Are You an Alien Enemy?
Posted: March 24, 2025 Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: Alien Enemies Act, Civics, Constitution, Fifth Amendment, Fourteenth Amendment, Immigration, Immigration Customs Enforcement (ICE), Supreme Court, Tren de Aragua, Trump, United States Constitution Leave a commentWithin political circles, in the news and among the talking heads on the television, there are ongoing discussions as to whether the actions of the 47th president will lead to a Constitutional crisis. Are we there yet or not? I believe that we are already there.
In our daily lives it is easy to lose track of all the chaotic actions taken by the president and his DOGE-bros to disrupt and destroy the federal government under the lie that they are eliminating waste, fraud and abuse. Possibly, you have yet to personally feel anything different or to have experienced any changes to your daily life. Therefore, you may ask, why do I really care about any of it? You may even believe that you are apolitical or “tired” of all the discussions and drama and divisiveness so you just tune it out. Good luck. While you were not paying attention, you lost many of the rights we thought were guaranteed to us by our Constitution.
Too dramatic? Let’s take a closer look.
On 14 March 2025 Trump signed an Executive Order claiming to have the right under the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 (as amended in 1918) to declare that a group of undocumented immigrants from Venezuela are conducting “irregular warfare” against the United States and that they therefore fall under the provisions of the Act because they are perpetrating an “invasion” or “predatory incursion” into the U.S. Specifically, he claims that a Venezuelan based gang known as Tren de Aragua (or TdA) is acting in concert with the government of Venezuela to destabilize the U.S. by using drug trafficking as a “weapon” to attack U.S. citizens.
For context, the provisions of that 18th century law (USC 50 Sections 21-24) have been invoked three times. It was used during the War of 1812, World War I and, perhaps best well-known, for the shameful internment of Japanese-Americans during World War II. The law is generally considered to be relevant only in the context of a “declared war” which was used literally in the era in which it was written. The Trump Administration is trying to declare that the other language in the Act applies, specifically that illegal immigrants constitute an “invasion” or “predatory incursion” — although those terms are also used literally to mean large scale armed attacks by foreign forces as in a war or a step towards war. Throughout our history, the Act was understood to be a war time power only, not a hedge to get around the use of regular immigration law. Under the Constitution, only Congress can declare war. However, to provide for emergency responses, a president can declare that an invasion or predatory incursion is underway.
In the public relations realm, the Trump Administration has a powerful story to tell. Let’s face it, no one defends TdA as a bunch of nice fellows. They are murderous drug dealers that have no mercy for anyone from outside of their gang. In a word, they are scum. This provides a means to attack those that criticize Trump’s actions as being outside the law and they continue to attack anyone, including federal judges, that would disallow their use of the Alien Enemies Act to arrest and deport them.
But that is not the issue. And they know it. No one in the U.S. thinks that TdA is a positive force in our lives. Anyone you ask would say that they should be arrested, tried, punished and deported. The courts and the critics of the Administration are not arguing about the nature of TdA. They are arguing that there are already effective laws that deal with criminals like this gang that can be used under the Constitution rather than ignoring the protections we all should have as basic rights. (Curiously, Trump declared last week that he never signed the Executive Order, which itself creates a whole new set of questions.)
What happened on the weekend of 15 March is that the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers made 238 Venezuelans and 23 Salvadorans “disappear” into one of the world’s most cruel and dangerous prisons in El Salvador under the alleged provisions of the Alien Enemies Act. To date, our government refuses to release the names of those captured. However, the Hollywood style videos of the deportations and incarcerations have given friends and families of those abducted a chance to identify their loved ones that disappeared without a trace. Most have no criminal record. Some appeared for their regularly scheduled check-in appointments as they awaited an asylum hearing and were arrested and thrown into the Salvadoran jail. Note that the Venezuelans were not deported to their home country but to a jail in El Salvador. Oh, yeah. I forgot to add that the Trump Administration is paying the president of that country 6 million dollars to keep them.
The Constitution protects all people living in the U.S. regardless of their immigration status. Everyone has the right to due process under the law if accused of a crime. Everyone within the U.S. is eligible for a fair and impartial hearing by the government under the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments before their life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness is taken away from them. The Sixth Amendment provides for legal counsel for anyone accused of a crime. Given the nature of the arrests, it is worth noting that the Fourth Amendment protects all of us against unlawful entry and searches without a warrant or probable cause.
Here is where it gets interesting for you and me and why I think it is important for all of us to pay attention. The Trump Administration attorneys in the Department of Justice argue that under the Alien Enemies Act, the Fourth Amendment does not apply. In other words, if you are in the next group of people that Trump unilaterally declares are enemies of the state, the federal government can break down your door and come charging in without probable cause or a search warrant.
Additionally, in a sworn declaration during a court hearing on the use of the Act, ICE Acting Field Office Director of Enforcement and Removal Operations Robert Cerna argued that “the lack of specific information about each individual actually highlights the risk they pose” and “demonstrates that they are terrorists with regard to whom we lack a complete profile.” He added that “while it is true that many of the TdA members removed under the AEA [Alien Enemies Act] do not have criminal records in the United States, that is because they have only been in the United States for a short period of time. The lack of a criminal record does not indicate they pose a limited threat.”
Many of those arrested and accused of being members of the gang were targeted solely because they had tattoos. One of those individuals, a professional soccer player in Venezuela who had been tortured by the government regime and received permission to enter the U.S. awaiting an asylum hearing had a tattoo. Of his favorite soccer club. Real Madrid.
So, for those keeping score at home, the Trump Administration claims that they can enter your home for any reason without a court order and arrest you, even if you have no criminal record. Because, according to Mr. Cerna, you are even more dangerous because you don’t have a criminal record. And don’t have any strange looking tattoos in Spanish.
We are living in Bizzaro World.
The issue is now in the courts. As expected, Trump and his henchmen and women in the Administration are crying loud and strong that a single federal judge cannot thwart the will of the great and powerful king in the White House. Apparently, they slept through their civics class that discussed the three equal branches of the government under the Constitution. If they do not like what the district court judge did, then appeal it. Instead they are calling for his impeachment. (Which will go nowhere but will provide for a fund raising advertisement for the MAGA crowd.) Eventually, this issue should wend its way to the Supreme Court. In my mind, this is a no brainer in favor of the Constitution as we have understood it for nearly 250 years. However, nothing is “for sure” anymore. After all, the current Supreme Court is the same one that said the president is immune from prosecution for any act taken within his official duties. Maybe they say that the president can use the Alien Enemies Act in whatever way he wants.
Additionally, the Supreme Court is sometimes reluctant to rule on Constitutional issues when it comes to specific duties assigned to other branches of the government. In this case, Congress declares war under the Constitution and the president carries out the duties of Commander-in-Chief.
This will be a real test of our checks and balances of the three equal branches of government which is already under tremendous stress as the Trump administration continues the quest to turn Trump into the autocrat he so craves to be. He has already subdued the Congress that seems now to exist only to rubber stamp whatever Trump wants. MAGA Republicans bend the knee whenever required and the Democrats in Congress seem leaderless and impotent.
The attack on the judiciary is a direct frontal assault. Trump already silenced several major law firms that stood up to him in the past. They caved. Several news organizations caved to Trump’s extortion threats. So far the judicial branch is holding. I am not sure how long they can continue to hold out, especially as they come under increased threats to their well-being as well as threats to their families.
Please pay attention. We are in a Constitutional crisis. Trump and his supporters are about to decide to ignore or defy a judicial order, putting our cherished democratic republic in danger. It can happen here. It is happening here.
We Don’t Need Another Hero
Posted: March 19, 2025 Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: Arlington National Cemetery, Department of Defense, Diversity Inclusion and Equity, history, Military, Navajo Code Talkers, Purge, U.S. Military, United States Leave a comment(With apologies to Tina Turner and the theme from Thunderdome.)
We have many, many worries that concern many of us right now about the direction our country is headed and for some of us, the direction our own lives may be heading. So, in case you missed it in all the smoke and flames surrounding our current presidential administration, let’s pause and take a moment to consider this.
According to the Washington Post and other news sources, the Department of Defense (DOD) has purged all references to prominent Black, Hispanic, female and other minority service members as well as any references to the Civil War from its website for the Arlington National Cemetery and most any other military website because they are considered to be DEI (Diversity, Equity, Inclusion) entries. In his zeal to please the president, the Secretary of Defense (SECDEF) has decreed that all DOD websites shall be examined and any references to minorities, women, LBGTQ or any other individual who is not white, heterosexual and male shall be deleted.
This includes World War II aviators with the Tuskegee Airmen, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs and Secretary of State Colin Powell, Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg (buried next to her husband who was a veteran) and Medal of Honor winners. The indication is that throughout DOD, thousands of pages of historical records have been removed from public access. The Arlington Cemetery Website was a useful tool for students and others that were trying to research our American history and to study those that played a prominent role in it. But, not anymore.
But wait! There’s more!
The DOD also directed the removal of a link to PFC Ira Hayes, immortalized in the iconic photo and national monument depicting the raising of the American flag on Mount Suribachi on Iwo Jima during World War II. He was one of the six Marines involved. His crime? He is a Native American as a member of the Pima nation. It gets better. During World War II the Navajo code talkers were instrumental to the U.S. success in the Pacific Theater of war. The Japanese never broke the code (their native language) and critical information was securely passed from unit to unit leading to tactical and operational success. Where are the stories celebrating their contribution to our history? Gone. Deleted. I might point out that PFC Hayes, the Navajo code talkers, and many of those whose stories are now gone had never heard of the term DEI. They were not inducted into the military to meet some quota. They volunteered as Americans and their unique talents — such as the code talkers — were a bi-product of their involvement in fighting for American values. It was integral to the task at hand — not some contrived theater of the absurd to demonstrate Native American inclusion.
There are an estimated 26,000 pictures and articles (some reports indicate that it may end being as much as 100,000) that have been deleted from DOD websites, including the ludicrous removal of references to the Enola Gay, the B-29 bomber that dropped the bomb on Hiroshima on 6 August 1945. We cannot have any reference to “gay” of course. Enola Gay was the name of the pilot’s mother. Reason and sanity do not prevail when one is rooting out evil influences within our military.
And it gets better still.
Should one search for the links to these Americans on DOD websites you will be disappointed but also find that they indicate they have been deleted because they are “DEI” related.
Many members of the public have protested the removal of specific entries. Some have just been restored — but extremely few compared to the tens of thousands that have been deleted.
So, let me get this clear in my head. There is no reason to celebrate Black History month or Women’s History month or any other similar event because we are all Americans and it is only American History. And yet, we eliminate references to many brave Americans. This administration is working as hard as it can, literally night and day, to re-write history as they wish it to be. The truth be damned.
Sadly, I guess Tina Turner is correct in her song. We don’t need heroes. Unless of course they are straight white men.
“So, what do we do with our lives
We leave only a mark
Will our story shine like a light or end in the dark?
Give it all or nothing”
Some lyrics from the song “We Don’t Need Another Hero”
This Is Not Normal
Posted: March 13, 2025 Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: Congress, DOGE, Donald Trump, Elon Musk, MAGA Republicans, Oligarchs, Politics, Project 2025, Reductions in Force *RIF), United States Constitution, Vladimir Putin Leave a commentOkay. Time to face up to the facts. We, the citizens of the United States of America are getting screwed. Erstwhile apologists for the 47th president contend that it is “normal” for a new president to bring in his own political appointees to carry out the policies of the new administration. This is true. But let’s not pretend that what is going on in the Trump administration is anywhere close to normal. Besides the fact that many of his cabinet and other Senate approved nominees are unqualified for their jobs, the person making the biggest impact on our government and, indeed, our cherished way of life, is an unelected, unconfirmed South African billionaire that has no idea of how the U.S. government works and has no intention of finding out. Elon Musk and his co-president Trump just do not care about any of it. Under the Trojan horse of eliminating waste, fraud and abuse, they are destroying our federal government resulting in life changing decisions for tens of thousands of Americans and facilitating the possible deaths of tens of thousands more through their drastic cuts to research, science and health programs and the elimination of funding for the basic necessities of life. The secondary and tertiary effects of these decisions include the impact on farmers that had their contracts to supply food programs cut, to the truck drivers and stevedores responsible for getting the supplies to those in need and on and on. The key question is why are they doing this? I’ll get to that below.
With sincere compassion, yesterday Trump opined that he feels “very badly” about those that are losing their jobs, literally overnight, but “many of them don’t work at all. Many of them never showed up to work.” So I guess the lie that the roughly 32,000 federal employees fired (so far) are losers is supposed to make it all okay.
It is hard to define exactly how much alleged waste fraud and abuse has been rescued from government spending so far. Some lies are easy to unravel, others do not make sense but since the data is limited, it is hard to know exactly what is going on. Musk and his DOGE-bros say that they will cut one trillion dollars from the federal budget by the end of the year. The entire federal work force costs about 293 billion dollars or about 4% of the total budget. That includes salaries and benefits. So far DOGE claims to have cut 115 billion dollars. Most experts that are tracking the cuts conclude that is an overestimate by about 80%. For example, they are counting contracts that were already complete or terminated, sometimes as long ago as during the Bush administration, and in one case, they claimed 8 billion dollars in savings until the contractor pointed out that it was really for 8 million. (I’m reminded of Dr, Evil in the Austin Powers movies and the bit about one million vs one billion dollars in ransom. Only this isn’t funny.)
According to the New York Times tracker, so far at least 10,030 people have been fired in agencies scheduled for dismantling, 21,433 probationary employees were let go, along with 428 DEI workers, 33 January 6 coup investigators, 22 government watchdogs (mostly Inspectors General), and 434 other staffers from across the government that came into the crosshairs of Trumpian disdain. Reports claim that the administration wants to eliminate 100,000 employees in the near future. In other words, the chaos we have endured so far is just the beginning.
Maybe the 18 million dollars of taxpayer money Trump spent in his first seven weeks in office to play golf at his own course could have gone to keeping a few park rangers on the job. I do not begrudge presidents having some down time, but really? President Obama often played golf — at the course on Joint Base Andrews just outside of Washington D.C.
All of this is illegal, of course. Not to mention unethical and a direct conflict of interest given Musk’s 38 billion dollars in government contracts (since 2003) and the fact that much of what they are doing is shrouded in secrecy. Under Article I of the Constitution Congress writes the laws that govern our country, including budget authorizations and appropriations. Under Article II, the president executes the duly enacted laws. Mandates from the electorate or not (and in this case not, Trump got less than 50% of the vote not-with-standing his claims), no president can ignore the law and act as his Project 2025 acolytes decree within a “unitary presidency.” To emphasize that point following the attempts by President Richard Nixon to with hold funds for policies with which he disagreed, Congress passed The Impoundment Control Act of 1974 that reiterates Congressional control of government funds. The Act was reinforced in Train v City of New York (1975), a unanimous Supreme Court decision. Indeed, Trump’s first impeachment was based on his impoundment of funds appropriated and authorized to help in the defense of Ukraine.
Today’s Congress, controlled by MAGA Republicans, refuses to exert its authority and instead is letting an unelected billionaire run amok, cutting on a whim whatever he deems “unnecessary,” for fear of the wrath of Trump. They are derelict in their duties and apparently don’t care. In recent meetings between the MAGA Congress and Musk, he told them to call him if they have any questions about what he is doing. He was even so gracious as to give them his phone number. Which, of course, is totally backwards. They should not be asking him to spare their constituents as a favor, they should be delineating what is and what is not acceptable in accordance with already appropriated spending. Congress has conceded their power and responsibilities to one unelected man. The Speaker of the House, second in line to the presidency behind the Vice President wakes up every morning worried that he did not properly respond to something Musk wants. I exaggerate not. This week he is quoted as saying that Musk has the power to “blow the whole thing up” if he doesn’t like or understand a particular action by Congress. As Speaker Johnson explained, “So I spend a lot of time working with all these dials and all these folks, and I just run around all day and make sure everybody’s happy.”
Why are Musk and Trump doing this?
It is hard to know for sure as to what is going on in the scrambled minds of the co-presidents. Their Project 2025 acolytes believe in what they are doing, They are trying to remake the government in their own ideological image of a white Christian nation. I do not think that Trump and Musk care much about that. Their motivation? To me, money.
There are billions and billions of dollars to be had if one has the inside track on government contracts. If the cuts to the Social Security Administration, Department of Veterans Affairs and other agencies and departments make already difficult situations worse, then so much the better. The more dissatisfied the public becomes with these agencies and the more that they are unable to provide the required services, the more the public will clamor for change. And what change would that be, you may ask? Not to make the departments more efficient or productive by upgrading computer systems or hiring more federal workers or even more, supposedly, efficient workers. The answer is to privatize them. Turn them over to the billionaires to run. Turn them into for profit companies that provide the services previously paid for by taxes and instead charge a fee for the service.
Another example is in the dissolution of the Department of Education. Trump and others in his administration continue to extoll the virtues of vouchers for schools. Vouchers mean private schools. Private schools can be for profit schools. There is also the added benefit of being able to decide who does or does not get to go to a particular private school — limited enrollment, you know, to enhance the student-teacher ratio. They can also set their own curriculum, ideological leaning and rules. Taxpayer dollars getting diverted from public schools to private ones, thus over time destroying the public school system? Maybe, But, let the free market reign!
The General Services Administration wants to sell over four hundred properties around the country owned by the federal government, including such buildings as the Justice Department Headquarters, the Social Security Administration Headquarters, and others. Does anyone really think that we do not need centralized offices for administering the government? Of course not. It is a potential scheme. Flood the market with too much real estate, prices drop, billionaires buy up those properties at reduced prices, and then turn around and rent them back to the government at a profit.
All the talk about taking over Greenland, Canada, Ukraine and other seemingly non-sensical ravings? Rare earth minerals and other resources abound. More money! Not for the ordinary Joes, but rather for those billionaires that deserve to reap the benefits because, after all, they are the “Master’s of the Universe” (see the film Bonfires of the Vanities, although in the end it did not work out so well).
Their blueprint may well be the way that the oligarchs took over Russia after the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991. When the centralized economy crashed, there were willing businessmen that saw an opportunity and took it. Buying up formerly state-controlled industries at dirt cheap prices, they parlayed their gains in an “anything goes” atmosphere during the turmoil following the collapse of the Soviet state. During Boris Yeltsin’s time as the country’s president, in order to keep the government afloat, he turned to the now billionaires profiting from their monopolies. In the course of events, they accumulated massive political power along with their wealth. When Vladimir Putin came to office as Yeltsin’s hand picked successor, he made examples of three of these budding oligarchs, either throwing them in jail or forcing them to leave the country. As a result, the remaining oligarchs got the message. In exchange for their continued wealth, they agreed to support Putin, stay out of politics, and share their wealth with him. If you helped Putin, you became rich. If you opposed him, you were exiled, killed or both.
While the United States is not Russia, this same outline could be the game plan for Trump and his billionaire friends. He helps them get rich as long as they keep him in power and make sure that he gets rich alongside of them. We already see that the Department of Justice is dropping cases against criminals that support Trump while going after businesses and high profile individuals that oppose him. Two months into his term, Trump has already made it quite clear that those that support him will benefit and those that oppose him will suffer. With billions, maybe trillions of dollars afloat throughout the government, privatizing agencies that control that money is a huge opportunity for those that play along.
Am I predicting this? No. Can I see that it is possible? Yes. I take solace in the fact that we are not Russia. The United States has a long tradition that no other country in the world has. I have faith that eventually people will catch on to what is happening and work to stop it. Already there are a multitude of challenges to the Trump/Musk administration in the courts. So far, the challengers are winning and Trump is losing. Unfortunately, the wheels of justice turn slowly. While I think that they have a righteous cause that will eventually prevail, in the meantime countless numbers of our citizens will suffer and some will die because they are unable to access the help that they deserve and that our government promised to give them.
Continue to let your elected officials know that you did not sign up for this. We need to keep shouting our dissatisfaction. The self-anointed Masters of the Universe will not prevail.
The Kremlin Rules!
Posted: March 1, 2025 Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: Diplomacy, Donald Trump, International Relations, Louis XIV, MAGA, Project 2025, putin, Russia, Trump, Ukraine, Ukrainne, United States Constitution, Vladimir Putin Leave a commentYesterday, 28 February 2025, was a day where you, me, historians, diplomats, and anyone else that cares about the role of the United States in international diplomacy will talk about as “before 28 February and after 28 February.” We now know that the convicted felon in the White House who tried to stage a coup to keep himself in power is totally, 100 percent behind Russia’s Vladimir Putin and against our long standing allies around the world. Trump’s and Vance’s ignorant display in the Oval Office yesterday reflected the essence of this administration — embarrassing, repugnant, vengeful, hypocritical, and extremely dangerous.
Trump invited President Zelenskyy of Ukraine to the White House yesterday. Ostensibly, the reason for the meeting was to discuss the possibility of Ukraine giving the U.S. access to the rare earth minerals believed to be in Ukrainian territory. (No one is exactly sure what or where those valuable minerals actually are as there are almost no mines actively recovering them and the existence of such minerals is based on a decades old map done by surveyors from the Soviet Union.) Instead, President Zelenskyy walked into an apparent ambush by Trump and his MAGA henchman J.D. Vance where they berated and harassed Mr. Zelenskyy while spreading lies and disinformation about the actual situation in Ukraine. (If you have not yet seen it, watch it here. The body language is as important as what is actually said. Or read about it here.) Note that J.D. Vance started the harangue. J.D. is usually not allowed to attend such meetings between Trump and foreign dignitaries (Trump doesn’t want to share the spotlight), which further indicates that he was part of some plan along with Trump to stick it to the Ukrainian. To his credit, Mr. Zelenskyy did not take the bait, stayed calm, and did not yell back at Trump. He did, however, resolutely stick to his position and to try and explain the dire situation that he and his nation are in because of Russian aggression. What really seemed to enrage Trump was when Mr. Zelenskyy tried to explain that no deal with Russia was worth anything without concrete security guarantees. Further, he warned Trump that if he made an unsecured deal with Putin, eventually the U.S. would be in danger. Trump tripped off the line and starting ranting about Hunter Biden, the Russia “hoax” that Putin suffered through, and countless other grievances that had nothing to do with the alleged negotiations at hand. In the end, Trump sounded exactly like a mafia Don threatening retribution on a business that refused to give him a cut. The point was to bully Mr. Zelenskyy in a dual attack in order to get him to concede to a deal to stop the war that would be exclusively favorable to Russia. Mr. Zelenskyy refused. The meeting ended with Trump ordering the press out of the office and saying, “This is going to be great television.”
What does this attack on Mr. Zelenskyy mean? Why would Trump take Russia’s side in the dispute since they are the clear aggressor and the war could end in one day by withdrawing the Russian and North Korean troops? Let’s take a look.
There is a difference between what things are and what things mean. This was a crude and very undiplomatic shouting match aimed at bullying one of our allies in front of the cameras. What it means is that the U.S. is no longer a reliable partner to our NATO allies and our friends around the world. It means that Trump supports the dictator Putin over the leader of a democracy suffering at the hands of an unprovoked aggressor. It means that Trump and Putin will probably work out some kind of “peace” deal without Ukraine having a say. It means that Russia will be encouraged to continue its quest to reestablish the Russian empire. It means that the U.S. is meaningfully less secure.
This is the biggest diplomatic change since the arrival of the United States on the world stage at the start of the Twentieth Century. We are now aligned with Russia who is aligned with China, Iran and North Korea. Countless leaders throughout the free world from Belgium to New Zealand lined up in support of Mr. Zelenskyy and his stance to defend Ukraine.
Where was Secretary of State Marco Rubio, known as an avid anti-Russian hawk? Slumped in a chair next to Vance looking very much like he wished he could disappear. Where was National Security Adviser Mike Waltz who as a Congressman was another anti-Russia, pro-Ukraine supporter? Missing in action. After the dust settled many, many of the MAGA crowd (there are no longer members of the Republican Party in Congress) chose to blame the melt down on Mr. Zelenskyy. They focused on the fact that he did not a wear a suit and tie (he goes everywhere in modified military gear to remind everyone his country is at war) and therefore he was disrespectful and argumentative. (Musk wore a ball cap and t-shirt to a Cabinet meeting in the White House earlier this week, but apparently he can do whatever he wants to do.)
Mr. Rubio and Mr. Waltz should resign. It is clear that they have no influence over Trump or American policy. But of course, they will not. They have been totally coopted. American foreign policy is no longer based on American values and strength. It is now based on the ignorant whims of one man who thinks he is a world player. Instead, he is getting played.
Why is Trump trying to destroy our role in the world by aligning with Putin? I have given this a lot of thought. Trump’s apologists come up with a myriad of reasons as to why he disparages our closest allies and cheers our enemies. He is a businessman. He knows the art of the deal. He is trying to get the EU to step up. It is part of “America First.” Blah, blah blah.
Of course, I am not on the inside so I do not know what takes place behind closed doors but here is what I think. There are only two conceivable scenarios at this point as to why Trump is turning our country over to Putin. The first is that he is actually an agent for Putin. He is trying to destroy our country from within (via Musk and his DOGE bros running amok) and without (throwing our allies under the bus). The Russians cannot believe their great fortune in his returning to the presidency. They are getting a great return on their investment. Can I prove this? Of course not. But there have been rumors since the 1980s that Trump was compromised and groomed to at least be sympathetic to Russia. Given his intellectual and psychological vulnerabilities, and his weakness for flattery, this is not too far fetched. Several uncorroborated reports have had at least four separate former KGB agents at different times reveal that there was a KGB operation, run by the then Czechoslovakian intelligence service, to groom him as a Russian supporter. It is known that many of his real estate deals were with Russian oligarchs buying properties at inflated prices. His first campaign manager Paul Manafort had known ties to Russian oligarchs and intelligence agents. All that said, this to me is the least likely of the options.
It is more likely that he has some simplistic medieval grand view where rich and powerful kings rule the world and their subjects show absolute fealty to him and carry out his every whim. He needs only confer with his fellow “kings” in Russia and China to decide how they will divide the world. Thus we do not need a federal civil service, the king and his lords will run the country. He does not need allies because he consorts with his fellow kings. Rich and powerful men know what is best. What is good for the king is good for the state. “L’etat, c’est moi” — “I am the state” — as King Louis XIV of France is said to have told the French parliament in 1655. In other words, he is an absolute monarch with complete power and not subject to Constitutional limitations. While some of you may think that I am stretching the analogy, and I doubt that Trump knows who Louis XIV was and wouldn’t care anyway, he is approaching his presidency as if he is the absolute ruler. As the absolute ruler he only needs to confer with other absolute rulers.
Whether or not he succeeds with this approach to governing, we will find out. What I am arguing is that this is his mind set and thus he acts in the ways that he does. As I have written in this space countless times, autocrats always tell you what they are going to do. They don’t always succeed, but they are going to try. Trump is telling us exactly what he wants to do and unlike in his first term, he has people around him that are willing to do it.
This is dangerous for many reasons, of course. In this particular case, and what President Zelenskyy was trying to tell Trump, is that he can not trust Putin. Once America repudiates our allies and removes itself from participation with our allies in NATO and elsewhere, Putin and Xi Jinping of China will work together to bring us to our knees. This is one of the things that infuriated Trump during the meeting. Mr. Zelenskyy told Trump that the U.S now “has a nice ocean” to protect us against Russia so we don’t “feel” Russian pressure or threats, but that “you will feel it in the future.” Trump exploded and said “don’t tell us what we’re going to feel.” Completely missing the point, but then he is not that sharp and he is intellectually uncurious. Flattery gets you everything with Trump. He is an easy mark for Putin and Xi who have been in this game for a long time.
The idea of the world being divided into “kingdoms” fits nicely with the Project 2025 playbook being implemented throughout the government as I write. Trump’s world view, Musk’s world view and that of the Project 2025 folks is that rich, powerful men became that way — became “kings” of their domains — because they are smarter and more ruthless and more capable than the rest of us. Therefore it is only logical that they should be in charge. This view is manifesting itself in the foreign policy arena with Ukraine as the example. Ukraine is relatively weak, especially compared to Russia, therefore they should submit and give Russia whatever they want in order to bring “peace” and “save lives.” Of course the Butcher of Bucha will only torture, rape and murder the good citizens of Ukraine should Putin take over.
Remember the day that it all changed. Even if Trump’s plans are thwarted, it will take a generation of hard work before our allies will ever trust us again.
The Beacon Of Democracy Is Dimming
Posted: February 25, 2025 Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: Autocrats, Congress, DOGE, Donald Trump, Elon Musk, NATO, Russia, U.S. Military, Ukraine, United States Constitution, Vladimir Putin, War Leave a commentThe past few days have been tumultuous for those of us that pay attention to the systematic demolishing of the democratic norms we took for granted just a few weeks ago. In the past few days an unelected South African “adviser” to the president accelerated the use of a wrecking ball to attack our proud and dedicated civil servants, senior military officers were fired because of the color of their skin or their gender, the United States of America joined North Korea, Russia, Belarus, and others to vote in the United Nations against a resolution condemning the Russian invasion of Ukraine and instead continued to claim Ukraine caused the war, and the President of these United States called the President of France a liar to his face during an Oval Office press gathering when President Macron tried to set the record straight concerning aid to Ukraine. That’s a lot and it is only the tip of the iceberg.
As Elon Musk and his DOGE (Department of Government Efficiency) henchmen continue to decimate the federal government, our fellow citizens are beginning to understand what is going on and are pushing back against their elected representatives in town hall meetings across the country. Officials in both “blue” districts and “red” ones are feeling the heat. So far, the opposition to the drastic cuts has had little impact. Trump, MAGA acolytes and Musk will continue to decimate the federal government. They fundamentally do not care what happens to the people serving in the jobs, the harm caused by closing down federal funding or any other second or third order impacts caused by their reckless behavior. Their goal is to establish an autocracy run by techno-bros and other rich white men. End of discussion. This is Project 2025 in all of its dimensions.
The budding autocrats are making great progress. Already the Department of Justice (DOJ) and Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) are under the control of MAGA and are ready to wreak havoc on those that oppose Trump. The contagion is now spreading to the Department of Defense (DOD). The Secretary of Defense (SECDEF) Pete Hegseth, under orders from Trump although I am sure SECDEF would have done it anyway, fired the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General C.Q. Brown (a black man), Chief of Naval Operations Admiral Lisa Franchetti (a woman), the Vice Chief of Staff of the Air Force General James Slife (a white man that was too “woke”), Lt. General Jennifer Short (a woman) the Senior Military Aide to SECDEF, and Judge Advocate Generals (JAGs) of the Army, Air Force and Navy. On his second day in office, Trump had the Commandant of the Coast Guard fired, Admiral Linda Fagan (a woman). The JAGs were fired, according to SECDEF, because they were “roadblocks” to doing what he wanted. In other words, they had too much integrity to allow SECDEF or the Commander-in-Chief to do whatever they wanted to do when it includes illegal or unethical activity. Danger, danger! Pete Hegseth, then a Fox News host, was instrumental in getting Trump, during his first term, to pardon war criminals. In November of 2019, Trump pardoned two Army officers for the murder of civilians in Afghanistan and promoted a Navy SEAL after a court martial stripped him of his rank for similar charges.
The flag and general officers fired last Friday were considered DEI (diversity, equity, inclusion) hires. Even though General Brown was appointed as Chief of Staff of the Air Force during Trump’s first administration. (President Biden promoted him to be CJCS.) This, of course, disregards their decades of service and their proven track record in command at all levels of the military. They proved themselves in tough, demanding jobs. It is an insult to believe that they only attained their positions because of their “woke” ideologies or because a political party wanted to promote people only because of some vague idea about affirmative action. What they are really saying is that only white men are qualified to lead our country and that only white men can be warriors. (Hegseth is qualified? Meritocracy my …) (For an excellent breakdown of the mind set of the current administration and advocates of Project 2025, I recommend reading the article in The Atlantic magazine by Adam Serwer The Great Resegregation found here.)
Senior officers serve at the discretion of the president. However, their terms of office are meant to straddle different administrations in order to provide stability and experience to protect our national security. Even more distressing, the president is nominating retired Lt. General Dan Cane, USAF for the position of Chairman. According to U.S. law (title 10 Part I, chapter 5) the Chairman must have previously served as the Vice Chairman, Chief of a military branch, or the commander of a unified or specified command — all are four star (General or Admiral) positions. Lt. General Cane has never been in any of those positions and never achieved the rank of a four star. Title 10 does provide for a deviation from these requirements if it is “in the national interest.” I would argue that there is no compelling reason today to deviate from the law unless the president and SECDEF want someone that is willing to do whatever they want them to do, including illegal or unethical behavior. I do not know Lt. General Cane so I will not impugn his character, but let us just note that something fishy is going on here. Just as those flag and general officers that were fired were the product of the military system that produces non-political officers that have an oath only to the Constitution I want to believe that officers promoted to fill the vacated positions have an allegiance only to their duty under the Constitution and not fealty to one man. Time will tell.
The loss of American leadership was on full display yesterday in the United Nations when the U.S. supported Russian ideals rather than traditional American support for democracy. On the third anniversary of the full scale Russian invasion of Ukraine, the U.S. joined Russia in the U.N. General Assembly to vote against a resolution condemning Russia’s aggression and calling for an end to the war with a full withdrawal of Russian troops. It was an extraordinary turn of events as much of the world voted in favor of the European based resolution. In other words, we turned against our own allies to support Russia. The President of the United States continues to say that the war is Ukraine’s fault and that its leader President Zelenskyy is a dictator. It is not only embarrassing, it is frightening. It signals that our president is a pawn in Russian President Vladimir Putin’s hand. Russia’s invasion is the largest ground war in Europe since World War II. The purpose of the U.N. and its charter is to protect the territorial integrity of sovereign nations. Apparently, we no longer support democracies around the world and find it totally acceptable for large countries to invade smaller ones. Everyone wants the killing to stop. The losses on both sides are catastrophic. But the current administration fails to understand that this war could stop tomorrow if Russia withdrew its invading force. Simple. Instead, Trump wants to stand proudly with a designated war criminal who favors murder, rape, and indiscriminate destruction of civilian targets.
Continuing to show his willful ignorance and lack of shame, Trump added insult to injury by telling lie after lie about the war and the circumstances around it while in a meeting in the Oval Office with French President Macron. When President Macron corrected him in front of the press corps, Trump’s body language was very telling, as well as what he actually said about President Macron’s statement. The discussion concerned Trump’s desire to get rare minerals from Ukraine to “pay back” the aid provided. (Roughly 75% of the aid we give to Ukraine actually stays in the U.S. as the money is used to buy U.S. ammunition, weapons and other military equipment. Trump also greatly exaggerates the amount of that aid.) He went on to claim that the Europeans have already been reimbursed. President Macron interrupted him to fact check him that, in fact, the Europeans have not been reimbursed. At the end, Trump told the press that they can believe those “lies” from President Macron if they want to. A great statesman.
In all, everyday we see how unqualified Trump and key members of his administration are in trying to keep our country economically strong and our country secure. Through design and malfeasance our great democracy is slowly crumbling. Trump has consolidated the centers of power in our government as he purges the Pentagon. The pillars of an autocratic government are nearly in place. Congress is missing in action. So far, the courts are holding firm as our last great hope. My view is that Trump thinks that he will eventually prevail in the Supreme Court as they will side with his idea of the unitary executive and Trump will use it to quash any remaining resistance. I hope I am wrong, but to date, they are succeeding. Given that he is a convicted felon that already tried to overthrow the country, there is no reason to think that he does not intend to become an autocrat.
Shameful? Disgraceful? Or Both?
Posted: February 20, 2025 Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: AfD, Donald Trump, Elon Musk, J.D. Vance, Munich Security Conference, NATO, Russia, Ukraine, Vladimir Putin, War 1 CommentIn case you missed it, over roughly the last seven days the convicted felon and 47th president of the United States reversed 80 years of U.S. foreign policy that preserved our security and prosperity at home and allowed the world to enjoy the benefits of a largely peaceful framework for international relations. You may have been too busy following the antics of King Trump (so self designated yesterday) and President Musk as they decimate the federal civil service across the country from the Gulf of Mexico to Denali, Alaska. (Contrary to popular belief, only about 13% of the federal work force is in the Washington DC metro area, 83% is spread around the country and 2% is overseas).
In his incessant effort to please Russian President Vladimir Putin, Trump and his kakistocracy betrayed Ukraine, salvaged Russia from the isolation it deserves, signaled our withdrawal from NATO and encouraged China, Russia and Iran to expand their influence and control. That’s a lot — let’s break it down.
As we approach the third anniversary of the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine, a quick reminder as to the chain of events is in order. When the Soviet Union collapsed, about a third of the Soviet’s nuclear weapons were in Ukraine which emerged as an independent state. Under the 1991 security guarantees of Russia, the U.S. and the United Kingdom, Ukraine’s borders were recognized and guaranteed in exchange for relinquishing those nuclear weapons. After Putin emerged as the leader of the “new” Russia, he worked continuously to promote pro-Russian leadership in Ukraine. As a gateway to the rest of Europe, Ukraine was caught between pro-Russian and pro-western European influences. In 2014, Ukrainians revolted and drove out the pro-Russian leader Victor Yanukovych. That prompted Putin to invade Crimea, a part of Ukraine, and annex it. Putin also encouraged and supplied pro-Russian forces in eastern Ukraine to take and hold territory. A simmering war continued there until early 2022 when the full scale Russian invasion began. Note that the quasi-war in Ukraine was underway during Trump’s first term. Also remember that Vololdymyr Zelensky defeated a pro-Russian politician for president in April of 2020. That July, Trump called President Zelensky to push for an investigation into Hunter Biden and his father Joe Biden who Trump correctly expected to be his opponent for president. President Zelensky refused, Trump withheld money appropriated for Ukraine, and the situation led to Trump’s first impeachment.
Strike one against Ukraine. Trump does hold grudges.
During his 2020 campaign, Trump declared that he would end the war in Ukraine on “day one.” Sure. Now he sees it as his mission. However, he is not trying to solve it on terms favorable to Ukraine, but rather to please his old buddy Vladimir Putin. Reportedly, Trump and Putin talked for about 90 minutes last week, the first official diplomatic contact between the U.S. and Russia since the invasion three years ago and afterwards, everything changed.
Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth gave a speech in Europe during an international conference on Ukraine where he clearly stated that it was “unrealistic” for Ukraine to expect to return to its pre-2014 borders, and that it “is not realistic” for Ukraine to join NATO. So much for the art of the deal when before the negotiating even starts, one side concedes to the other everything that they want. Additionally Hegseth (is he really the Secretary of Defense?) told our European allies that the U.S. would no longer safeguard the security of Europe as the U.S. “will no longer tolerate an imbalanced relationship” with our European allies. Indeed, if the Europeans deployed troops into Ukraine to provide for guarantees to protect Ukrainian sovereignty under a future deal, the U.S. would not consider it a NATO mission and therefore there would be no Article Five guarantees from the U.S. Article Five is the key to NATO’s effectiveness. It states that an attack on one member is considered an attack on all and that all members would respond militarily. Without that iron clad commitment from all members of NATO, the alliance is weakened, perhaps fatally weakened. Article Five has been invoked only once — by the U.S. following the attacks on September 11.
Vice President J.D. Vance, the embodiment of the Project 2025 playbook, then gave a speech during the annual Munich Security Conference — meeting to discuss Ukraine and NATO defense spending — that blasted and scolded our closest allies for allowing migration from the Middle East and Africa into Europe and claiming that they violated their democratic values by inhibiting free speech. What he was really attacking was the European’s efforts to counter misinformation, disinformation and outright lies perpetrated by one Elon Musk (yes that same guy) in an attempt to sway voters in several European elections to vote for the hard right parties in those countries. His speech came straight out of the Project 2025 playbook. To further insult our allies, Vance then met with the leader of the far right neo-Nazi German party Alternative fur Deutschland (AfD) rather than with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, A clear signal from the Trump administration as to their future vision and undisguised disdain for our allies.
While all of that was happening, U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent met President Zelensky in Kyiv whose purpose, much to the Ukrainians surprise, was to demand that President Zelensky sign a document that gives fifty percent (about 500 million dollars) of Ukraine’s rare earth minerals to the U.S. When President Zelensky hesitated, Bessent gave him one hour to change his mind and sign or there would be repercussions. President Zelensky did not sign. The current status of this demand is unknown.
Strike two against Ukraine. Another grudge.
The U.S. then held bilateral meetings with Russia in Saudi Arabia (hmmm) about the war in Ukraine. This was a huge diplomatic achievement for Russia as the meeting was a sign that Russia “was back” – on an equal footing with the U.S. and once again a player on the international stage after years of isolation. Another victory for Russia in these negotiations. So far, Russia has given up nothing in return.
Oh yeah. Ukraine was not invited to the discussions about its future and neither were our European allies even though they obviously have a huge stake in the outcome.
Afterwards, President Zelensky opined that Trump was living in a “Russian disinformation bubble” and added that Ukraine was not for sale.
Strike three against Ukraine. Trump went ballistic.
In a series of public statements, Trump did what he does best. He lied and lied and lied. (Check his lies and the facts here.) Worst of all, he said that Ukraine started the war. Then he called President Zelensky a “moderately successful comedian” (ouch) who is now a “dictator.” Things went down hill from there. Trump is demanding that Ukraine take steps that fall completely within the Russian game plan to take over in Ukraine.
There are several possible scenarios playing out, none of them good for Ukraine or Europe or for our own national security and economic success. Trump is incapable of strategic thinking and only knows transactional relationships. Therefore one possibility is that, once again, Trump’s fragile ego and need to be respected, at any cost, is wounded. President Zelensky and European leaders have had, in his mind, a free ride for too long and now that he’s the new sheriff in town he wants instant respect and a lot of dollars coming to us (him). He simply cannot grasp the big picture that we benefit more from these alliances and our support of other democracies than it costs us. (See the destruction of the U.S. Agency for International Development that provided valuable support to our own national interests at very low cost. Not to mention the U.S. farmers and suppliers that sell the goods and services.)
A second possibility is that he actually believes that he alone can solve the war in Ukraine. He has always been enamored of Putin and here is Trump’s chance to show that he can deal with him. Of course, we all know that Putin is a master of manipulation. Trump doesn’t even know that he is being taken for a ride. If Putin gets what he wants in Ukraine, I fear for the Baltic states and Poland as they will be next on Putin’s list. And in the not so distant future. Remember that in a 2005 speech to the Russian people, Putin said that the collapse of the Soviet Union “was the greatest geo-political catastrophe of the [20th] century.” He is on a mission from God (literally if you read about him) to restore the Russian empire.
A third possibility is that Trump (well, those around him) have a geo-political vision that is in a way a reversion to the cold war. The “great powers” — U.S., Russia, China — divide up the world into spheres of influence. This would fit into his phantasmagoric ideas of annexing Canada, Greenland and Panama. It would also fit the vision of the Project 2025 folks and Musk and others that the world should be run by rich white men who create Christian white nationalist nations around the globe.
Whatever the motivation, the world is on notice that the United States is no longer the leader of the free world, or any world except the United States. Good luck everyone else. If Trump succeeds in giving Ukraine to Russia, it will mean hundreds of thousands of refugees pouring into western Europe (destabilizing them internally), cost thousands of lives, lead to arbitrary executions, torture and rape and eliminate a democracy and friend. It also gives Russia a green light for further territorial gains and lets China know that we will not protect Taiwan or any other Asian country.
It will be shameful and disgraceful. Not only does it undermine our long held and deeply cherished view of our role in the world and our ability to promote democracy but such actions will endanger our own security and prosperity. We will not be safe. So far, Trump has received nearly zero pushback from formerly respected leaders of the former Republican party. The world that we have cherished for eight decades will be gone and in its place will be a new world that would be impossible to imagine just a few months ago.
Burn It All Down
Posted: February 3, 2025 Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: 1984, 6 January Insurrection, Congress, DEI, Democracy, DOJ, Economy, Elon Musk, FBI, George Orwell, Project 2025, Trump, United States Constitution Leave a commentLet’s party like it’s 1984! Not the disco age 1984, but rather I mean the 1984 of George Orwell.
“Now I will tell you the answer to my question. It is this. The Party seeks power entirely for its own sake. We are not interested in the good of others; we are interested solely in power, pure power. What pure power means you will understand presently. We are different from the oligarchies of the past in that we know what we are doing.” — George Orwell, 1984
Yes, that George Orwell.
The first two weeks of the new administration have been tumultuous, to state the obvious. It has been very chaotic. This is by design, as I will explain below. It has been nothing less than a full scale assault on the federal government in an attempt to attack from so many directions at once that it is difficult to keep up with all of the illegal, immoral and unethical actions currently underway. But then, we should not be surprised by the actions of a thirty-four time convicted felon and adjudicated sexual abuser who tried to overthrow the duly elected government of the United States. The examples are numerous, but let me highlight a few in order to illustrate the scale of the assault.
“Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past.”
― George Orwell, 1984
The Trump Administration is trying to erase every fact surrounding the attempted coup on 6 January 2021. First came the pardons for roughly 1500 criminals that assaulted law enforcement officers and threatened to kill many of our elected officials, including the Speaker of the House and the Vice President. Then came the continual and overbearing claim that the 2020 election was stolen. To date, not one political appointee appearing before the Senate for confirmation would affirm that President Joe Biden won the election, only that he was sworn in as president. They try to convince people that the coup never happened and that the riot was really a love fest. The latest claim is that the Department of Justice (DOJ) and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) went “rogue” to weaponize our justice and law enforcement institutions to find and prosecute the alleged patriots who were only trying to “stop the steal.” As of today, the new administration is gutting the DOJ of experienced prosecutors and are pushing to fire about a third of the agents and leaders in the FBI. This is before the nominated Attorney General and FBI Director have been confirmed. Both have promised in public to go after anyone associated with upholding the rule of law on 6 January. Anyone involved, no matter how tangentially, will be fired and perhaps prosecuted. In this process, we are losing a valuable national asset that keeps us safe everyday. If the FBI is in internal turmoil, their energy is not focused on stopping drug dealers or terrorists. If “everyone” is fired there will be a critical loss of knowledge and expertise leaving our country vulnerable. There is an old saying that no one hears about the bomb that didn’t explode. The FBI and other intelligence agencies stop numerous dangerous plots that we never hear about. After the ongoing purge, our enemies will be emboldened to carry out their plans to kill Americans.
Trump fired all but two of the Inspectors General (IGs) in the federal government. These positions were established by Congress to be independent watch dogs in our government departments to weed out waste, fraud and abuse. Many of the IGs he fired were originally appointed during his first term. One can only surmise that they were fired to preclude them from calling out the illegal or unethical actions that his administration anticipates doing.
Last week we all mourned the tragic loss of 67 lives over the Potomac River in a mid-air collision. The nation mourned, except for the President, Vice President, Secretary of Defense (SECDEF) and the Secretary of Transportation (SDOT) who put on the most despicable and racist display I can remember from elected officials in my lifetime. By blaming “DEI” (Diversity, Equity and Inclusion programs) for the crash they barely concealed their belief that only white males are qualified to pilot aircraft and control air traffic. Trump tried to prove his point by reading from an FAA recruiting website that tried to open jobs to every American. He ridiculed it, blamed the accident on Presidents Obama (!) and Biden and their woke policies. The problem is that the entry from the website that he read aloud was posted during his first term. The racist implication of all of their talk of a “meritocracy” (one could ask if Pete Hegseth got his job as SECDEF because of the merits of his resume — cough cough) lies in what they really mean — that anyone that does not look like them is clearly not qualified to have a high powered job. No women or minorities could possibly be qualified. Worse, they probably took a job away from a white male. If you think I over exaggerate, then please let me point you in the direction of Trump’s Executive Order (E.O.) that rescinds President Lyndon Johnson’s 1965 Executive Order 11246 that prohibits discrimination in hiring for federal jobs. It codified affirmative action to eliminate discrimination and delineated employee protections in hiring. I guess Trump is promoting discrimination now.
“Power is in tearing human minds to pieces and putting them together again in new shapes of your own choosing.”
― George Orwell, 1984
To take it a step further, NBC reports that several government agencies will no longer acknowledge or celebrate Black History Month, Martin Luther King’s Birthday, Juneteenth, LGBTQ Pride Month, Holocaust Remembrance Day or “other observances.” We will see how that works as some are federal holidays by law. It also reflects that in the name of eliminating “political correctness” and “woke” ideology a very long list of terms have been officially expunged from government documents, websites and information outlets. In their place is a new list of approved words. We have traded one set of PC police to another set that are far more ruthless in weeding out what they do not like.
“But if thought corrupts language, language can also corrupt thought.”
― George Orwell, 1984
On the farcical level, to satisfy the Dear Leader, two dams in California’s San Joaquin Valley dumped billions of gallons of water that helped no one. Trump was trying to prove that he could have the Army (really the Army Corps of Engineers) “turn the valve” and have water flow to the Los Angeles area to help put out their devastating fires. A perfect photo op to show how he solved California’s water problems. The reality is that there was no way that water could ever be used to help with fires in LA. There is no infrastructure in place to get it to LA. The water in those reservoirs was wasted and was actually reserved for the upcoming summer irrigation needs to support agriculture. I am sure the farmers are thrilled he intervened.
More importantly, and a situation that is extremely troubling, Elon Musk and his acolytes now have access to every computer system in the government connected to the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), the Office of Personnel Management (OPM), the Treasury Department and the U.S. Agency for International Development (A.I.D.). Musk can now access classified information, the intimate records of every employee in the U.S. government, and every financial transaction made by the federal government. All six trillion dollars of it. That includes every payment to you, me, non-profits, government agencies, etc. etc. And oh yeah, that includes payments to every contractor doing business with the U. S. government, including those that are in direct competition with Musk’s businesses.
I need not remind you that Musk is a civilian with no official government position — not elected not confirmed by the Senate, nothing. He broke cybersecurity laws under the Federal Information Security Management Act (FISMA) and the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). Worse, they used external hard drives to access the information which raises the chances of importing a virus, ransomware, or to allow disruptive operations.
Not only is Musk not a government official and he has no security clearance, his background and activities are troubling. He is a naturalized citizen who grew up in South Africa under apartheid. Apparently, he had no issue with that racist policy. Among other suspect political activities, he spent 288 million dollars in 2024 on Trump’s campaign and to help other Republican office seekers. He actively supports a German political party known as the Alternative for Germany (AfG), a far right neo-Nazi group gaining influence in German political affairs.
This is a very secretive administration that obfuscates and covers up its illegal activities until they are uncovered by determined journalists or government whistle blowers. We don’t really know all that they are doing. But we do know what they have planned.
Many of the actions taken to date are an attempt to marginalize the House and Senate. And Trump and his accomplices are succeeding. They are breaking civil service laws, appropriation laws and ignoring the Constitution. It is an all out assault on the rule of law and an attempt to totally sideline the Congress. So far they are letting him do it. There is no push back and a lot of “anticipatory obedience”. To date, the Senate has approved all of his nominees even as the majority of Republican Senators know that a lot of the nominees are unqualified and will readily carry out illegal acts if so ordered by their president. (For the first time in American history the nominees that have appeared for confirmation hearings thus far have all refused to answer the question as to whether they would resign rather than carry out an illegal order. They all used some form of the response that they don’t answer questions about “hypotheticals”).
“We do not merely destroy our enemies; we change them.”
― George Orwell, 1984
The uniting thread in all of this is the conservative playbook known as Project 2025. News sources relate that roughly two-thirds of Trump’s E.O.s are straight out of the playbook. Many of the authors that wrote the book are being appointed or approved by the Senate for leading the agencies and departments that they plan to destroy.
Some examples include actions within the DOD that began with the Soviet style erasure of anything having to do with the former Chairman of the Joints Chiefs (CJCS) General Mark Milley and former SECDEF Mark Esper. They have eliminated all references, pictures, biographies or other indications of their work. Gone. Like it never existed. All because they stood up to Trump and his illegal ideas in his first term.
Did you know that it is official DOT policy that money to support transportation upgrades or new projects or anything under the department’s control will go to states and cities with the highest marriage and birth rates? (Use the link in the article to get to the policy — para 5,f,iii — you can’t make this stuff up.) This is part of the Project 2025 playbook that nuclear families with a wife at home having children should be the established norm.
This is what I and others have been saying since last summer. Project 2025 is the plan for our future. They are trying to totally destroy our democracy (and probably our economy — billionaires don’t care about average citizens and they will win in the end) in order to rebuild it in their own image.
Thus chaos.
It could be that it is chaos because Trump likes chaos. He likes to create a crisis so that he can “solve” it and take undue credit for fixing a problem that did not exist before and should not exist now. It could just be incompetence. It is easy to write E.O.s but it is much harder to execute them.
Unfortunately, there are other more nefarious reasons for the chaos and confusion. Trump has been declaring as many “national emergencies” as he can find in order to issue orders that in any other administration would not exist or that would be challenged in court. (Some organizations and state Attorneys General are gearing up to take many of the illegal actions to court. But it is a slow process.)
I think he is trying to create chaos and crises for a purpose. Call it my doomsday scenario. When everything starts to collapse — the government cannot function because of all the firings, the economy is collapsing under the weight of tariffs and other ill conceived actions — he will declare martial law (as he tried to do several times in his first administration when SECDEF Esper and CJCS Milley stopped him). He will simply take over. Only the toadies that have pledged their fealty to him will run departments and agencies (we are nearly there already). They will try to burn it all down and then rebuild it as JD Vance and the other 2025 folks have publicly declared. They are unabashed in their desire and stated goal to create a white nationalist Christian country controlled by white male oligarchs and headed by an autocrat. Trump doesn’t really care about any of it as long as he makes money (he is making a ton of it right now as president in unprecedented ways) and can retain the trappings of power he so dearly loves (Sir!).
There is a lot of talk about elections in 2026 and 2028 and how the Democrats will be taking over because of wide-spread discontent with Trump. How do we know there will be elections? Under a “national emergency” he may declare them deferred until the danger from the crisis is over — which it never will be. Too out there? Too apocalyptic? Why? He and his cult already tried to void an election and take over the government once, why not try it again? He suffered no consequences. Why should he be worried about any future ramifications? He is already making “jokes” about his third term. There is every reason to believe that this time he thinks he can get away with it. Who is going to stop him if Congress is powerless and his toadies control the levers of power?
The Project 2025 playbook is boring. It is also scary. The cadre around Trump are serious. They will pursue their agenda until stopped. They have already gotten the Congress to roll over for them. The court system will be used to over turn some of their more draconian actions but will that really stop them? The courts put an injunction against withholding lawfully appropriated funds and yet the Trump Administration continues to refuse to disburse a wide range of those funds.
I feel sorry for the people that are “too busy” or “too tired” and don’t want to hear about politics, they prefer ignorance. Some day they will realize their mistake. Call your Senator, Congressman and other elected officials and ask them what they are doing to stop the hostile takeover. It seems like right now all that our Senators and Representatives are doing is collecting a paycheck for occupying space. With Musk and his techies already controlling all of the government systems, even that may go away in the future.
“War is peace.
Freedom is slavery.
Ignorance is strength.”
― George Orwell, 1984
What To Expect On Day One
Posted: January 17, 2025 Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: Border Policy, CRT, DEI, Executive Orders, Presidential Inauguration, Tariff, Transgender, United States Constitution Leave a commentThis coming Monday is Inauguration Day. It also happens to be a federal holiday for Martin Luther King Day and the culmination of the college football season with the national championship game. Quite a busy day. For the incoming president, here is a partial list of all the things that he promised to do “on day one.” The list comes from various sources (especially Axios) based on his campaign promises, speeches, social media and interviews. Some are “head scratchers” because it either does not exist or is a made up problem or cannot be done in a day or all of the above. Advisors to the president say that he will issue one hundred Executive Orders on Inauguration Day. I suppose someone with enough time on their hands could put together some kind of bingo card or a drinking game to see how the Executive Orders match up with his promises.
- Settle the Russia-Ukraine War. Although to be sure, he said in the first 24 hours.
- Close the border with Mexico.
- Begin the largest deportation effort in American history.
- Close public schools that teach Critical Race Theory (CRT) or have a vaccine mandate.
- End the “electric vehicle mandate.”
- Increase oil drilling and fracking.
- End birth right citizenship protected by the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution.
- End “Green New Deal” policies.
- End “Bidenomics” and start “MAGAnomics.”
- Ban trans women from competing in girl’s or women’s sports.
- Pardon January 6th criminals.
- Stop migrant flights into the U.S.
- Restore and expand the Trump travel ban.
- Push for the resignation of anyone in the military involved in the Afghanistan withdrawal.
- Shift some federal law enforcement agencies to immigration enforcement.
- Repeal federal government Diversity, Equity, Inclusion (DEI) requirements.
- Remove CRT from the military.
- Reduce violent crime.
- Reduce crime by immigrants.
- Put sanctions on Iran.
- Convene a Federal Drug Administration (FDA) panel to see if hormone treatments cause violence.
- Ban transgender people from the military.
- Ask Congress for a bill banning gender affirming care for minors.
- Enact policies to move to having all automobiles built in the United States.
- Restart the building of the border wall with Mexico.
- Tell Mexico to stop drug dealers and criminals crossing the border or get hit with a 25% tariff.
- Hit Canada with a 25% tariff on all goods if they do not stop their open border policy.
- Roll back federal regulations that drive up the cost of goods.
- Be a dictator. Although he conceded it would just be for one day.
That’s a pretty full day.
Anticipatory Obedience
Posted: January 16, 2025 Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: Autocrats, Conformity, Congress, Democracy, MAGA, news, Oligarchs, Politics, Presidential Inauguration, United States Constitution 1 Comment“The first term everybody was fighting me. In this term, everybody wants to be my friend.”
— The President-elect at Mar-a-Lago in December 2024.
Yale professor Timothy Snyder in his 2017 book On Tyranny focused on the United States’ turn towards authoritarianism and tyranny in the context of American politics. Among other issues, he addressed a key factor in authoritarian efforts to take control that he calls “anticipatory obedience.” In essence, it means that individuals and institutions change their behavior in an attempt to conform to what they think the repressive regime will want, conformity that comes without any effort on the authoritarian’s part to demand it. It is a key factor in cementing an autocrat’s rule as well as informing the regime as to what they can get away with. As a result, in many cases the incoming regimes accrue more power more quickly than they thought possible. Many scholars point to current events in Hungary under Victor Orban as illustrative of how to turn a modern democracy into an autocracy. Victor Orban, not coincidentally, is the shining star of the MAGA movement and a personal hero to our next president.
There is a fine line between political reality, lobbying for one’s preferred policies and practicing anticipatory obedience. With any new administration organizations and individuals work to influence the new policies sure to come with the changes in the power dynamic. For example, in the modern era inauguration funds are raised by the party of choice to make a grand event of the days leading to and on the day that power is transferred. It is not unusual for political parties to sell exclusive access or V.I.P. tickets to big donors. This year, the incoming administration has run out of tickets to give out and is still raking in huge donations. According to the New York Times, by early January the current inauguration committee raised over 170 million dollars and is still collecting large donations, despite the fact that there are no V.I.P. tickets still available. That compares to a total of 107 million dollars in 2017. By some calculations the President-elect’s allies since Election Day have raised roughly 250 million dollars for the inauguration, to help promote his policies and to fill his coffers. There are no limits on the amount of any contribution and even although access is now closed to many events, some contributors are still writing one and two million dollar checks. Some of the most famous of the tech-bros have contributed millions in their company names. It is not happening because they really like the guy. Many of those same individuals were attacked during the campaign including threats to throw Mark Zuckerberg of Meta (formerly face book) in jail. He donated a million dollars to the inauguration. Was that enough? Apparently not as Mr. Zuckerberg also did away with fact checking face book posts, moved staff out of “blue” California to “red” Texas and took other measures to ensure that he would be on the good side of the incoming president. All without being asked.
Other examples of anticipatory obedience include the decisions by the billionaire owners of The Washington Post and Los Angeles Times to ignore decades of precedent and to not endorse any candidate for president after they conferred at Mar-a-Lago with the MAGA candidate. (Both papers are said to have endorsements of Vice President Kamala Harris ready to go when they were pulled.) As a result, both newspapers lost senior staff members and lots of subscribers, but they pleased a budding autocrat without being asked.
This week we are seeing numerous examples of anticipatory obedience in Congress. Republican (are there any left?) Senators are about to confirm several totally unqualified candidates to the incoming Cabinet because the Dear Leader wants them. He wants them because they will show absolute fealty to him and not to the Constitution. Does anyone really believe that, for example, Senator Joni Ernst (R-IA) really, truly believes that Pete Hegseth will be an effective Secretary of Defense? Of course not. Most of her colleagues do not think so either but they are afraid of what the MAGA president might do to them politically or even personally. In the process they are giving up one of their most important duties under the Constitution, the duty to provide advice and consent to a president’s Cabinet nominees. While it may be argued that incoming presidents should have the people in the Cabinet that share the same policy views, it is also necessary to entrust our nation to people with a solid understanding and devotion to the Constitution and that are competent in their ability to run their department.
The Speaker of the House Mike Johnson (MAGA – LA) yesterday fired the Republican chairman of the House Intelligence Committee Representative Mike Turner (R – OH). The reason according to many sources (but not according to the Speaker who gave a really lame excuse that it was time for someone else to have a chance) is that a decree came down from Mar-a-Lago to get rid of him. Why? Representative Turner was too bi-partisan and would not always toe the dictated party line. By all accounts, Mr. Turner was a solid Chairman who took his duties seriously and understood the importance of overseeing the intelligence community in a bi-partisan manner. National security is a serious business. An ill thought out policy on education could hurt our country but it is recoverable. A national security mistake could end our existence. Apparently, there will be no serious oversight in the near future.
Other examples abound, and the inauguration is not until Monday 20 January.
I for one, believe that our democracy and the institutions that protect it will be sorely tested in the coming months and years. It is hard to figure out what individual citizens can do to actively protect our republic. Professor Snyder looks at the lessons taught through history — autocrats and dictators whether fascists or communists — and finds the common threads that cause people to allow themselves to be subjugated. In my mind, anticipatory obedience is akin to the old saying “go along to get along.” Expediency and self-preservation take priority over doing what is right. The Silicon Valley tech-bros are the budding oligarchs of the United States. They are hitching their wagons to the incoming president for a reason — they are sure that he will create the conditions to allow them to wield power unobstructed. Elon Musk already thinks he is the leader of our government. He is dabbling in politics in Germany, Italy and the United Kingdom, using his billions and his own platform “X” to influence millions of followers to support far right wing agendas in Europe. Surely he expects the MAGA crowd to push our country hard right. President Biden warned us last night in his farewell speech that “today, an oligarchy is taking shape in America of extreme wealth, power and influence that really threatens our entire democracy, our basic rights and freedom” and he warned of a “tech-industrial complex” of unchecked power over our lives.
Don’t make it easy. As professor Snyder writes, “do not obey in advance.”
Tom
Into The Fray 
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