses.” [ Adolf Hitler ]
16] “Bondi fired around 20 prosecutors and support staffers who worked on the special counsel Jack smith’s investigations into Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election and his refusal to return classified documents after leaving office…..Trump demanded the prosecution of several of his perceived political enemies…Based on the results of investigations by career prosecutors, Erik Siebert…told senior Justice Department officials he did not think there was sufficient evidence to indict Comey or James.”
17] “No one should be charged with a crime because the president says. “Do this,”….”
18]. “This is the whole problem with the White House directing criminal investigations. This is what you get. We won’t get the benefit of credibility from judges that we had, and I’m even more concerned about juries. I really fear the Justice Department. – which has a good record of convicting dangerous, violent people. – won’t see the same success rate, becuase people will think it’s not on the level.”
19] “It shows the president has no regard for ethics or rules or the appearance of impropriety or any of the guardrails we used to have before… The Mar-a-Lago case was buttoned up. They begged him to give them the documents so it wouldn’t rise to the level of the F.B.I. going in to get them. To say there’s abuse here. – it’s absurd.”
*** “There is no more dangerous menace to civilization than a government of incompetent, corrupt, or vile men.”
[ Ludwig von Mises ]
The Trump DICTATORSHIP – Stupidity, Cruelty, Corruption, Craziness, CXXXXV – “ICE Is Watching You”
***. “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 ]
“ICE Is. Watching. You” [Tressie McMillan Cotton; New York Times; 2/6/26]
This post presents excerpts from. ICE Is Watching You”:
6]. “Many of us have come to believe that our data is something outside ourselves, when, in fact, data is our self.”
7] “Imagine what our country would look like if a federal agency compiled everything it could find about you on the open market and then paired it with your most sensitive personal data and the full weight of the federal surveillance apparatus. The result would be a system that could not only track you but also pretty accurately predict your choices, behaviors and vulnerabilities.” [NOTE: does this sound like “1984” ????? ]
10] “Emily Tucker, the director of Georgetown University’s Center on Privacy and Technology, suggested the agency could be constructing a surveillance system that, in my estimation, would make “Minority Report” look like child’s play. Homeland Security, she said, “is increasingly emphasizing interoperability in its contracting.” That is a strong sign that the agency wants to connect a range of databases……”They are seeking data about every aspect of the lives of everyone,” she said.” [NOTE: “1984” ??? ]
15] “A militarized federal police force that acts out of loyalty on the whim of a political leader who relishes retribution and adulation is the tip of the iceberg….This kind of weaponry could effectively nullify our Fourth Amendment right to protection from unreasonable search and seizure. it could also more easily enable the government to trample on your free speech. And it could do all of this without meaningful transparency or oversight.”
***. “In the end the Party would announce that two and two made five, and you would have to believe it. It was inevitable that they should make that claim sooner or later; the logic of their position demanded it.”
[. George Orwell: “1984” ]
1] “In the latest stop in Donald Trump’s war on liberal democracy, federal agents in Minneapolis have shot and killed Renee Good and Alex Pretti…”
2] “The gun and the phone are both weapons – one a tool for violence and the other a tool of control.”
3] “That phone represents a greater power, one that could outlast Trumpism. ICE knows that it cannot shoot us all. But the Department of Homeland Security is close to being able to track us all.”
4]. “The federal government, whether Democratic-or-Republican-controlled, has repeatedly failed to institute meaningful, urgently needed regulation of or legislation about data privacy that matches the scale of our risk.”
***. “Once a government is committed to the principle of silencing the voice of the 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 ]
5] “Democratic administrations…thought Silicon Valley chief executives were the good guys. So they enabled their sci-fi aspirations….Then many chiefs turned heel, helping the Trump administration aggressively scale up a data dragnet that will eat our civil liberties for lunch, if we let it.”
8]. “In a citizen video from Maine that has been widely shared online, an ICE agent told a legal observer that he was taking a picture of her license plate to add her to a “nice little database” that will label her a “domestic terrorist.”
[ YOU know nothing about an ICE agent, BUT, he knows EVERYTHING about YOU ]
9} “..on Jan. 30, the Times reported that ICE was exploring ways to integrate advertising technologies and the data associated with them into its operations, specifically asking potential vendors the extent to which data could be collected on “people, businesses, devices, locations, transactions, public records.”
11] “If combined with the facial recognition and social media monitoring commonly deployed byt the Department of Homeland Security, those reams of data would turbocharge ICE’s terror campaign in the short term and destroy American civil liberties in the long term.”
*** [ ‘BIG BROTHER. IS. WATCHING. YOU” – “1984 ]
12]. “…Senator Ron Wyden….told me that the federal government is “weaponizing private data” against citizens and noncitizens. Of particular concern…was….what this administration cannot buy, it will simply take.”
13] “The Trump administration has been taking advantage of state-level data that has been aggregated by a third party nonprofit data clearinghouse called Niets….there are far too few restrictions on who can use that data and how they can use it.”
14] “You only need to know this: Whatever is happening with your data, it is important enough to the most egregiously lawless administration in American history that it be collected and consolidated.”
16] ‘.. it all starts with the American people understanding that our freedoms are now bound up in who controls our data.”
*** “Every record has been destroyed or falsified, every book rewritten, every picture has been repainted, every statue and street building has been renamed, every date has been altered. And the process is continuing day by day and minute by minute. History has stopped. Nothing exists except an endless present in which the Party is always right.”
George Orwell; “1984” – Or, is it Donald Trump; 2025-20XX ??? ]
The Trump DICTATORSHIP. – Stupidity, Cruelty, Corruption, Craziness, CXXXXIII – ICE Exists to Enforce One Mans Will”
***. “The Party seeks power entirely for its own sake. We are not interested in the good of others…One does not establish the dictatorship in order to safeguard a revolution; one makes a revolution to establish the dictatorship. The object of persecution is persecution. The object of torture is torture. The object of power is power. Now you begin to understand me.” [ George Orwell: “1984” ]
This post presents excerpts from. “ICE Exists to Enforce One Man’s Will” {Radley Balko; New York Times; 1/25/26]. Read this – and pray. – that YOU. have an American democracy on January 20, 2029.
19]. “We can still stop these abuses of power, but we need to be clear about what we’re facing. This is no longer a conversation about law enforcement or immigration policy. This is about authoritarianism.”
4] “The lies this administration is telling about Ms. good aren’t those you deploy as part of a cover-up. They’re those you use when you want to show you can get away with anything. They’re a projection of power.”
10] “…the administration has embraced fear tactics long associated with totalitarian regimes. Until now, law enforcement officers in the United States rarely masked their faces….it’s just been accepted that masked policing isn’t consistent with democratic society.”
***. “What difference does it make to the dead, the orphans and the homeless, whether the mad destruction is wrought under the name of totalitarianism or in the holy name of liberty or democracy?” [ Mahatma Gandhi ]
12] “The administration has resurrected tactics that professional policing groups have deemed dangerous or counterproductive….Federal agents have shot into cars at least 10 times since September. This, too, is prohibited by most big city police agencies, in part because it’s too easy to mistake a driver’s intent.”
17] “In refusing to investigate Ms. good’s death, the Department of Justice is, at a minimum, indicating that it doesn’t believe that preventing similar deaths is important. But the real explanation may be more sinister. Since she was killed, we’ve seen multiple videos in which immigration officers refer to her death to threaten people lawfully observing or recording them. The real motivation appears to be make all the other Renee Goods out there, the liberal so-called wine moms watching over immigration raids, wonder if they might be next.”
***. “The true danger is when liberty is nibbled away, for expedience, and by parts.” { Edmund Burke }
1] “I have been covering policing for more than 20 years and have read and parsed a lot of these statements. The Department of Homeland Security’s response after the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent Jonathan Ross shot and killed Renee Good in Minneapolis this month is something else entirely.”
2] “The Trump administration’s response to ms Good’s death made no such concessions….There was little empathy for her family…pronounced the shooting not only justified but an act of heroism..”
3] “It isn’t just the lying; it’s that the lies are wildly exaggerated and easily refutable…..”
5] “…since the protests in Ferguson, Mo., America has engaged in a high-stakes dialogue about police abuse and accountability….What Mr. Trump is doing with federal immigration forces has rendered those debates obsolete.”
6]. “The surge of federal forces into Minneapolis …isn’t about law enforcement at all. It is about an administration declaring. – explicitly, at times. – that the purpose of federal law enforcement isn’t to uphold the rule of law or promote public safety but to enforce the will of a single man.”
***. “To announce that there must be no criticism of the President, or that we are to stand by the President, right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public.”
[ Theodore Roosevelt; Republican; 26th U. S. President ]
7] “Administration officials quickly declared those shootings [Parias & Martinez] justified. – and righteous. – with hyperbolic language similar to that used after ms. good’s killing. Those claims would also later be disproved..”
8] “..nearly all of the administration’s responses to deaths in custody, shootings or other accused abuses have used maximalist language to venerate immigration officers, dehumanize their victims and villainize anyone who doesn’t support the Trump administration.”
9] ‘..after federal agents dragged Aliya Rahman, a U.S. citizen, from her car and arrested her, a Department of Homeland Security spokesperson referred to her as an agitator who was obstructing immigration operations. In fact, she was trying to get to a doctor’s appointment at the Traumatic Brain Injury Center…”
11]. “Instilling fear is a drawback only if your goal is public safety. this administration has made it clear that it doesn’t want marginalized communities. – immigrants, Somali U.S.citizens, residents of Latino neighborhoods and so on. – to feel safe.”
13] “Videos from cities where Mr. Trump has sent federal agents have shown agents attempting to stop fast-moving vehicles with techniques that most police departments prohibit or reserve for rare confrontations…”
*** “Power is always dangerous. Power attracts the worst and corrupts the best.” [ Edward Abbey ]
14]. “It’s clear that immigration officials are routinely breaking the law.”
15]. “We’ve seen the unlawful arrest and incarceration of Somali refugees who have legal permission to be here, warrantless raids on private homes and reports of detainees be denied access to lawyers.”
16]. ‘..Todd Blanche, said on Fox News that there will be no federal investigation into her killing. The administration has already said the F.B.I. will not share the evidence it collected with the local police so they can conduct their own investigations. This is the very definition of a cover-up. It’s just being done in lain sight.”
18]. “It’s one thing to tank or slow-walk an investigation. It’s quite another to publicly declare that no investigation will happen…and then announce that you’ll be investigating the victim’s partner and supports instead.. Both paths are unethicl and corrupt….The administration’s actions…are a declaration that there will be no accountability and that it would prefer to instill fear rather than trust.”
*** “It is not infrequent to hear men declaim loudly upon liberty, who, if we may judge by the whole tenor of their actions, mean nothing else by it but their own liberty, – to oppress without control or the restraint of laws all who are pooer or weaker than themselves.” [ Samuel Adams ]
The Trump DICTATORSHIP – Stupidity, Cruelty, Corruption, Crazinesss, CXXXXII. – Constitutional Rights Under Assault In Minnesota
***. “Government is instituted for the common good; for the protection, safety, prosperity, and happiness of the people; and not for profit, honor, or private interest of any one man, family, or class of men; therefore the people alone have an incontestable, unalienable, and indefeasible right to institute government; and to reform, alter, or totally change the same, when their protection, safety, prosperity, and happiness require it.” [ John Adams; 1776 ]
This post presents excerpts from “Constitutional rights are under assault in Minnesota” [ E. Thomas Sullivan, Richard Painter; Minnesota Star Tribune; 2/17/26. Both are law professors. ]
1] “During Operation Metro Surge, the American public was flooded, mostly through right-wing media and social media, with imaginary insurrection scenarios and speculation about the beginning of a civil war in Minnesota. Elon Musk posted explicitly on X…that there is an “insurrection” in Minnesota. Nothing could be further from the truth.”
2] “The claims of looming civil war are just a pretext for President Donald Trump to invoke the Insurrection Act….here is no insurrection.”
12] “Democratic accountability of public officials is being impaired. It must be restored. The survival of our republic depends upon it.”
***. “Wherever Law ends, Tyranny begins.” [ John Locke ]
3]. “There are..important rights at stake. We begin with the First Amendment: right to freedom of speech and assembly, which includes the right to peacefully protest without harassment, arrest and assault by federal officers.”
4] “Next comes the Second Amendment, violated in the killing of Alex Pretti. Pretti should not have been assaulted, much less executed for having a legally licensed, holstered handgun that was not used to threaten federal officers.”
5]. “The Fourth Amendment requires that a search warrant be authorized by a judge to enter a home or work[place, not just an ICE “administrative warrant.”
*** “We must support our rights or lose our character, and with it, perhaps, our liberties.” [ James Madison ]
6] “Fifth Amendment [due process] requires that the government gives a person adequate notice of criminal charges and an opportunity to defend oneself. The decisionmaker must be neutral and unbiased.”
7]. “The Tenth Amendment embodies the federalism doctrine governing the relationship between States’ rights and the power of the federal government. Rights that are not delegated to the federal government nor denied to the states in the Constitution are vested and flow to the states and to the people.”
8] “Furthermore, the 10th Amendment guarantees Minnesota the right to enforce its own laws, unless expressly preempted by federal law under the Supremacy Clause of the Constitution. this includes criminal statutes..”
*** “Where the rights of men are equal, every man must finally see the necessity of protecting the rights of others as the most effectual security fro his own.” [ Thomas Paine; 1795 ]
9] “Under the 14th Amendment, persons born in the U.S. or naturalized, and subject to the jurisdiction, are granted both U.S. citizenship in a state. These important citizenship rights…cannot be taken away by the federal government. ICE cannot rely on immigration laws to arrest natural-born citizens in Minnesota or anywhere else.”
10] “Sadly, much of the blame is with the Supreme Court and its highly controversial 2024 criminal immunity decision in Trump v. the United States. When a president is immune from criminal prosecution, his subordinates…think that immunity also flows through them…inferring that they can commit crimes, even murder, and get away with it.”
11] “As for the Insurrection Act….There is no insurrection.”
*** “In every human breast, God has implanted a principle, which we call love of freedom; it is impatient of oppression and pants for deliverance.” [ Phyllis Wheatley; 1774 ]
With Justice For All 
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