But I might point out that George Lucasβ birthday is May 14 and the day that Star Wars was birthed to the world was May 21 (1977) so those are pretty good dates to remember too.
Enjoy your vacation sir! πππππππ
"So what has the Trump administration learned from its humiliation in the current war? Silly question. This administration doesnβt learn."
Thanks for my belly laugh of the day.
The only thing more satisfying will be watching Trump/Hegseth/Vance/Patel et al. in court someday, trying to explain their lies without perjuring themselves, as they are forced to learn that the Rule of Law does indeed apply to them.
Trump and Kegsbreath thought Iran would be another piece of cake like Venezuela. To say they miscalculated would be a gross understatement.
New poll this morning Trump's disapproval rating is 62%, dissatisfaction with the economy 76%. Trump knows he will lose the House (+ the Senate is in play) if he doesn't steal the midterms. Our rogue Supreme Court just made it easier for him.
Our Constitution, a rogue SCOTUS and 77MM of the most ignorant Americans took the most morally flawed, broken-inside person this country has ever produced whose a brain is an amalgam of a mob boss and a lizard driven to grab whatever he desires without inhibition, and has handed him de facto dictatorial authority. So now he has total immunity from being charged with crime, has unlimited power to pardon operatives, and has the codes to a nuclear arsenal capable of destroying the world. On top of that, heβs a f*cking moron and for the cherry on top, he has developed mid stage dementia which is progressing.
Itβs a good analogy about Star Wars (1977) because Trump is definitely still stuck in the 1970s... It is like he never evolved past then. Everything he wants is based on a 50-years-ago worldview. Absolute recipe for failure in the current day on so many levels. Going backwards at high rates of stupidity!
Trump had mob ties back to when he was building in NYC. He was buying overpriced concrete from S&A Concrete co-owned by Genovese crime boss Anthony "Fat Tony" Salerno and Gambino boss Paul Castellano.
Remember "Where's my Roy Cohn?" After being Sen. Joseph McCarthy's counsel, he was known as Mouthpiece to the mob with a who's who of mob clients. He also taught Trump everything he knows like if somebody hits you, hit back 10x harder. These are the sleazy characters Trump respects.
Do you know author Monica Bauer? One of her FB columns calls him President Mob Boss. His whole gang is a maganazi-fascist mafioso criminal syndicate. We must keep finding nonviolent ways to stop all those arsonists before the many conflagrations they set to bait & hurt We the sane People, totally engulf us / the US.
Let's hope he waits until the last minute and doesn't get those pardons issued before being overcome by his own health issues. He won't give them out in advance because he wants the control over his sycophants.
The idea that Trump, any president, can pardon a mob of people for crimes that they haven't even been charged with is absurd. A pardon is for a conviction, not a get out of jeopardy card. In order for a pardon to be valid, it would have to be for a specific offense also.
Is that true ? Never heard of that before, but if itβs true, that would be great. Now if we can get the next Congress to override the ex post facto prohibition . .
Thank you for mentioning Jackson State - most people haven't heard about that, Welll huge numbers have never heard/read about Kent State either! "Idiocracy" is no longer a funny movie - it is now a documentary on the current state of the USA.
Idiocracy assumed that the government of idiots would still be making a best effort to improve things. In fact, the actual reality is that the situation is much worse than Idiocracy posited. The US would be way better off with President Camacho than with Cheeto Jesus.
"On May 15, 1970, the police opened fire shortly after midnight on students (and passersby) in a May 14 protest of the U.S. invasion of Cambodia during the Vietnam War at Jackson State College in Mississippi. Twelve students were wounded and two (21-year-old law student Phillip Lafayette Gibbs and 17-year-old high school student James Earl Green) were killed."
I was a teenager when I read about it in Time magazine - just a small article. Nowhere near the attention that Kent State received, not that it's a contest.
π thank you Barbara. Youβve ignited my sense of hope. βConscienceβ and βintelligenceβ are alive and kicking. Regards from Scotland, Anthony.
Thank you from a sadly remembering Ohioan. I'll say it every year across every platform I can get to: the National Guard had bayonets on their rifles. Bayonets on unarmed and unruly citizens. Bayonets. Think of it.
Neil wasn't the only one writing protest songs that summer... there's a longer album ver of this (another verse plus 'Give peace a chance' chorus) but this live clip brings more emotion: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OC91CfnKLGg
Once more - "He who wishes to establish an absolute power, such as ancient writers called a tyranny, must change everything. β¦. He should destroy the old cities and build new ones. β¦. He should leave nothing unchanged, so that there should be neither rank, nor grade, nor honor, nor wealth, that should not be recognized as coming from him." β Machiavelli.
And then thereβs the triumphal arch built to celebrate the triumph of stupidity in America. He likes the word triumph because the letters of his name are embedded in it.
I agree with everything what Paul Krugman says here but would like to raise the question: is the "administration" really the problem? Or is the real problem the system that created that theater performance/clown show calling itself the "Trump administration"?
And BTW: an administration strives to administer something with the ultimate goal to make things better or at least not worse. I do not think that this is a correct description of what the "Trump administration" is currently doing or has ever tried to do.
The real problem is clearly not the tRump regime/clown show. The first problem is an electorate that is some combination of ignorant/prejudiced/bigoted that elected an incompetent criminal authoritarian twice. They also gave us a cowardly GOP Congress that makes no effort to perform their sworn duty. If they fail to stop the mid term elections our only hope is massive voter turnout to overwhelm the inevitable claims of fraud, take control of Congress and began hearings to expose the fraud and self dealing of tRump, his minions and oligarch supporters.
Iβm not apologizing for MAGA, but to ignore the underlying causes of the stupidity of those voters is to ignore underlying problems in our country. MAGA voters have been propagandized for 40 or more years by Fox News and the right-wing media. MAGA has been brainwashed by the billionaire supported media to blame the problems of our country on liberals and immigrants. This is a political mechanism to deflect blame from the greedy elite that created most of our problems.
The Hearst news syndicate was temporarily effective at wagging the dog in earlier times, and Father Coughlin served as the Fox News of the 1930s. So the question is why voters back then were a little better at protecting the constitution than they are now, especially when most people back then were high school graduates at best.
All true. But what you is an indictment of Dems failure to effectively message. They also largely ignored the border crisis that people really care about.
Why is it that people cared about the border βcrisisβ? Fox, etc., told them it was a crisis. Republicans told them it was a crisis. Was it something people experienced for themselves?
People who live in the areas with the fewest immigrants became the most concerned by the surge of people coming to our southern border.
My motherβs birthplace, Viola, TN (pop. 500 ) experienced a wave of nannies, gardeners, and house cleaners coming each day and leaving each evening. βThere are Mexicans everywhere,β said one cousin when I visited in 2000. She wasnβt complaining, exactly. I have lost touch since her generation died.
I always wonder if the GOP Congress is really "cowardly" or they all signed on the Project 2025 behind the backs of their constituents because they actually believe in that document. Journalists haven't really dug into that possibility. Considering Trump has accomplished 53 percent of P2025, maybe we should consider that the GOP Congress is working not for its constituents but for a cause unrelated to the will of the people.
People are still talking about getting money out of campaign finance, when that money is completely overshadowed by the yearlong propagandizing by oligarch and corporate media. The parkergetajob TikTok/YouTube channel is a great place to hear people echoing Republican party talking points verbatim, as they has swallowed it whole.
βIn December 2024, I was personally involved in an NSAβauthorized forensic audit of the 2024 election. Kamala Harris and Tim Walz wonβby a wide margin. Trump lost dramatically. There are multiple layers of complexity to this coverβup, including transnational organized crime syndicates that extend far beyond the United States and our elections. To that point, I work in the human trafficking sector, which intersects with the stolen election(s) and has ties to Trump and Epsteinβnot to President Biden, Vice President Harris, or Governor Walz, but to the Democrats and other allied interests responsible for burying the audit.β β Adam Zarnowski, ex-CIA agent and author of JΓΆrmungandr
That's a quote from the first reference. It is usually quite a good assumption that a hypothesis based on a vast international network of conspirators and evil-doers is not a good hypothesis. That assumption was valid centuries ago with Jews and Rosicruians, Jesuits and Freemasons, later then with Communists and fifth columns of all colors, with child eating Democrats, Pizzagate, and QAnon, and so on. But ok, may be this time it's completely different ...
Will the problems the US have and for which Trump is not the cause but the symptom, be solved by replacing a Republican "Big Lie" with a Democratic one? I have my doubts ...
The problem is the American voters, who democratically voted him into power not once, but twice, the second time after having clearly seen what a sorry excuse for a human being he is. The Americans have got the administration that they want and deserve. This kind of thing is true of most countries.
The main goal of the Trump administration seems to be obliteration. Trump's mind and body are failing, and he seems determined to take the US down with him.
The media tries to make us believe the lies - but the only people who believe them are morons and, apparently, folks who invest a lot in the stock market.
Thatβs right. As Paul suggested, Ukraine controls the Black Sea despite having no navy. And in Hegseth shoukdnt be surprised that Iran fights and kills with drones because they were supplying Russia with them.
Hegseth should also be aware that Eric Trumpβs company has secured a $24 million government contract to supply him with drones. (Where is Trumpβs incentive to end this war when he and his family can continue to drain our coffers and enrich themselves?)
The GOP isnβt a political party. Itβs a crime syndicate. Another musical coda to use, if you havenβt already, is The Callβs When the Walls Came Down. Pertinent lyrics include βI donβt think there are any Russians, and there ainβt no Yanks, just corporate criminals playing with tanks.β
What does Wric Trump know about dronesβor for that matter war? Iβm thinking heβll cash the $24M, build a few worthless drones, pocket the balance. But that contract doesnβt require a war with Iran.
We could have gotten Ukraine drones and technology β theyβre the experts now and offered to help. But the war presented another opportunity for Trump grift. And, youβre right, Eric is no expert β just an opportunist.
he and his brother did the same thing with personal protective equipment during the Covid days - bought or founded a company to produce the stuff and made a ton of money. Whether they ever made any PPE that worked ... who knows?
Actually, it was Jared Kushner. 'Project Airbridge' it was called. Seems like eons ago but, if you'll remember, he was put in charge of almost everything. He called up his political connections and spent a ton of dough with no real result. Just like now with Iran. And, he gets his marching orders from Bibi.
I agree with you, Jim! I think we can conclude that Putin is directing Trump to cripple our country in multiple ways. Putin must be ecstatic at the results considering he hasnβt spent a dime to destroy us.
I wish I saw more discussion about this. A timeline of meetings and calls with Putin coupled with Trumpβs subsequent actions, would go a long way to explain whatβs going on. I havenβt seen this anywhere but Iβm hoping itβs in the worksβ¦
249 years ago our scrappy founders had no navy, no air force, and no missiles. Dressed in rags, they had lost battle after battle against the world's greatest military force.
And yet, George Washington and his tiny rebellious army defeated the British Empire.
This is Exhibit 632D on how stupid Trump is when he talks about his catastrophic war against Iran and, well almost anything else, other than avenues for his personal accumulation of wealth and power.
Battleships, intercontinental ballistic missiles, and gigantic tanks are not the measures of success in asymmetric warfare. We in the United States in the middle of our anniversary year should be the first to recognize this.
It's Trump's version of Dictator Chic--the giant palaces smothered in fake gold leaf must be matched by suitable quantities of huge battleships and ICBMs and tanks for victory parades in the streets: because it's all for show. Trump's military parade must be bigger & more threatening to the world than Xi's or Putin's.
And besides, Trump might actually want to use the ICBMs (a new generation with warheads fuelled by Iran's enriched uranium) if his boasting about them isn't enough to deter threats.
MAD deterrence might still be the logic--but Trump would dearly love to orchestrate some real mushroom clouds.
What's the point of having nuclear weapons if you don't use them? Trump has already said this.
Yes, Trump's 10,000 sq ft gold flake encrusted White House Ballroom is a prime example of Dictator Chic--or the pictures of its proposed interiors are, if it ever escapes the lawcourts to be built.
Thank you! I knew about Peter York's books "Dictator Homes" and "Dictator Style" (2005-2006 or so) but hadn't seen this 2017 Politico article by him: very interesting about Donald Trump's apparently changed apartment style.
Photos I've seen previously of Trump's huge apartment at the top of the Trump Tower showed a high-end Modernist style: pretty stark and uncompromising.
And quite a surprise, given the vulgarity of the Trump Tower's infamous gold plated escalator, in the ground floor entrance hall, in classic dictator style...
I always wondered if it was Donald or Ivana Trump who chose its gold finish.
And (during his first term?) shortly after an avalanche of media comments about the vulgarity of the Trump Tower gold escalator, Trump suddenly announced a donation to some historical society for the preservation of classical buildings--and flourished drawings for his next development, in faux-classical style!
So he'd obviously been stung by the accusations of "vulgarity"--but had also missed the point. It wasn't modernism that was being mocked, but the gold leaf...
And thin-skinned dictators are even more dangerous than thick-skinned ones, as Trump makes clear every time he lashes out at journalists, comedians or media outfits who dare to criticise him.
I knew that Israel was a nuclear power--financed and armed by the USA--but not that it had so many nuclear weapons. Nor that it had a plan to use them: pretty chilling.
Darth Vader had two modes: He could accept abject surrender and he could destroy. He could not negotiate. This is what made him a cartoon bad guy. The Trump administration has the same two modes. Unfortunately, they are not a cartoon...
Providing health insurance and food stamps to a child cost about $5000 per year. So one of these ships could be used to take care of 3 million US children for one year, or a million US children for the rest of Trumps second term. But putting your name on a program to help US children is apparently not macho enough.
Unfortunately, it sounds like Trump does have the power to keep it from opening, which I read with dismay. WHY does he have to "sign off on it"?
"The U.S. ambassador to Canada says Washington and Ottawa have yet to finalize the terms of an agreement, a stalemate that is currently prohibiting the opening of the Gordie Howe International Bridge.
Pete Hoekstra spoke with Republican House Speaker Matt Hall and Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer earlier this week to provide an update on the negotiations surrounding the 2.5-km cable-stayed bridge.
Despite previous demands from President Donald Trump that the U.S. should own half of the bridge, the Detroit News reported that Hoekstra insisted βthis will get worked out.β
βAt the end of the day, the president will have to sign off on it,β Hoekstra said. βThereβs a lot of issues right now between the U.S. and Canada. The bridge is one more.β
Pete Hoekstra was the long-time Congressman from the Grand Rapids area - a fairly typical Republican with little redeeming value who then made a fool of himself as ambassador to The Netherlands, but at least he is a Michigan guy through and through. I hope as a Michigander that he will help get this through.
But it's not hard to imagine that this beautiful, completed bridge will now just sit there indefinitely as a monument to Trump's ego.
The US port of entry should have been ready by now. Maybe there's no funds available to run it, or it'll expedite a flood of fentanyl, perhaps dissolved in maple syrup? Thanks for the update.
Considering that Trump attempted to nearly stop oil imports from Alberta, that's an astonishing accomplishment. I lived in Cody, Wyoming when Husky Oil was headquartered there. Alberta mattered.
Yes sir, your battleships, sir. Yes they are getting built sir, the "best" battleships sir. Says no one! When will this country, and in particular, the spineless Guardians of Pedophiles, realize that we are dealing with a petulant little child wrapped up in a fat, smelly, disassociated, old man who, from what I can see, it's really sure what's going on around him. Two more years of this and Putin will have seen his dream come true. OH and RELEASE THE EPSTEIN FILES before this old fart dies on us.
Well, we're investing in obsolete and totally inefficient forms of energy, so why not obsolete and totally inefficient weapons systems? Nothing says America like insisting on something the rest of the world has shown to be ineffective.
May the Fourth be with you too Paul.
But I might point out that George Lucasβ birthday is May 14 and the day that Star Wars was birthed to the world was May 21 (1977) so those are pretty good dates to remember too.
Enjoy your vacation sir! πππππππ
"So what has the Trump administration learned from its humiliation in the current war? Silly question. This administration doesnβt learn."
Thanks for my belly laugh of the day.
The only thing more satisfying will be watching Trump/Hegseth/Vance/Patel et al. in court someday, trying to explain their lies without perjuring themselves, as they are forced to learn that the Rule of Law does indeed apply to them.
Sad that it won't be the International Criminal Court--because the US isn't signed up. But that's where it ought to be.
I think the International Court should change the rules. It shouldn't be voluntary to be held accountable to war crimes, like genocide.
I agree
Trump and Kegsbreath thought Iran would be another piece of cake like Venezuela. To say they miscalculated would be a gross understatement.
New poll this morning Trump's disapproval rating is 62%, dissatisfaction with the economy 76%. Trump knows he will lose the House (+ the Senate is in play) if he doesn't steal the midterms. Our rogue Supreme Court just made it easier for him.
Our Constitution, a rogue SCOTUS and 77MM of the most ignorant Americans took the most morally flawed, broken-inside person this country has ever produced whose a brain is an amalgam of a mob boss and a lizard driven to grab whatever he desires without inhibition, and has handed him de facto dictatorial authority. So now he has total immunity from being charged with crime, has unlimited power to pardon operatives, and has the codes to a nuclear arsenal capable of destroying the world. On top of that, heβs a f*cking moron and for the cherry on top, he has developed mid stage dementia which is progressing.
What could go wrong?
Itβs a good analogy about Star Wars (1977) because Trump is definitely still stuck in the 1970s... It is like he never evolved past then. Everything he wants is based on a 50-years-ago worldview. Absolute recipe for failure in the current day on so many levels. Going backwards at high rates of stupidity!
Trump had mob ties back to when he was building in NYC. He was buying overpriced concrete from S&A Concrete co-owned by Genovese crime boss Anthony "Fat Tony" Salerno and Gambino boss Paul Castellano.
Remember "Where's my Roy Cohn?" After being Sen. Joseph McCarthy's counsel, he was known as Mouthpiece to the mob with a who's who of mob clients. He also taught Trump everything he knows like if somebody hits you, hit back 10x harder. These are the sleazy characters Trump respects.
Do you know author Monica Bauer? One of her FB columns calls him President Mob Boss. His whole gang is a maganazi-fascist mafioso criminal syndicate. We must keep finding nonviolent ways to stop all those arsonists before the many conflagrations they set to bait & hurt We the sane People, totally engulf us / the US.
Just watched "Nuremberg", which occasionally brought Trump and his MAGA sycophants to mind.
trump has said he will pardon everyone in his government
Let's hope he waits until the last minute and doesn't get those pardons issued before being overcome by his own health issues. He won't give them out in advance because he wants the control over his sycophants.
Trump will pardon them all on the way out the door, assuming he actually leaves.
Probably, but his pardons can be invalidated and then overturned.
The idea that Trump, any president, can pardon a mob of people for crimes that they haven't even been charged with is absurd. A pardon is for a conviction, not a get out of jeopardy card. In order for a pardon to be valid, it would have to be for a specific offense also.
Is that true ? Never heard of that before, but if itβs true, that would be great. Now if we can get the next Congress to override the ex post facto prohibition . .
It's absolutely true.
Oh, he's leaving! Dementia doesn't forget.
Amen.
And my b-day is the 7th. May is an awesome month. Oh, flowers are beginning to bloom. Too bad heβs hell bent of killing them.
Happy Early Birthday.πΉπΊπ·
πVery πHappy π₯³BπDay on 5.7π
No matter what
May Day! May Day!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MN_9VqfVQ9c
Dont forget Kent and Jackson state
Thank you for mentioning Jackson State - most people haven't heard about that, Welll huge numbers have never heard/read about Kent State either! "Idiocracy" is no longer a funny movie - it is now a documentary on the current state of the USA.
Idiocracy assumed that the government of idiots would still be making a best effort to improve things. In fact, the actual reality is that the situation is much worse than Idiocracy posited. The US would be way better off with President Camacho than with Cheeto Jesus.
Or President Harris. Or President Sheinbaum.
Or just picking someone at random from the license renewal line at the DMV.
Seriously? I don't think so. They could be his worshipers. That's why we need a decent woman. Your comparison isn't impressive here!
The chance of picking at random a narcissist psychopath, in thrall of Putin, with dementia, from the line at the DMV is fairly small.
And all because stupid people breed, excessively.
Thank you, Barbara. We can't let this tragedy get swept under the rug of time. Four dead in Ohio.
2 dead in Mississippi.
"On May 15, 1970, the police opened fire shortly after midnight on students (and passersby) in a May 14 protest of the U.S. invasion of Cambodia during the Vietnam War at Jackson State College in Mississippi. Twelve students were wounded and two (21-year-old law student Phillip Lafayette Gibbs and 17-year-old high school student James Earl Green) were killed."
https://www.zinnedproject.org/news/tdih/jackson-state-killings/
Thank you, JL West.
πͺπ‘π’
May their memory ever be as a blessing for love, peace, and justice.
I was a teenager when I read about it in Time magazine - just a small article. Nowhere near the attention that Kent State received, not that it's a contest.
Exactly. G-d corporate media whose owners & staff conveniently forget PoC..... When they are the tragic victims.
Plus Jackson State, which most of us don't know or forgot.π°
Foreshadowing of the present and perhaps the future.
π thank you Barbara. Youβve ignited my sense of hope. βConscienceβ and βintelligenceβ are alive and kicking. Regards from Scotland, Anthony.
Ps - a perfect musical coda for our times.
π’
Trumpkopf is (Tricky Dicky + St. Reagan + King Bush I + King Bush II) squared and on steroids.
Horribly, tragically, indeed.
NO MORE KINGS. Chuck gave an important speech to the Congress here, but, really..... Just NO.
Thank you from a sadly remembering Ohioan. I'll say it every year across every platform I can get to: the National Guard had bayonets on their rifles. Bayonets on unarmed and unruly citizens. Bayonets. Think of it.
π
Neil wasn't the only one writing protest songs that summer... there's a longer album ver of this (another verse plus 'Give peace a chance' chorus) but this live clip brings more emotion: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OC91CfnKLGg
And lest we forget the ballroom, and the attempt to face lift the entire country into the Trump image.
Might not be as deadly as battle ships, but morally corrosive to the core.
Like a dog urinating on a fire hydrant to mark its territory.
yep
Once more - "He who wishes to establish an absolute power, such as ancient writers called a tyranny, must change everything. β¦. He should destroy the old cities and build new ones. β¦. He should leave nothing unchanged, so that there should be neither rank, nor grade, nor honor, nor wealth, that should not be recognized as coming from him." β Machiavelli.
And then thereβs the triumphal arch built to celebrate the triumph of stupidity in America. He likes the word triumph because the letters of his name are embedded in it.
It's being built to interrupt the line of sight between the Lincoln memorial and Arlington cemetery.
He'll probably call it The TRiUMPal arch.
Oh, you mean the glitzy dancehall/throne-room built on top of the βhiddenβ (ππ) underground privileged bunker/military base?
I agree with everything what Paul Krugman says here but would like to raise the question: is the "administration" really the problem? Or is the real problem the system that created that theater performance/clown show calling itself the "Trump administration"?
And BTW: an administration strives to administer something with the ultimate goal to make things better or at least not worse. I do not think that this is a correct description of what the "Trump administration" is currently doing or has ever tried to do.
Trump Regime is the correct term.
Misadministration or maladministration are also workable, although regime is more accurate.
Badministration.
I rotate terms: kakistocracy, kleptocracy, Dunning-Kruger Administration, and so forth.
The real problem is clearly not the tRump regime/clown show. The first problem is an electorate that is some combination of ignorant/prejudiced/bigoted that elected an incompetent criminal authoritarian twice. They also gave us a cowardly GOP Congress that makes no effort to perform their sworn duty. If they fail to stop the mid term elections our only hope is massive voter turnout to overwhelm the inevitable claims of fraud, take control of Congress and began hearings to expose the fraud and self dealing of tRump, his minions and oligarch supporters.
Iβm not apologizing for MAGA, but to ignore the underlying causes of the stupidity of those voters is to ignore underlying problems in our country. MAGA voters have been propagandized for 40 or more years by Fox News and the right-wing media. MAGA has been brainwashed by the billionaire supported media to blame the problems of our country on liberals and immigrants. This is a political mechanism to deflect blame from the greedy elite that created most of our problems.
The Hearst news syndicate was temporarily effective at wagging the dog in earlier times, and Father Coughlin served as the Fox News of the 1930s. So the question is why voters back then were a little better at protecting the constitution than they are now, especially when most people back then were high school graduates at best.
All true. But what you is an indictment of Dems failure to effectively message. They also largely ignored the border crisis that people really care about.
Why is it that people cared about the border βcrisisβ? Fox, etc., told them it was a crisis. Republicans told them it was a crisis. Was it something people experienced for themselves?
People who live in the areas with the fewest immigrants became the most concerned by the surge of people coming to our southern border.
My motherβs birthplace, Viola, TN (pop. 500 ) experienced a wave of nannies, gardeners, and house cleaners coming each day and leaving each evening. βThere are Mexicans everywhere,β said one cousin when I visited in 2000. She wasnβt complaining, exactly. I have lost touch since her generation died.
Indeed. Fox and its clones are a huge problem.
A people that elect corrupt politicians, imposters, thieves and traitors are not victims... but accomplices George Orwell
I always wonder if the GOP Congress is really "cowardly" or they all signed on the Project 2025 behind the backs of their constituents because they actually believe in that document. Journalists haven't really dug into that possibility. Considering Trump has accomplished 53 percent of P2025, maybe we should consider that the GOP Congress is working not for its constituents but for a cause unrelated to the will of the people.
People are still talking about getting money out of campaign finance, when that money is completely overshadowed by the yearlong propagandizing by oligarch and corporate media. The parkergetajob TikTok/YouTube channel is a great place to hear people echoing Republican party talking points verbatim, as they has swallowed it whole.
In other words, with the help of MuεkRat, he rigged the election. Trumpkopf voters actually had little to do with it.
Is there any credible reason to believe Trump COULD rig the election?
You can begin here:
https://thiswillhold.substack.com/p/ex-cia-whistleblower-the-nsa-audited
https://thiswillhold.substack.com/p/second-whistleblower-receipts-attached
https://thiswillhold.substack.com/p/how-did-6-million-people-vote-in
https://thiswillhold.substack.com/p/the-election-whistleblowers-were
https://thiswillhold.substack.com/p/something-is-sour-in-tennessee-and
Then check this out:
https://electiontruthalliance.org/
There's a lot more out there, but ultimately, you can believe whatever you want.
βIn December 2024, I was personally involved in an NSAβauthorized forensic audit of the 2024 election. Kamala Harris and Tim Walz wonβby a wide margin. Trump lost dramatically. There are multiple layers of complexity to this coverβup, including transnational organized crime syndicates that extend far beyond the United States and our elections. To that point, I work in the human trafficking sector, which intersects with the stolen election(s) and has ties to Trump and Epsteinβnot to President Biden, Vice President Harris, or Governor Walz, but to the Democrats and other allied interests responsible for burying the audit.β β Adam Zarnowski, ex-CIA agent and author of JΓΆrmungandr
That's a quote from the first reference. It is usually quite a good assumption that a hypothesis based on a vast international network of conspirators and evil-doers is not a good hypothesis. That assumption was valid centuries ago with Jews and Rosicruians, Jesuits and Freemasons, later then with Communists and fifth columns of all colors, with child eating Democrats, Pizzagate, and QAnon, and so on. But ok, may be this time it's completely different ...
Will the problems the US have and for which Trump is not the cause but the symptom, be solved by replacing a Republican "Big Lie" with a Democratic one? I have my doubts ...
Thanks
Nope.
A lot of hand wavy fake math and misquotes.
"But the price of eggs!"
"... an administration ... with the ultimate goal to make things better..."--better for whom?
The Trump administration strives to make things better for ITSELF: power, money, glory, prestige--too bad about anyone else.
More specifically, Trump is focused on making things better for himself. Period.
and his kids and in-laws.
The real problem is the abysmal state of education in the USA.
The problem is the American voters, who democratically voted him into power not once, but twice, the second time after having clearly seen what a sorry excuse for a human being he is. The Americans have got the administration that they want and deserve. This kind of thing is true of most countries.
Itβs not either/or. Itβs both and then some. America has a lot of problems that led us to this particular point.
The main goal of the Trump administration seems to be obliteration. Trump's mind and body are failing, and he seems determined to take the US down with him.
It seems to be a fact that man, tortured by his demons, avenges himself blindly on his fellow-man. Franz Kafka, Letters to Milena
And the media continues to make us believe falsehoods such as the scroll on tv that Trump was working to end the Iran war. The man doesn't work.
The media can't make me believe anything. The truth is the truth, no matter what Faux Newspeak and SeeBS have to say.
Trump works quite assiduously to make money and inflate his ego. Occasionally it even works.
The media tries to make us believe the lies - but the only people who believe them are morons and, apparently, folks who invest a lot in the stock market.
But the death star wasnt covered in cheap pseudo gold foil like the battleships will be.
May the force be with you
π
In fact, The Force is against us. We are The Empire now.
Thatβs right. As Paul suggested, Ukraine controls the Black Sea despite having no navy. And in Hegseth shoukdnt be surprised that Iran fights and kills with drones because they were supplying Russia with them.
Hegseth should also be aware that Eric Trumpβs company has secured a $24 million government contract to supply him with drones. (Where is Trumpβs incentive to end this war when he and his family can continue to drain our coffers and enrich themselves?)
The GOP isnβt a political party. Itβs a crime syndicate. Another musical coda to use, if you havenβt already, is The Callβs When the Walls Came Down. Pertinent lyrics include βI donβt think there are any Russians, and there ainβt no Yanks, just corporate criminals playing with tanks.β
What does Wric Trump know about dronesβor for that matter war? Iβm thinking heβll cash the $24M, build a few worthless drones, pocket the balance. But that contract doesnβt require a war with Iran.
Why does Eric Trump have to know anything about the product his company builds?
Any of the Trumps knows a drone - every time he looks in a mirror.
We could have gotten Ukraine drones and technology β theyβre the experts now and offered to help. But the war presented another opportunity for Trump grift. And, youβre right, Eric is no expert β just an opportunist.
he and his brother did the same thing with personal protective equipment during the Covid days - bought or founded a company to produce the stuff and made a ton of money. Whether they ever made any PPE that worked ... who knows?
I had forgotten that. ππ»
"Whether they ever made any PPE that worked ... who knows?" Let's go with "highly doubtful."
Actually, it was Jared Kushner. 'Project Airbridge' it was called. Seems like eons ago but, if you'll remember, he was put in charge of almost everything. He called up his political connections and spent a ton of dough with no real result. Just like now with Iran. And, he gets his marching orders from Bibi.
trump and putin have regular calls of an hour plus and after the last one trump wants to withdraw 5K troops from Germany, coincidence? I think not!
I agree with you, Jim! I think we can conclude that Putin is directing Trump to cripple our country in multiple ways. Putin must be ecstatic at the results considering he hasnβt spent a dime to destroy us.
and he is selling his oil again
I wish I saw more discussion about this. A timeline of meetings and calls with Putin coupled with Trumpβs subsequent actions, would go a long way to explain whatβs going on. I havenβt seen this anywhere but Iβm hoping itβs in the worksβ¦
Definitely not!
249 years ago our scrappy founders had no navy, no air force, and no missiles. Dressed in rags, they had lost battle after battle against the world's greatest military force.
And yet, George Washington and his tiny rebellious army defeated the British Empire.
This is Exhibit 632D on how stupid Trump is when he talks about his catastrophic war against Iran and, well almost anything else, other than avenues for his personal accumulation of wealth and power.
Battleships, intercontinental ballistic missiles, and gigantic tanks are not the measures of success in asymmetric warfare. We in the United States in the middle of our anniversary year should be the first to recognize this.
It's Trump's version of Dictator Chic--the giant palaces smothered in fake gold leaf must be matched by suitable quantities of huge battleships and ICBMs and tanks for victory parades in the streets: because it's all for show. Trump's military parade must be bigger & more threatening to the world than Xi's or Putin's.
And besides, Trump might actually want to use the ICBMs (a new generation with warheads fuelled by Iran's enriched uranium) if his boasting about them isn't enough to deter threats.
MAD deterrence might still be the logic--but Trump would dearly love to orchestrate some real mushroom clouds.
What's the point of having nuclear weapons if you don't use them? Trump has already said this.
Trump does Dictator Chic too!
Yes, Trump's 10,000 sq ft gold flake encrusted White House Ballroom is a prime example of Dictator Chic--or the pictures of its proposed interiors are, if it ever escapes the lawcourts to be built.
Saddam Hussein went in for DC in a big way too.
https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2017/03/trump-style-dictator-autocrats-design-214877/
Thank you! I knew about Peter York's books "Dictator Homes" and "Dictator Style" (2005-2006 or so) but hadn't seen this 2017 Politico article by him: very interesting about Donald Trump's apparently changed apartment style.
Photos I've seen previously of Trump's huge apartment at the top of the Trump Tower showed a high-end Modernist style: pretty stark and uncompromising.
And quite a surprise, given the vulgarity of the Trump Tower's infamous gold plated escalator, in the ground floor entrance hall, in classic dictator style...
I always wondered if it was Donald or Ivana Trump who chose its gold finish.
And (during his first term?) shortly after an avalanche of media comments about the vulgarity of the Trump Tower gold escalator, Trump suddenly announced a donation to some historical society for the preservation of classical buildings--and flourished drawings for his next development, in faux-classical style!
So he'd obviously been stung by the accusations of "vulgarity"--but had also missed the point. It wasn't modernism that was being mocked, but the gold leaf...
And thin-skinned dictators are even more dangerous than thick-skinned ones, as Trump makes clear every time he lashes out at journalists, comedians or media outfits who dare to criticise him.
Good points!
recall israel has 90-400 and a plan to use them - the Samson Option
I knew that Israel was a nuclear power--financed and armed by the USA--but not that it had so many nuclear weapons. Nor that it had a plan to use them: pretty chilling.
That must make Trump really envious.
we did take out British airports during the Revolutionary war according to the noted historian - trump
Trump said of the 1775 Continental Army: "Our army manned the air, it rammed the ramparts, it took over the airports".
Who could forget?
I guess the R handwringing over government spending won't begin anew until Donald J. Trump leaves the White House?
Such handwringing is always - always - reserved for when a Democrat is in the White House. No exceptions to this.
and they will all say they never supported him
Ship of Fools
Many thanks!!
China and Russia must be savoring the maxim (attributed to Napoleon: "Never interfere with your enemy when he is making a mistake."
Napoleon: "Never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake."
Czar Alexander the First: "Thanks for the tip!"
Darth Vader had two modes: He could accept abject surrender and he could destroy. He could not negotiate. This is what made him a cartoon bad guy. The Trump administration has the same two modes. Unfortunately, they are not a cartoon...
Harkonnen at least was a cunning schemer who knew what he was doing.
Providing health insurance and food stamps to a child cost about $5000 per year. So one of these ships could be used to take care of 3 million US children for one year, or a million US children for the rest of Trumps second term. But putting your name on a program to help US children is apparently not macho enough.
Yes, I am sure many others of us have considered the better ways that money could be spent. It is so frustrating.
Thank you Professor Paul from CANADA
The Gordie Howe International Bridge might perhaps actually open, though I wonder whether it might be one-way going into Canada.
Unfortunately, it sounds like Trump does have the power to keep it from opening, which I read with dismay. WHY does he have to "sign off on it"?
"The U.S. ambassador to Canada says Washington and Ottawa have yet to finalize the terms of an agreement, a stalemate that is currently prohibiting the opening of the Gordie Howe International Bridge.
Pete Hoekstra spoke with Republican House Speaker Matt Hall and Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer earlier this week to provide an update on the negotiations surrounding the 2.5-km cable-stayed bridge.
Despite previous demands from President Donald Trump that the U.S. should own half of the bridge, the Detroit News reported that Hoekstra insisted βthis will get worked out.β
βAt the end of the day, the president will have to sign off on it,β Hoekstra said. βThereβs a lot of issues right now between the U.S. and Canada. The bridge is one more.β
https://globalnews.ca/news/11827049/gordie-howe-bridge-deal-not-reached-talks-promising/
Pete Hoekstra was the long-time Congressman from the Grand Rapids area - a fairly typical Republican with little redeeming value who then made a fool of himself as ambassador to The Netherlands, but at least he is a Michigan guy through and through. I hope as a Michigander that he will help get this through.
But it's not hard to imagine that this beautiful, completed bridge will now just sit there indefinitely as a monument to Trump's ego.
The US port of entry should have been ready by now. Maybe there's no funds available to run it, or it'll expedite a flood of fentanyl, perhaps dissolved in maple syrup? Thanks for the update.
Here's the obstructionist, corrupt story:
https://windsorstar.com/news/local-news/ambassador-bridge-owners-made-1-million-donation-to-maga-fund-shortly-before-trump-threatened-canada
This deserves more attention, but of course, for Trump, it's just another day ending in Y.
As to what happens next, who has leverage? That's how Trump will look at it. He'll think it's him, but I'm not so sure. We buy oil from Canada.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/kenroberts/2026/04/22/canada-responsible-for-a-record-61-of-us-oil-imports-in-2025/
Considering that Trump attempted to nearly stop oil imports from Alberta, that's an astonishing accomplishment. I lived in Cody, Wyoming when Husky Oil was headquartered there. Alberta mattered.
It still does.
https://www.npr.org/2026/04/30/g-s1-119648/trump-canada-us-oil-bridger-pipeline-expansion
Yes sir, your battleships, sir. Yes they are getting built sir, the "best" battleships sir. Says no one! When will this country, and in particular, the spineless Guardians of Pedophiles, realize that we are dealing with a petulant little child wrapped up in a fat, smelly, disassociated, old man who, from what I can see, it's really sure what's going on around him. Two more years of this and Putin will have seen his dream come true. OH and RELEASE THE EPSTEIN FILES before this old fart dies on us.
Well, we're investing in obsolete and totally inefficient forms of energy, so why not obsolete and totally inefficient weapons systems? Nothing says America like insisting on something the rest of the world has shown to be ineffective.