*** “It is a very dangerous doctrine to consider the judges as the ultimate arbiters of all constitutional questions. It is one which would place us under the despotism of an oligarchy.” [ Thomas Jefferson, 1820 letter ]
Increasingly, the CORRUPT 6-3 Reactionary Republican ‘supreme court” majority is demonstrating Jefferson’s fears. Consider their PATTERN ; Shelby County; refusal to oppose Gerrymandering – recognized for 200 years as an antidemocratic abomination; giving ANY president – let alone one D.J. Trump – “immunity” [if the Founders intended that, why is impeachment of a president in the Constitution???]; 9 months of “Shadow Docket” decisions allowing Trump’s dictatorial decisions; and now – removing injunctions by lower courts as a way of restraining Trump’s often BLATANT authoritarian decisions and actions.
This PATTERN is UNMATCHED in American legal history for its antidemocratic and unconstitutional scope and damage. With most other U.s. presidents, this would have been a lesser threat – with a deeply flawd person like Donald John Trump – possibly fatal to American rule of law and democracy.
*** “As a member of this Court, I am not justified in writing my private notions of policy into the Constitution, no matter how deeply I may cherish them or how mischievous I may deem their disregard.: [Justice Felix Frankfurter]
Consider excerpts from “Ending Nationwide Injunctions Will Let Trump Do His Worst”. [Sabrina Haake; The Progressive Populist; August, 2025]
1]. “The partisan majority chose instead to strike nationwide injunctive relief, a disastrous ruling that gave Donald Trump the green light to continue sh*tting on the Constitution. As a 30-year federal litigator, I am outraged. I don’t see how the rule of law survives this decision, handed down when our executive is so clearly and demonstrably unhinged.”
2]. “What the Republican majority did was outrageous…they struck down nationwide injunctions, the main tool federal courts have used to stop Trump from bulldozing the Constitution…It gives Trump license to trammel every law, every clause, and every amendment in the Constitution.”
***. “A judge can’t have any agenda. A judge can’t have any preferred outcome in any particular case. And a judge certainly doesn’t have a client. The judge’s only obligation – and it’s a solemn obligation – is to the rule of law.” [Samuel A. Alito, Jr. – opening statement in his Senate confirmation hearing; January 9, 2006] !!!!!!!!!! [NOTE: YOU be the judge on whether “justice’ Alito has honored this pledge – any doubt/ – read “Dobbs”; study Alito’s PATTERN on the ‘court.”]
3] “Just as these same partisan hacks did in Dobbs to erase abortion rights that had been in existence for 50 years, Trump v. Casa erased the history of nationwide injunctions, by focusing on what happened in the 1700s and 1800s instead of our more recent, and relevant, history
“Nationwide injunctions have been used in the U.S. for over 100 years. They are the strongest and surest remedy to keep elected officials from violating federal law or the constitution. Now, in service to Trump, that remedy has been removed, and protection for the little guy has been erased.”
4]. “Everyone who wants to stop Trump from illegally harming them now has to sue, and appear personally before the court , or join a class action, which can take years to certify. I defended class actions for over 15 years – they are an expensive, time consuming and cumbersome way to try to fight back against the government.” [NOTE: this too, is a Roberts “court” PATTERN – on paper you have a right , but exercising it is made much more difficult]
*** “..;Thomas himself vowed on the day of his confirmation, at the age of forty-three, that he intended to spend the next forty-three years of his life as a Supreme Court Justice. It would take that long, he told friends, to get even.” [Jane Mayer, Jill Abrahamson: “Strange Justice,” page 360] [NOTE: YOU decide: has Clarence Thomas achieved his promise “..to get even.” ??????????]
5] “Sotomayor’s outrage is also palpable. She continues: “In partially granting the Government’s remarkable request, the Court distorts well-established equitable principles several times over.”
6]. “The Roberts court is well aware of what Trump is doing…They know exactly what is happening, but shamefully choose to look away and let Trump do his worst AFTER they gave him immunity to break criminal laws.”
***. “If we desire respect for the law, we must first make the law respectable.” [ Justice Louis Brandeis ]
7] “Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson’s dissent hit hard: “the Court’s decision to permit the Executive to violate the Constitution with respect to anyone who has not yet sued is an existential threat to the rule of law.”
***. “I have always thought that one of this Court’s most important roles is to provide a formidable bulwark against government violation of the constitutional safeguard securing in our free society the legitimate expectations of every person to innate human dignity and sense of worth.” [ Justice William Brennan ]
Ask YOURSELF: does the 20-year record of thre Roberts “court” uphold the Constitution’s requirements of “..establish Justice…promote the general Welfare..”??? The two BIG winners; corporations and the Religious Right. The Reactionary Republicans claim to be “originalists” or “textualists.” But their decisions aren’t. They’ve LIED, made up, misrepresented, ignored contrary evidence. They pick cases they can USE to aid the 50-year Right Wing agenda.
In 1947-73, America approached being a TRUE democracy, a mass middle class prosperous society. THEN – the Empire struck back. The Burger and Rehnquist “courts” chipped away. The Roberts ‘court” has, is, moving America toward the Far Right goal of a Theocratic Oligarchy, case – by – case.
Look at the RESULTS of major Roberts ‘court’ decisions in cases ‘big’ and ‘small.” The America of 2025 is a shadow of 1947-73 America economically, socially, politically, ethically – by DESIGN. The Roberts ‘court” has exacerbated America’s problems with virtually every major decision, and many ‘lesser” ones.
They’ve topped this off – so far – with making the ANTI-George Washington a virtual dictator, who issues one stupid, irrational, destructive order and decision after another.
***. “Power corrupts, and unrestricted power will tempt Supreme Court justices just as history tells us it has tempted other judges. For, unfortunately, judges have not been immune to the seductive influences of power, and given absolute or near absolute power, judges may exercise it to bring about changes that are inimical to freedom and good government.” [ Justice Hugo Black ]
Tag: news
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, LXIX – Suppression Of Free Speech
*** “We must not confuse dissent with disloyalty. When the loyal opposition dies, I think the soul of America dies with it.” [ Edward R. Murrow ]
The Trump DICTATORSHIP, or, is it the “Project 2025” DICTATORSHIP???, claims the right to do whatever it wants. It’s dictating culture, it’s state allies are changing school curricula, it’s dictating to universities and law firms, it’s dictating to state and local governments, it’s changing signs in national parks, it’s attacking other nations, it’s claiming the right to do things the Constitution says Congress does. It wants to control ALL information YOU get – like firing people who provide “the wrong” statistics. The following excerpts illustrate the suppression of free speech. {“Covert unit targeted campus activists”]:
1] “When Rumeysa Ozturk was grabbed by masked federal agents outside her Massachusetts home…Ozturk had committed no crime, yet her detention was a priority for the new Trump administration.”
2] “On Tuesday, U.S. District Judge William Young in Boston ruled that the push to target Ozturk and other students was blatantly unconstitutional.”
3] “The effort to deport pro-Palestinian student activists represented the Trump administration’s first major challenge to free speech norms in the United states…”
4] “While the Trump administration publicly accused Ozturk of engaging in activities ‘in support of Hamas,” an internal State Department memo said there was no evidence that Ozturk had engaged in any antisemitic activity or indicated any support for terrorism.”
*** “When and if fascism comes to America it will not be labeled ‘made in Germany,’ it will not be marked with a swastika; it will not even be called fascism; it will be called, of course, ‘Americanism’..” [Halford Luccock]
5]. “For this unusual assignment, one source above all was key: The [HSI] team relied heavily on the website of Canary Mission, an opaque, anonymous pro-Israel group that says it documents individuals who “promote hatred of the USA, Israel and Jews,” focusing primarily on college campuses.”
6] “Some [names] came from Betar US, a militant Zionist organization that the Anti-Defamation League considers an extremist group.”
7]. “Armstrong, the senior consular official at the State Department, testified in July that he revoked Ozturk’s visa because she was “against Tuft’s relationship with Israel” and “associated” with Tufts Students for Justice in Palestine.. Alexandra Conlon, a lawyer for the plaintiffs, drew Armstrong’s attention to the sentence in the memo saying there was no evidence Ozturk was involved in any of the activities of the suspended group.”
*** “There is no possibility I have made a mistake.” [ Adolf Hitler ]
8] “The arrest was abnormal on several levels. It was almost unheard of for students whose visas had been revoked to be arrested and sent to ICE detention, particularly in the absence of any criminal charges.”
9]. “The way the arrest unfolded startled even HSI veterans. “I’ve just never seen, on a student visa revocation, that level of force, ” said Eric Balliet, who worked at the agency for 25 years…He said he had taken violent drug traffickers into custody with less overt intimidation and haste.” [ Joanna Slater, John Hudson: “Covert unit targeted campus activists”; Washington Post Weekly; 10/5/25]
For perspective on the merits of this free speech suppression – consider the following samples of commentary on Israel’s conduct in the Hamas-Israel war. Question: has Israel’s CONDUCT left itself vulnerable to these and many other criticisms? If so, why is the Trump DICTATORSHIP suppressing speech that many are making?
1] a ‘letter to the editor”: “a Jewish person grapples with statehood”: “for too long..we have been blind to the displacement, terror, and oppression that accompanied our statehood. From its inception, Zionism has entailed the force removal of Palestinians.” [B.M.; Minnesota Star Tribune; 8/26/25]
2]. “Ver the past week, the Israel government approved a settlement project in the Central West Bank, which the country’s finance minister said “buries the idea of a Palestinian state.” [Aaron Boxerman: “After famine report, U.S. mostly silent, Israel defiant”; New York Times; 8/24/25]
3]. “The offensive began the same day that independent experts commissioned by the United Nations Human Rights council accused Israel of committing genocide in Gaza..” [Melanie Lidman, Jon Gambrell, Samy Magdy: “Israel begins long-feared ground attack in Gaza City”; The Associated Press; 9/17/25]
4] “My inescapable conclusion has become that Israel is committing genocide against the Palestinian people. Having grown up in. a Zionist home, lived the first half of my life in Israel, served in the IDF as a soldier and officer and spent most of my career researching and writing on war crimes and the Holocaust, this was a painful conclusion to reach…But I have been teaching classes on genocide for a quarter century, I can recognize one when I see one.” [Omer Bartov: “I’m a Scholar of Genocide. I KnowIt When I See It.:; New York Times; 7/20/25]
***. “In a time of deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act.” [George Orwell]
The Trump DICTATORSHIP – Stupidity, Cruelty, Corruption, Craziness, LXVIII – One Day!!!!!
***** “Trump lacks the emotional stability, knowledge, critical-thinking skills, and judgment to be commander-in-chief.” [Pulitzer Prize winer David Cay Johnston: :It’s Even Worse Than You Think”]
!!!!! – Headlines – from just ONE DAY! – reveal part of the Stupidity, Cruelty, Corruption, Craziness of the Trump DICTATORSHIP – Thursday, October 9, 2025:
1] “Canceled energy projects to hike costs…Trump’s funding cuts likely to end up hurting ratepayers, officials say” [Kristoffer Tigue; Minnesota Star Tribune]: “That’s because Minnesota’s transmission projects, which are part of a larger initiative to add transmission lines across seven states, will have to be built anyway.”
2]. “25% of FBI agents now diverted to immigration” [Perry Stein; Washington Post]: “The intense focus on immigration has raised alarm among current and former FBI agents who say morale is low across the bureau as agents have less time to dedicate to the often complex cases they were hired to work on.
“Agents have been pulled from duties related to cybercrimes, drug trafficking, terrorism, counterintelligence, and more.” ………
“We are weakening ourselves by the day, said Chris O’Leary, a former FBI senior executive and special agent.”
[NOTE: this is NOT THE FIRST concern on this – America’s defense against our REAL enemies – China, Russia – are being sabotaged. The public does NOT realize how DEEP and BROAD Trump’s administration has hurt American national security.]
3] “Fossil fuel firms get special treatment…As White House blocks renewables, coal and oil get ‘concierge’ service.” [Jake Spring; Washington Post]: “Trump wants to boost production of oil, gas, coal and critical minerals that align with his policy favoring fossil fuels to address his self-declared national energy emergency.” [NOTE: what is China doing? What does SERIOUS research say the FUTURE is going to require???]
4] “Nearly 300 Defense Dept. employees targeted over Kirk…Hegseth ordered probe into whether any online comments were critical” [Noah Robertson, Tara Copp; Washington Post]: “The sweeping, ongoing inquiry..follows an extraordinary directive by the department’s political leadership to silence criticism of a prominent, polarizing figure who was unabashed in his views and fervent support for President Donald Trump.”….
“..deepens alarm over the former Fox News personality’s stewardship of the military, whose personnel are expected to remain loyal to the Constitution, not any one party or president.” [NOTE: THIS is the Trump DICTATORSHIP in action]
5]. “James Comey pleads not guilty…His lawyers say case is vindictive prosecution against critic of Trump” [Eric Tucker, Alanna Durkin Richer, Michael Kunzelman; The Associated Press]: “..the case has amplified concerns the Justice Department is being weaponized in pursuit of the Republican president’s political enemies and is operating at the behest of an administration determined to seek retribution.” [NOTE; what’s the difference between this and Stalin, Hitler, Putin, Communist China???]
*****. “In Trump’s world [lies] are standard operating procedure…Trump’s lies appear to have pushed the same thought stopping buttons used by cult leaders – shutting down critical thinking; employing us versus them thinking; and using emotional manipulation to gain sympathy for the leader while at the same time drumming up animosity toward the media.” [Steven Hassan: “The Cult of Trump”]
6]. “Trump” Pritzker ‘should be in jail’…Illinois governor decries “path to full-blown authoritarianism.’ [Michelle Price, Sophia Tareen; The Associated Press]: “The Republican president made the comment in a social media post, the latest example of his brazen calls for his Democratic opponents to be prosecuted or locked up – a break from longtime norms as the Justice Department traditionally has strived to maintain its independence from the White House.”
7]. “U.S. soybean farmers race to harvest but have few buyers…China, normally the biggest customer, has booked no shipments.” [Michael Hirtzer, Erin Ailworth; Bloomberg News]: “Soybeans are typically America’s most-valued agricultural export.” [NOTE: Trump’s tariffs in action. As farmers and economists have said; once you lose markets, they may be difficult to regain.]
*****. “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.” [D.C. Johnston: “It’s Even Worse Than You think”]
JUDGING A PRESIDENT: Start with the Constitution. The Founders said American government’s purpose is; ‘..form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, secure ther Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity…”
SO – individually, and collectively, ignoring what Trump SAYA. – what exactly is the REALITY of his actions – rhetoric, policies, programs, laws, executive orders???
Look at the 7 actions of just this one day. – in one or more ways. – EVERY one of the 7 Trump actions FAILS the test of the Constitution. They may make his ‘base” happy, they may make authors of “Project 2025″ happy, they may make his billionaire donors and friends happy. The United States is. NOT a better, more prosperous, more ‘democratic” nation because of Trump’s actions above; nor did Trump leave America a better country when he left office in January, 2021; nor have his actions in 2025. “made America great again.”
According to current statistics, 70% of Americans are living paycheck to paycheck; the economy is being driven by top 20% spending; 50% of ALL U.S. spending is by the top 10%; 80% fell ‘squeezed;” 70% question ‘the American Dream;” inequality is statistically getting worse. NOTHING Trump has done even attempts to lessen this distress.
Trump’s biggest first term “achievement’ was an IMMORAL tax cut for the rich – now 25% of U.S. national debt. in his second term, he demanded a Republican Congress make that immorality PERMANENT. YOU tell me – how does this tax cut for the already obscenely rich ‘..promote the general Welfare..”???????????
***** “The governments of the past could fairly be characterized as devices for maintaining in perpetuity the place and position of certain privileged classes, without any ultimate protection for the rights of the people. The Government of the United States is a device fro maintaining in perpetuity the rights of the people, with the ultimate extinction of all privileged classes.” [ Calvin Coolidge, Republican 30th president, 1924 ]
The Trump DICTATORSHIP – Stupidity, Cruelty, Corruption, Craziness, LXV – Using Government Power to Persecute American Citizens
*** “Today, as in ages past, we are not without tragic proof that the exulted power of some governments to punish manufactured crime dictatorially is the handmaid of tyranny.” [ Justice Hugo Black ]
1] “The first 100 days of President Trump’s second term did more damage to American democracy than anything else since the demise of Reconstruction. Mr. Trump is attempting to create a presidency unconstrained by Congress or the courts, in which he and his appointees can override written law when they want to. It is precisely that autocratic approach that this nation’s founders sought to prevent when writing the Constitution.” [ “Fight Like Our Democracy Depends On It.”; Editorial; New York Times; 5/4/25 ]
***. “The best political weapon is the weapon of terror. Cruelty commands respect. Men may hate us. But, we don’t ask for their love; only for their fear.” [ Heinrich Himmler; Nazi Reichsfuhrer – SS ]
2] “Control has been a relentless focus of the second Trump administration. And Mr. Trump’s efforts to assert that control at home draw on the security infrastructure the United States built to impose its will abroad. Deportations and policing have been militarized and supported by big data. Legal authorities designed to confront enemies beyond our borders have been enlisted to justify actions within them. Threats of crime are hyped far out of proportion…The othering previously reserved for jihadists or communists is applied to immigrants and the “radical left.”….The empire came home.” [ Ben Rhodes: “Britain Offers a Warning of What America could Become”; New York Times; 9/21/25 ]
*** “We want the bureaucrats to be traumatically affected…When they wake up in the morning, we want them to not want to go to work because they are increasingly viewed as the villains.” [Russell Vought; Trump administration official; “Project 2025” author]
3] “The events of the past week in Virginia mark a dark new stage in President Trump’s effort to turn federal law enforcement into a personal tool of oppression and vengeance. He is undermining a core premise of the American justice system: the fair and equal enforcement of the law.”…
“He has removed any pretense that the law is blind. As despots have done for centuries, he is persecuting people he considers his enemies, with little justification other than raw political power. It is reminiscent of the old royal notion…I am the state..”……[ “Comey’s Indictment Signals A Grave New Chapter”; Editorial; New York Times; 9/28/25 ]
*** “Decency, security and liberty alike demand that government officials shall be subjected to the same rules of conduct that are commands to the citizen. In a government of laws, existence of the government will be imperiled if it fail to observe the law scrupulously….If the Government becomes a lawbreaker, it breeds contempt for law; it invites every man to become a law unto himself; it invites anarchy.” [ Justice Louis Brandeis ]
4]. “We have seen much debate over the merits and timing of a legal case against Mr. Comey… but any such discussion misses the most important point: We don’t want to live in a country where the president dictates, publicly or privately, who should be targeted by federal prosecutors and then pressures any prosecutor unwilling to bring said politically motivated charges.”……..
“Step by step, action by action, Mr. Trump has been trying to turn the Justice Department and the F.B.I. into political weapons that target whom he tells them to. The weaponization of federal criminal charges against political enemies stands as one of the most alarming signs of mr. Trump’s creeping authoritarian tendencies.” [ Garrett m. Graff: “After Comey, Who Will Be The President’s Next Target?”; New York Times; 9/27/25 ]
*** “There can be no free society without law administered through an independent judiciary. if one man can be allowed to determine for himself what is the law, every man can. That means first chaos, then tyranny. Legal process is an essential part of the democratic process.” [. Justice Felix Frankfurter ]
5]. “The ouster on Friday of the federal prosecutor who failed to charge two of President Trump’s most-reviled adversaries was a huge blow to the Justice Department’s teetering tradition of independence, showing how far Mr. Trump has gone in exerting personal control over the institution.”….
“… the move strikes at the nuts-and-bolts foundations of the criminal justice system. It seems intended both to create a frictionless path for prosecutions of those who have run afoul of Mr. Trump and perhaps to provide the White House with a tool it could use to set aside or slow cases it would like to see disappear.” [ Alan Feuer, Glenn Thrush, Maggie Haberman, Devlin Barrett: “Ouster Pushes Justice Dept. Closer to Cliff”; New York Times; 9/21/25 ]
*** “There is danger from all men. The only maxim of a free government ought to be not to trust no man living with the power to endanger the public liberty.” [ John Adams, 2nd president ]
6]. “”The push for the indictment trampled over the agency’s long tradition of maintaining distance from the White House and resisting political pressure, and it raised the prospect of further arbitrary prosecutions pushed by Mr. Trump against his enemies…the break-glass moment…”
“The rush to prosecute Mr. Comey was the clearest example yet of how the normal process of justice has been reversed under mr.cTrump, showing how the president came into his second term with targets already in mind…”
[ Alan Feuer, Jonnah Bromwich, Maggie Haberman: “A Presidency of Reprisal Tramples on Safeguards”; New York Times; 9/27/25 ]
***. “Obstacles do not exist to be surrendered to, but only to be broken.” [ Adolf Hitler ]
7]. “We are now seeing that such painstakingly built institutions are remarkably fragile. Historian and philosopher Yuval Harari centered his panoramic book about the history of mankind, “Sapiens,” on the idea that the foundation of civilization is no more than a collection of stories…….. Similarly, all institutions consist of just a fragile belief in our heads. The rule of law, democracy, civil rights, the United States itself? Just thoughts in our heads……… If people stop believing in the fair, independent enforcement of laws that apply to everyone, why should anyone follow the law?
“Our choice now is whether we allow ourselves to get used to the corrosive idea of legally sanctioned favoritism and retribution. Or whether we hold fast to the thought of America as a principled, just, law-based country.” [Bruce Peterson: “Institutions are fragile, as recent Trump moves show”; Minnesota Star Tribune; 9/25/25 ] {Note: Peterson is a senior district judge]
*** “The doctrine of the separation of powers was adopted..not to promote efficiency but to preclude the exercise of arbitrary power. The purpose was, not to avoid friction, but by means of the inevitable friction incident to the distribution of the governmental powers among three departments, to save the people from autocracy.” [ Justice Louis Brandeis ]
America is NOW closer to theocratic plutocracy and/or dictatorship than ever. THIS is what the people above just told YOU. Read about “Project 2025″ – the FAR RIGHT blueprint for all this, created by the POWER BEHIND TRRUMP. Research the decisions made by the CORRUPT Roberts ‘court.” Look at Trump’s DEMAND for red state redistricting. YOU are witnessing a COUP by TEAM REPUBLICAN. Speak up – while you still can. Protest. Vote the CORRUPT Republicans out in 2026 – because that MAT BE YOUR LAST CHANCE TO SAVE AMERICAN DEMOCRACY. American democracy is dying right in front of you – and WILL, if YOU just sit there…………….
The Trump DICTATORSHIP – Stupidity, Cruelty, Corruption, Craziness, LXIV – Trump Embarrasses America Before The World
*** “Wise men talk because they have something to say; fools because they have to say something.” [Plato]
1] On Tuesday, September 23, 2025 – “our” president, one Donald John Trump, illustrated fro the entire world that America is being run by fools, incompetents, ideologues, and know-nothings. In a “meandering” 56 minute rant, “Trump lectured the United Nations and other countries about how they are failing and aired a list of grievances….The White House had billed Trump’s address..as a chance for the president to lay out his vision for how the U.S. should wield its power abroad.”
“Trump undermined the scientific consensus on climate change, saying it was “made by stupid people”…called climate change the “greatest con job’ perpetrated on the world and claimed environmentalists are out to eliminate America’s cows.” On religion, Trump “falsely claimed that Muslim leaders in the West are planning to institute sharia law, while proclaiming Christianity to be the “most persecuted religion on the planet.”……
Trump ‘personally insulted the Muslim mayor of London. he bashed allies and foes around the world. He questioned whether the United Nations should even exist.” [“At the U.N., Trump slams strike near and far”; Luke Broadwater; New York Times; 9/24/25]
*** “There are some people, that if they don’t know, you can’t tell ’em.” [ Louis “Satchmo” Armstrong ]
2] On Monday, September 22, 2025, Trump warmed up for his early Halloween scarefest by attacking the use of Tylenol by pregnant women, “suggesting a connection between the widely used medication and autism…”Fight like hell not to take it.” [“Here’s what experts say about Tylenol”; Niha Masih, Ariana Eunjung Cha; Washington Post; 9/24/25]
3] On Wednesday, “The World Health Organization has joined the international pushback against the Trump administration’s warnings that acetaminophen use during pregnancy leads to autism, saying Wednesday there is ‘no conclusive scientific evidence confirming a possible link.”
“Public health leaders and organizations around the world have been sounding off since President Donald Trump called Monday to limit use of acetaminophen – the active ingredient in Tylenol and more than 600 other medications.”…
“The move is a sharp departure from the accepted guidance on a medication that many major medical associations have deemed safe..” [WHO rejects Tylenol warnings”; Vivian Ho, Karla Adam; Washington Post; 9/25/25]
***. “The wise man takes pleasure in what is honorable, but the fool is not vexed by shamefulness.” [ Plutarch ]
[A note of caution and early warning: there are three more Halloweens before January 20, 2029. Given the scary, spook-filled track record of the Trump DICTATORSHIP, it appears there will be many more. “TRICKS” performed by the CLOWNS in “your” government, but – unless YOU are a billionaire – not many, if any. “TREATS.” ]
The Trump DICTATORSHIP – Stupidity, Cruelty, Corruption, Craziness, LXIII – Destroying The First Amendment – Suppressing Dissent, Controlling and Censoring Information, Threats
*** “Once a government is committed to the principle of silencing the voice of opposition, it has only one way to go, and that is down the path of increasingly repressive measures, until it becomes a source of terror to all its citizens and creates a country where everyone lives in fear.” [ Harry Truman, 33rd U.S, president ]
First, for perspective, just a few headlines on the Trump DICTATORSHIP’s war on dissent:
– “A step-by-step checklist toward autocracy – moving along too easily so far”. [3/26/25]
– “I Taught My Students Slavery Was Wrong. then MAGA Came After me”. [ June, 2025]
– “After Decades Trying, G.O.P. Guts PBS and NPR”. [7/19/25]
– “Trump Amplifies Attacks On Foes After Kirk Death”. [9/14/25]
– “After Kirk’s killing, calls to ostracize, fire his critics”. [9/15/25]
– “Liberal groups targeted after Kirk death” [9/16/25]
– “National park ordered to remove historic photo”. [9/17/25]
– “Kimmel is silenced, Who will be next?” [9/21/25]
– “Trump, allies seek to punish speech”. [9/21/25]
– “America Inches Closer To Authoritarian Club”. [9/21/25}
– “Kimmel Won’t Be the Last”. 9/21/25]
– “Trump’s Chilling Push To Punish Free Speech” [9/21/25]
– “Trump pushes Bondi to go after his foes”. [9/22/25]
– “Profs face increased pressure on speech”. [9/23/25]
This, OBVIOUSLY, is a PATTERN, a STRATEGY. Trump and allies using government power against speech by American citizens – BUT – ONLY, against those whom they don’t like. In principle – what is the difference between the Trump DICTATORSHIP – and. – Stalinist Soviet Union, Nazi Germany, Communist China, Putin’s Russia??? And – the McCarthyist. 1940s-1960s. “Red Scare” ???????????
***. “To announce that there must be no criticism of the President, or that we are stand by the President, right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public.”
[. Theodore Roosevelt, 26th U.S. president ]
For perspective on past suppression of dissent, consider this: “some 300 lynchings of whites transpired between 1830 and 1860″ in the American South. People were found ‘guilty” of saying the ‘wrong things” about slavery. Other, luckier people were tarred and feathered and literally railroaded out of town. [William Freehling: “the Road to Disunion”]
1]. “National park ordered to remove historic photo”. [Jake Spring, Hannah Natanson; Washington Post; 9/17/25 ]: “The Trump administration has ordered the removal of signs and exhibits related to slavery at multiple national parks..” [note: apparently telling the TRUTH about slavery is considered a “corrosive ideology”!!!!!!!!! The good news: there is a citizen group collecting photos of signs the Trump DICTATORSHIP might rip down – they’ve received over 3000 entries so far!!! YOU can help too. Please do.]
2]. “Trump is hitting the media with all that he’s got” [Jim Rutenberg; New York Times; 9/19/25}: ‘..[Trump] ..is now conducting the most punishing government crackdown against major American media institutions in modern times…to eradicate reporting and commentary with which he disagrees.”
***. “I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty, or give me death.” [Patrick Henry]
3]. “America Inches Closer To Authoritarian Club”. [Damien Cave; New York Times; 9/21/25]: “Those in China, India, Iran, Russia, Turkey and Venezuela are familiar with this scenario…[people] squeezed toward silence….President Trump with his threat on Thursday to revoke broadcasting licenses from networks with late-night hosts who joke or comment at his expense, has pushed the United States closer to that club.”
4]. “If the American ideal of freedom means anything, it is that Americans can engage in an extremely wide range of political speech…President Trump himself is a purveyor of tasteless and even threatening language…that no previous president did…Mr. Trump’s aides are drafting an executive order that could come as soon as this week…most likely target left-leaning organizations.” ………..
“Mr. Trump’s promised crackdown depends on the false premise that liberal and nonpartisan groups are part of a far-left conspiracy that promotes violence against conservatives…In fact, multiple data sources show that neither side has a monopoly on political violence, but it is more likely to come from the right. Between 2015 and 2024, 54 percent of ideologically connected killings were committed by people on the far right, according to the Anti-Defamation League…8 percent came from the political left.” [New York Times, Editorial; 9/21/25: “Trump’s Chilling Push to Punish Free Speech”]
***. “Loyalty to country always. Loyalty to government, when it deserves it.” [ Mark Twain ]
5] “On his podcast Friday, GOP Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas called it “unbelievably dangerous for government to put itself in the position of saying we”re going to decide what speech we like and what speech we don’t, and we’re going to threaten to take you off the air if we don’t like what you’re saying.” [Meg Kinnard: “Trump pushes Bondi to go after his foes”; Associated Press; 9/22/25]
6] “The campaigns to silence educators who speak critically of figures on the political right have been effective, suggesting they are likely to expand….The strategy has the endorsement of the Trump administration….Kirk’s supporters, including many in the Trump administration, have made strong statements in the past supporting free speech, no matter how ugly. but now, many of those same officials are trying to limit speech that they say could lead to more violence.”
“Kirk, who was known for making statements that were often criticized as racist, antisemitic and sexist, declared himself to be a proponent of free speech.” ………..
“Turning point’s efforts to target professors it sees as radical datws back nearly a decade, to 2016, when it began asking students to report professors who “discriminate against conservative students and advance leftist propaganda in the classroom.” [Stephanie Saul: “Profs face increased pressure on speech”; New York Times; 9/23/25]
***. “Those who begin coercive elimination of dissent soon find themselves exterminating dissenters.”
[ Justice Robert Jackson]
For perspective – read. “Red Scare,’ by Griffen Fariello, “Memories Of The American Inquisition.” Read how government power was used to ruin innocent people’s lives, loyalty oaths, the Hollywood blacklist. Read how the FAR RIGHT used government power to persecute people it didn’t like. THEN……
Read “He Bult America’s Rockets. The U.S. Deported Him Anyway.” [Kathleen Kingsbury; New York Times; 6/1/25]: “The decision to send Qian Xuesen back toChina changed world history.”
KNOW THIS: the STUPIDITY of the Trump DICTATORSHIP has ALREADY led some foreign scholars to NOT come toAmerica, or to leave. Some American scientists are also leaving.
***. “This and no other is the root from which a tyrant springs: When he first appears, he is a protector.” [Plato]
The Trump DICTATORSHIP – Stupidity, Cruelty, Corruption, Craziness, LXII – Privatizing YOUR Government
*** “For one person alone to have the Government of a people in his hands, would be too great a Temptation. It tends to excite and draw forth Pride of man, to make him unsufferably haughty; it gives him too much liberty to exert his corruptions and it encourages him to become a Tyrant and an oppressor, to dispense with Laws and break the most solemn oaths.” [ John Barnard, 1746 ]
This post is built around Cullen Murphy’s “Feudalism Is Our Future,” The Atlantic; July, 2025. Read it VERY carefully. Among other crimes against America, the Trump DICTATORSHIP is working to dismantle YOUR government – to split off government functions and give them to private companies to do for profit. PRIVATIZATION, along with. DEREGULATION, have been two major Republican goals since at least 1981. This will mean less transparency, less accountability, less concern for YOUR civil rights. Feudalism was ended to give ordinary people – like YOU – more rights, income, respect. WHY should you be surprised that the Trump DICTATORSHIP would want to bring it back?
*** “The very essence of a free government consists in considering offices as public trusts, bestowed for the good of the country, and not for the benefit of an individual or a party.” [ John C. Calhoun ]
6] “As the pace of privatization picked up in the 21st century, the idea of “neo-feudalism” began to interest scholars and theorists….Most of the scholars are profoundly wary: They foresee an erosion of transparency, a disregard for individual rights, and a concentration of power among an ever smaller group of wealthy barons, even as the bulk of the population is relegated to service jobs that amount to a modern form of serfdom.” [read & think on this again]
11]. “Oversight more broadly – of the environment, food, drugs, finance – has been drifting for decades into the hands of those being overseen. In their 2021 book, The Privatization of Everything, Donald Cohen and Allen Mikaelian documented the loss of public control over water, roads, welfare, parks, and much else. The deliberate dismantling of government in America in recent months, and its replacement with something built on privatized power and networks of personal allegiance, accelerates what was long under way.” [read & THINK on this again, and again…]
*** “The care of human life and happiness, and not their destruction, is the first and only legitimate object of every good government.” [ Thomas Jefferson ]
1] “the Trump administration are beguiled by imperial Rome. They see themselves as interpreters of its lessons – beware immigration; uphold masculinity; make babies – and inheritors of its majesty.
2]. “More and more public functions are now likely to be outsourced. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has bveen pushing for years to privatize health care for veterans…Mehmet Oz, has argued for privatizing Medicare – a program he now oversees. The administration has shown interest in taking apart the National Weather Service and spinning off some of its functions. It is looking into fully privatizing Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, which underpin the nation’s mortgage industry.”
3]. “The president has floated the idea of privatizing the United States Postal Service. On his first day in office, he issued an executive order allowing the Justice Department to again send inmates to prisons run by private companies…He has promised to deport millions of undocumented people, and elements of that effort are being privatized. Politico reported this spring that investors led by Erik Prince….had sent a proposal to the White House arguing for the creation of a private military entity to set up “processing camps” and conduct roundups, possibly with the help of private citizens deputized to make arrests. The administration…did award a $151 million contract to the charter company CSI Aviation to operate deportation flights – an opportunity “too valuable not to pursue,” according to an executive of one of CSI’s subcarriers.”
4]. “In the 1980s and ’90s, privatization started gaining traction again….Anti-government sentiment created opportunities, and entrepreneurs seized them. Privatization was also pushed by policy makers who saw outsourcing as inherently more efficient….”
5] “..even before Trump took office a second time, there were roughly twice as many people employed by private contractors to do the federal government’s business as there were federal employees.” {!!!!! read this again !!!!! twice as many people ‘privatized” doing “government” work for private companies as real federal government employees. How many of the private company workers were targeted by the. DOGE BIG. FRAUD. to be eliminated???????]
*** “I think every nation has a right to establish that form of government under which it conceives it shall live most happy, provided it infracts no right or is not dangerous to others.” [ George Washington. ]
7] “Holding a monopoly of the money supply was once a hallmark of public power. In the span of a decade, private cryptocurrencies have undermined that control while at the same time enabling a wide range of illicit activities…In the U.S., Trump and his family are heavily involved in the crypto business. in April, the president announced that he would invite the top 220 investors in his $TRUMP meme coin to a private dinner; the value of the meme coin rose within hours by 60 percent..”
8]. “A monopoly on the legitimate use of force – replacing the knights and pikemen of sundry vassals with professional standing armies – was another traditional hallmark of public power….Globe-spanning private military companies such as the Wagner Group and Triple Canopy recall the roving mercenary Landsknechte of yore….From 2007 to 2012, the U.S. alone spent $160 billion on private security contractors. Growing up alongside them – an industry even larger in size – are the private intelligence-gathering companies, such as Palantir, on which the U.S. spends a significant portion of its intelligence budget.”
9] “In the U.S., anyone with money and a need now hires private security guards, who outnumber police officers by a ratio of 2 to l. Among companies based in the U.S., the third-largest global employer – After Amazon and Walmart – is a private security firm, Allied Universal.”
10]. “Privatization has also upended the law. One example:….the growing use of compulsory arbitration, written by corporations into private contracts, as a way of settling consumer and employment disputes. The public court system is clogged. Arbitration – the “outsourcing of jurisprudence,”…- creates a parallel private system, one in which efficiency may be more highly valued than public oversight or due process.” [note – check the winners & losers under corporate forced arbitration procedures. who do YOU think the “judge’ is gonna be !!!!!!!!! ]
12]. “In 2008, desperate for cash, Chicago privatized its parking meters, selling off the rights to all the revenue for 75 years to a group of investors led by Morgan Stanley. A “true-up” provision requires the city to compensate investors for lost revenue when meters are taken out of service……………..The rights to operate toll highways have been sold off by some jurisdictions to private companies, including foreign ones. The fine print in the contracts often prevents improvements to adjacent roads on the grounds that such enhancements would create undue competition. Private prisons generally put a quota clause into their agreements. States and municipalities may be hoping….to reduce their prison populations, but the beds in private prisons must be filled regardless.” [read all this again – THIS – is “privatization”. in action. how much of this waste did DOGE end????????????]
13]. “Control and accountability are the bedrock……. in a privatized world, government becomes “diffuse, unstable, unpredictable.” and the skein of responsibility more and more attenuated. contractors hire subcontractors, who hire subcontractors of their own.”
*** “The end of all good government is to cultivate humanity, and to promote then happiness of all, and the good of every man in all his rights, his life, liberty, estate, honor, etc., without injury or abuse done to any.” [John Wise]
The GOP’s Hatred of the Middle Class
“Why Republicans want to destroy the hidden link between Middle Class wealth and democratic power” – Thom Hartmann; The Progressive Populist; August, 2025.
*** “The most perfect community is one in which the middle class is in control and outnumbers both of the other classes.” [ Aristotle ]
In this post, as well as in others, and in ANY TRUE account of where 1981-2025 America is NOT the 1947-80 America that WAS a middle class society – by design and policy. Look at the unspun TRUE numbers: wages, incomes, wealth, tax rates, home ownership….
Ask yourself: WHY have economists called the 1947-75 period “the great compression”?
Look at income ratios between CEOs and their employees, 1947-80, versus, 1981-2025.
Ask yourself WHY we’ve gone from [maybe] l billionaire in 1956 to over 900 in 2025?????
KNOW THIS: one big key to 1947-80 middle class prosperity was that American wealth was SHARED – average people made enough, to mostly, have one wage earner. That began to change in the 1970s
For those of YOU who did not live then – think in terms of. THEFT. What the rich have done to YOU is STEAL YOUR SHARE. of America’s wealth. [This has been numerically PROVEN.]
Do YOU have good health insurance? Do YOU have a DEFINED BENEFIT pension? WHY are people in Scandinavian countries annually “THE happiest people on earth’????? What do their countries do for their people that America no longer does for its people????? THE answers for American misery are found in the answers to the above questions. KNOW THIS – what has happened, 1980-2025, IS. NOT. AN. ACCIDENT. KNOW ALSO – the people and groups the FAR RIGHT blames ARE NOT the villains, as their BIG LIES claim.
*** “If you tell a big lie and tell it frequently enough, it will be believed.” [ Adolf Hitler ]
Following are excerpts from Thom Hartmann’s “Modernization Theory: The Key to Understanding the GOP’s Hatred of the Middle Class”; The Progressive Populist; August, 2025:
8] “On the other hand – and here is the GOP’s real goal – if you can do away with or diminish the wealth and political power of the middle class, you can more easily loot the government and act exclusively in the interest of the morbidly rich.” [Note: go to the numbers, 1981-2025. Just one example; WHO were the primary, and intended, beneficiaries of Trump’s 2017 tax cuts – the ones the GOP just made permanent???]
1] “A Pew poll published in late June finds that 59% of Americans say the GOP’s “Big Beautiful Bill” that cuts taxes for billionaires and raises them for working-class people “would hurt lower-income people and 51% think it would hurt middle-income people.” [Suppose you took Republican voters out of the poll – THEN what would it say?]
2] They”re correct. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office said “the bill will measurably reduce the income and spending power of low-and middle-income people whie giving a $4 trillion gift to the morbidly rich.”
3]. “So, why would Republicans want to further reduce the size and wealth of America’s middle class?….There are two good reasons that answer that question.
4] “the first and simplest is that ever since five corrupt Republicans on the Supreme Court made it legal for billionaires and big corporations to bribe politicians, the GOP has done the bidding of the morbidly rich to the exclusion of everybody else…….with their Buckley and Bellotti decisions in the late 1970s, laying the foundation for..Ronald Reagan’s war against unions and working people..”
5] “..there’s a larger reason why Donald Trump and the GOP are working so hard to immiserate and impoverish working class Americans. That reason has to do with something called “modernization theory.”….Seymour Martin Lipset, famously wrote: “The more well-to-do a nation, the greater the chances that it will sustain democracy.”
6] “As Barrington Moore noted in his book “Social Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy”: “No bourgeois [middle class], no democracy.” In 2003, researchers Carles Boix and Susan Stokes found strong evidence that wealthier countries are more likely to be democracies, and once established, democracies are far more stable in richer nations.”
7]. “Similarly, in their book “Economic Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy,’ Daron Acemoglu and James Robinson prove that when economic growth empowers new classes [especially the middle class], those groups will demand political reforms.”
*** “There is class warfare, all right, but it’s my class, the rich class, that’s making war, and we’re winning.”
[ Warren Buffett ]
9] “…multiple cross-national studies using World Bank income data and Freedom House democracy scores show a strong correlation between per capita income and democratic governance; as people become wealthier they more vigorously demand a small-d democratic political system.”
10] “By 1981, the American middle class was at its peak because of a 74% top personal income tax bracket, a 50% top corporate income tax rate, a strong and healthy social safety net, cheap health care [because hospitals and insurance companies were required to be nonprofits in most states], and free or near-free college.” [ THIS – is what we mean when we say. YOU should look at 1981-2025 America. – and see what was been STOLEN FROM YOU.]
11] “Democracy was also arguably at its peak; for the previous 40 plus years Congress had passed, one after the other, bills that primarily benefitted average working people and the middle class. Voting was easy, women and minorities were empowered, and we led the world in education and innovation.” [ THIS is what has been STOLEN FROM YOU]
12]. “When Reagan came into office in 1981 about a third of American workers had good union jobs, meaning that about two-thirds of all American families lived good middle class lives on a single paycheck….. ˇhat was the year the GOP declared war on working-class people because, in the estimation of the Nixon-and Reagan-era Republicans, our democracy had gotten out of hand…….So, in 1981 the GOP set about dismantling the American middle class with their s0-called Reagan Revolution.”
13]. “Who did this to us?” Republicans and the FAR RIGHT, from Limbaugh, Fox “News”, an Trump blame immigrants, Black people, uppity women, college students, an union bosses !!!!!!!!!!!!!!! [ THE REALLY BIG LIE ]
*** “Of all the forms of tyranny the least attractive and most vulgar is the tyranny of mere wealth, then tyranny of plutocracy.” [ Theodore Roosevelt ]
14] “The bottom line is ghat the GOP opposes democracy because it interferes with and complicates their very well-paid efforts to suck up to-and legislate on behalf of – the morbidly rich.”
*** “An imbalance between rich and poor is the oldest and most fatal ailment of all republics.” [ Plutarch ]
Thoughts on Truth; Thoughts On America’s Future
***** “You shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.” [ John 8: 32 ]
Some thoughts on America’s future from George Packer’s visit to the Phoenix area. Excerpts from “The Valley,: The Atlantic; July-August, 2024 ]:
“Democracy is..a fragile artifice. It depends less on tradition and law than on the shifting contents of individual skulls – belief, virtue, restraint. It’s durability under natural and human stress is being put to an intense test in the Valley. And because a vision of vanishing now haunts the whole country, Phoenix is a guide to our future.”………..
“If, like almost everything else in American politics, water turns deeply partisan and ideological, contaminated by conspiracy theories and poisoned with memes, then preserving this drought-stricken civilization will get a lot harder, like trying to solve Rubik’s Cube while fending off a swarm of wasps that you might be hallucinating.”…….
*** “We are dominated by the fanatic, whose worst vice is his sincerity.” [ Oscar Wilde ]
“In a place like Maryvale, you realize how righteously stupid the culture wars make both sides. There’s no reason to think that great books and moral education have anything to do with MAGA. There’s no reason reading Virgil should require banning children from changing names. There’s no reason to view Western civilization as simply virtuous or vicious, only as the one that most shaped our democracy. There’s no reason to dumb down humanistic education and expect our society to become more just. If we could do something about the true impediments to the Cortez family’s dreams – if Fabian could earn enough from his backbreaking work for the six of them to live in four rooms instead of two; if insurance could cover treatment for Ericka’s illnesses so she doesn’t have to delay seeing a doctor until her life is threatened; if the local public schools could give their daughters a safe and decent education; if America could allow the family to stop being afraid and live in the sunlight – then by all means let’s get back to fighting over name changes and reading lists.” ……….
*** ” [Our prejudices are] so deeply rooted that we never think of them as prejudices but call them common sense.”
[ George Bernard Shaw ]
“Identity is a pernicious form of political division, because its appeal is based on traits we don’t choose and can’t change. It’s inherently irrational, and therefore likely to lead to violence. Identity politicians – and Trump is one – don’t win elections and arguments about ideas, or by presenting a vision of a world more attractive than their opponent’s. They win by appealing to the solidarity of group identity, which has to be mobilized by whipping up fear and hatred of other groups.” …………..
*** “When we hate our enemies, we are giving them power over us, power over our sleep, our appetites, our blood pressure, our health, and our happiness.” [ Dale Carnegie ]
“Unlike identities, ideas are open to persuasion, and persuasion depends on understanding and reaching other people. But when partisanship itself becomes a group identity, a tribal affiliation with markers as clear as Jeff Zink’s handgun, dividing us into mutually unintelligible blocs with incompatible realities, then the stakes of every election are existential, and it becomes hard to live together in the same country without killing one another.” …………….
*** “We must learn to live together as brothers or perish together as fools.” [ Martin Luther King, Jr. ]
{Note: ironically – Charlie Kirk is mentioned for ‘the business model” of a speech he delivered……………… ]
With Justice For All 
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