America vs the World (and Itself?) – Now What?

America vs the World (and Itself?) – Now What?

“It sort of saddens me. I think one of our superpowers as a country is our relentless optimism…

It is the fuel for entrepreneurship and other exceptional achievements.”

Neale Mahoney, a Stanford University economics professor, reacting to polling showing Americans no longer positive about their future.

So, what’s going on? Here’s a very long, run-in sentence about who we are: We are at each other’s throats, marching unambiguously into autocracy, federalized National Guardsmen and active-duty US military troops are marching into blue cities (with falling crime rates and African American mayors) purportedly to combat “rising crime” and protect ICE agents, HHS is demonizing the medical/scientific profession and vaccines that have worked well for years as preventable diseases soar, immigration policies that were to focus on undocumented criminals have been reduced to indiscriminate quota detentions that are playing hob with small businesses and farmers, prices are rising and ordinary federal benefits are falling to cater to huge, deficit busting tax cuts for the rich, our cultural institutions have a rightwing political mandate, America is now perceived as an unfriendly and cruel place to visit as our higher-educational institutions are under attack and our public school performance levels continue to plunge.

It’s not that blue cities don’t want to have an effective working relationship with professional federal policing agencies (like the ATF, FBI, etc.) to fight real crime, from drug trafficking to gang violence, but spurious politically motivated actions that destroy local businesses are nothing on their “to do” list. Taxpayers should not be funding a police state, backed by military, invading cities and towns that do not need that profoundly negative reality. We also do not need federal policies that close hospitals and nursing homes and throw millions of Americans out of medical care. Those tariffs have not brought back reshored manufacturing jobs, and layoffs have reached recent record levels. We are increasingly willing to demonize vulnerable demographics, rig elections through gerrymandering, and, in polls conducted by scholar Matthew MacWilliams, the percentage of Americans who prefer law and order autocracy has risen from an unacceptable 34% in 2016 to an even more unacceptable 38% today.

And those tariffs, intended to cover part of the federal budget shortfall from the tax cut for the rich… well… Even as Donald Trump’s “Liberation Day” tariffs have been ruled an illegal usurpation of Congress’ Constitutional prerogative to set tariffs and taxes (Article I) – some tariffs generated under specific statutes remain, however – the President has alienated allies and neutral trading partners alike by his bullying tactics to set these tariffs. The tariff ban ruling is on appeal. Still, many of these tariffs have been levied for purely political reasons. Like assessing a 50% tariff on Brazil unless it stopped the prosecution of a corruption trial against former President Jair Bolsonaro, well identified as a Trump-like leader and ally. The tariff increase to 50% against India, punishment for buying Russian oil, instantly backfired as that US ally (and most populous nation on Earth) turned to China (India’s perpetual enemy). India’s PM, Narendra Modi, with exceptionally strong local support, refused to budge on what he felt were US efforts to control India’s internal policies. Modi instead joined a bevy of non-aligned and PRC bloc nations in an early September PRC event. Indeed, China is the big winner from Trump’s bully policies.

“[Celebrating WWII ‘Victory Day’ event, showcasing some of China's newest and most advanced weapons, PRC President Xi Jinping] burnished his credentials as a geopolitical powerbroker at a regional security summit in Tianjin, northern China, that ended on Monday [9/1]. He hosted more than 20 world leaders there, including Putin and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi... ‘We should uphold fairness and justice,’ Xi declared at the gathering of the Shanghai Corporation Organization, seemingly trying to claim moral high ground amid the upheaval and strained relationships caused by Mr. Trump's global trade war and isolationist policies. ‘We must oppose the Cold War mentality, block confrontation and bullying practices.’

“Without mentioning the U.S. or its president by name, Xi told the assembled leaders of non-Western countries: ‘We must continue to take a clear stand against hegemonism and power politics.’” CBS News, September 2nd. Also in attendance was Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, President of NATO member Turkey. The message was clear: China was now a stable and reliable partner, with a military second only to the US but growing, a clear alternative to the “unstable, chaotic bully tactics” of the United States. While no Western US allies were in attendance, European nations were already well into trade negotiations with the People’s Republic. China holds itself out as a non-punishing global bully, offering trade advantages compared with the US.

Will placing our military troops in US cities – Chicago is next – become our future? San Francisco-based U.S. District Judge Charles Breyer just found that the Trump administration violated a law known as the Posse Comitatus Act with its June deployment of 4,000 National Guard and 700 active-duty U.S. Marines to Los Angeles. The law sharply limits the use of federal troops for domestic enforcement. The order was stayed until September 12th to allow an appeal.

As the above quote suggests, Americans are also losing hope for their future. “A new Wall Street Journal-NORC poll finds that the share of people who say they have a good chance of improving their standard of living fell to 25%, a record low in surveys dating to 1987. More than three-quarters said they lack confidence that life for the next generation will be better than their own, the poll found… Nearly 70% of people said they believe the American dream—that if you work hard, you will get ahead—no longer holds true or never did, the highest level in nearly 15 years of surveys… The discontent reaches across demographic lines. By large majorities, both women and men held a pessimistic view in the combined questions. So did both younger and older adults, those with and without a college degree and respondents with more than $100,000 in household income, as well as those with less.” Lindsay Ellis and Aaron Zitner writing for the September 1st Wall Street Journal.

Meanwhile, from government influence and massive conflicted self-dealing, the Trump family has almost tripled its net worth since the Donald first became President. The latest grift: “The Trump family’s paper wealth after its flagship crypto venture, World Liberty Financial, opened trading of a new digital currency, WLFI, on Monday [9/1]. The launch is akin to an initial public offering, in which WLFI can now be bought and sold on the open market like a listed company’s shares. World Liberty says founders and team members’ tokens remain ‘locked,’ meaning they still can’t sell them. But the trading launch now puts a real-world valuation on their holdings, which previously were valued based on private sales.” Wall Street Journal, September 2nd.

As Trump bends over backwards to reward his perceived “winners” (read: the mega-rich) and does not give a rat’s derriere for the losers (everyone else, including his MAGA base), Trump is pushing the latter’s piece of the American pie almost entirely off the table. Accurate government statistics and independent financial oversight are Trump’s enemies. If anyone truly thinks pursuing a government-enforced vision of “correct thought” and monied-priorities has made this a better country destined to grow, there’s a bridge in Brooklyn they should think about buying.

I’m Peter Dekom, and this “vision for and of America” isn’t really good for anyone not already a multimillionaire or better… and we should return to being an “America” without blue or red coloration.

­­It’s Almost Funny, Almost… When You Think About it

 

It’s Almost Funny, Almost… When You Think About it

“There were some people who were talking about what their agencies were doing… But generally, what you heard was a competition for who could tell President Trump that he had saved the country more and they started trying to one-up each other.” 

Journalist Maggie Haberman acknowledged.

“I am not a crook.” 

President Nixon said in 1973.

“I’m not a dictator.” 

President Trump said on August 25th

They gathered to pay homage to the Dear Leader, showering him with compliments. Each governmental official was in serious competition for who could heap the greatest praise, offer the greatest token of appreciation, and provide the clearest description as to why Dear Leader was among the greatest of all time. It was a 3 hour and 17 minute marathon White House cabinet meeting on August 26th, not a North Korean Kim-Jong-Il worship session. It followed a litany of fearful corporate and national leaders bearing gifts for Trump, highly placed members of Congress suggesting the Kennedy Center be renamed for the First Lady and even suggesting that Trump’s face should be added to Mt Rushmore (which would look as pictured above). All this at time when Trump’s disapproval level, in virtually all of his policy decisions, was well above his approval level in all relevant polls. Most Americans sensed Trump’s efforts to be a dictator.

As Republican House members were getting trashed in townhall meetings, it was increasingly apparent that in a free and fair election, even with incumbent advantages, that the GOP was very likely to lose both houses of Congress in the 2026 midterms. Trump immediately set about ensuring that there would never again be a free and fair election, by demanding that red states gerrymander the Democratic Party into oblivion (and several red state governors immediate set that effort in motion, as some governors of blue states suggested a counter), Trump ordered a new census (always a once in a decade event, with next constitutionally scheduled census set for 2030) and pledged to eliminate the very popular vote-by-mail system (based on a recommendation from Vladimir Putin to Trump). Gerrymandering? The Supreme Court smiled and feigned helplessness to stop it.

I think Jackie Calmes, LA Times Columnist, said very well on August 28th: “When a president has to say ‘I’m not a dictator,’ we’re in trouble… It took months more for Nixon’s crimes to force him to resign in 1974 ahead of his all-but-certain removal by Congress. But a half-century later, Trump is unabashedly showing every day that he really does aspire to be a dictator. Unlike Nixon, he doesn’t have to fear a supposedly coequal Congress: It’s run by slavish fellow Republicans who’ve forfeited their constitutional powers over spending, tariffs, appointments and more. Lower courts have checked Trump’s lawlessness, but a too-deferential Supreme Court gets the last word and empowers him more than not.

“Americans are indeed in proverbial uncharted waters. Four months ago, conservative columnist David Brooks of the New York Times wrote — uncharacteristically for a self-described ‘mild’ guy — ‘It’s time for a comprehensive national civic uprising.’ It’s now past time.

“Perhaps more troubling than Trump’s ‘not a dictator’ comment was a related one that he made on Monday [8/25] and reiterated on Tuesday [8/26] during a three-hour televised Cabinet praise meeting (don’t these folks have jobs?). ‘A lot of people are saying maybe we like a dictator,’ he said. Alas, for once Trump isn’t wrong. MAGA Republicans are loyal to the man, not the party, and give Trump the sort of support no president in memory has enjoyed.

“A poll from the independent Public Religion Research Institute earlier this year showed that a majority of Americans — 52% — agreed that Trump is a ‘dangerous dictator whose power should be limited before he destroys American democracy.’ Those who disagreed were overwhelmingly Republicans, 81% of whom said Trump ‘should be given the power he needs.’ Americans’ split on this fundamental question shows the extent to which Trump has cleaved a country founded and long-flourishing on checks and balances and the rule of law, not men.

“That Trump would explicitly address the dictator issue this week reflects just how head-spinningly fast his dictatorial actions have been coming at us… The militarization of the nation’s capital continues, reinforced with National Guard units from six red states, on trumped-up claims of a crime emergency. Trump served notice in recent days that the thousands of troops and federal agents will remain on Washington’s streets indefinitely despite a federal law setting a 30-day limit — ‘We’re not playing games,’ he told troops on Friday [8/22] — and that Chicago, Baltimore, New York and perhaps San Francisco are next.”

And yet nothing seems to deter Donald Trump’s quest for subservience and total control. Is it complacency, apathy or that a stunned public simply does not know what to do? This explanation seems consistent with the election of every modern dictator on earth, from Hitler to Orbán. Usually, those that might have been legitimately elected do not destroy elections until far later in their terms of office, but Trump is not certain he will be able to run again, so he wants an election process where only he, his party and his designee can win. And if the American public does react, he just might get his wish.

I’m Peter Dekom, and as factionalized bickering hamstrings the Democrats, the Trump dictator train is accelerating to the targeted victory, a permanent change in how the United States will be governed hereafter.

Doing What America Does Best – Lying

Doing What America Does Best – Lying

Waiting in Line and Doing It Right

“They’re trying their best. They’re waiting in line…But when you have a system that was essentially designed to fail from the beginning, it’s difficult to have faith in that system.” 

 Immigration attorney John Manley addressing the impossible path to citizenship for people from countries like Mexico

Take a good look at the above map. It is what is today continental US territory looked like when we declared our independence from King George III’s Brittain. That vast swath labeled “Spanish Territory” – much of which would wind up in the United States by military victory or purchase – defined the underlying heritage of a rather large section of American history and culture. We had no issue displacing (killing) indigenous people and pushing the white Spanish rulers of old out. Soon, immigrants from Caucasian Europe moved in as if no one lived in those lands. Andrew Jackson made it clear that America was a land for those white immigrants, not the people who lived there for centuries, if not millennia.

Whenever I hear someone say, “make American white again,” I wonder where the “again” is really coming from. Racism has become legitimized to a level not seen since the era of slavery and the Jim Crow time that seems to be what the MAGA evangelical horde has in mind. But it has been the white Europeans who were the “invaders,” not the indigenous people (now mostly mixed blood) who lost their land to the real invaders. As the focus on Donald Trump’s recruitment of thousands of new ICE agents seems to use repelling “invaders” (very much including those from those former Spanish holdings) as a patriotic cause, those who understand the genuine dynamic understand that Trump is recruiting an army loyal only to him above anyone or anything (including the Constitution) else.

Even past Republican presidents from states with strong Hispanic roots, like Ronald Reagan (formerly governor of California) and George W Bush (Texas governor) have embraced legal immigration for those from south of the border, as the Republican Party slowly collapsed any legitimate efforts at “earned” immigration status for such migrants. Reagan presided over the last serious effort at immigration reform (1986), as most Republicans have since supported keeping immigration from Mexico and points south chaotic as a political rallying point against Democrats. It worked. Conspiracy theories, led by Donald Trump, labeled such potential immigrants as rapists, murderers and criminals, even though statistics showed otherwise. In a survey by the National Institute of Justice, looking at the period between 2012 and 2018, “The study found that undocumented immigrants are arrested at less than half the rate of native-born U.S. citizens for violent and drug crimes and a quarter the rate of native-born citizens for property crimes.”

When senior administration officials admonish those undocumented workers to self-deport so as to preserve the right to apply for a legitimate path to US citizenship – words uttered by DHS Secretary Kristi Noem or immigration czar Tom Homan – they know that will never happen. Writing for the July 28th Los Angeles Times, Rachel Uranga crushes that mythology… hard: “John Manley is sick of people telling immigrants to ‘stand in line’ and ‘do it the right way.’

“An immigration attorney for almost three decades in Los Angeles, he said what most don’t understand is that trying to legally come into the United States is nearly impossible for people from certain nations such as Mexico… ‘People are dying in line,’ he said. In some cases, ‘it’s literally a 150-year wait.’… Manley said one of his clients, a U.S. citizen originally from Mexico who petitioned his two brothers to become legal residents, waited more than 15 years and wound up burying them instead of giving them the good news…

“Immigration laws have not seen a wholesale reform in nearly 40 years, but as the Trump administration cracks down on unauthorized migrants, politicians are seeing a window of opportunity. Economists, immigration attorneys and scholars say that without another relief valve, it is not just the immigrants who will suffer but people in a wide swath of the economy.

“Sen. Alex Padilla (D-Calif.) [introduced] legislation that could provide a path to citizenship to 11 million immigrants who have lived in the U.S. for at least seven years. With a Republican-led House and Senate, the legislation, which died last year, is unlikely to pass, but Padilla said he wanted to reintroduce the bill because he sensed a ‘mood shift’ in Congress and across the country… He’s not the only one. This month in the House, Reps. Maria Elvira Salazar (R-Fla.) and Veronica Escobar (D-Texas) dusted off their legislation, the Dignity Act, which would give qualified unauthorized immigrants living here before 2021 up to seven years of legal status with work authorization.

“For decades, Republicans and Democrats have tried and failed to bring reforms to what is widely viewed as an outdated system, which in the last fiscal year approved 3% of the 34.7 million pending green card applications, according to David Bier, a researcher at the Cato Institute… ‘Given the extreme overreach of the Trump administration, I believe now’s the time,’ Padilla said. ‘You talk to colleagues on both sides of the aisle about farmworkers, agricultural workers. They say that farmworkers deserve better, but the political will hasn’t been there for many, many years.’

“But the imagery of Trump’s enforcement actions against noncriminals — videos of mothers wailing as they’re separated from children and arrests of workers and vendors outside Home Depots — have seeped into the national consciousness and drawn criticism across political lines… A Gallup poll released this month showed record-high support for immigration. When asked whether immigration is generally a good thing or bad thing for the country, 79% of U.S. adults called it a good thing. And a record-low 17% viewed it as a bad thing…

“Carl Shusterman, an immigration lawyer who has been practicing since the 1970s, says he sees it every day near his home on the Westside and in his practice… ‘Go into any restaurant and look at who’s cooking the food, or you see who’s building the buildings in the fancy, fancy neighborhoods, or who’s mowing the lawns or taking care of the kids, or just pick almost any industry, and you’ll see that ... there’s no way for these people to get legalized status.’” Yet as our economy is reeling from the loss of these productive, low-cost workers, hardliner-racists like Senior Whitehouse Advisor Stephen Miller scream for more deportation, claiming efforts are removing mostly criminals from the country. In truth, 70% of those deportees have no criminal records.

I’m Peter Dekom, and while most Americans are not hypocrites or cruel, those in charge of our immigration policies are… and worse.

Déjà Vu All Over Again

Déjà Vu All Over Again

First and foremost, we are being relegated to a cult of autocratic personalities, each with eggshell egos, who are determining the future of the United States and most of the rest of the world based on their distorted perceptions and personal needs that have little or nothing to do with the betterment of their people. On our side of the equation is a clear autocrat, absolutely enabled by a captive Congress and a Supreme Court more anxious to placate the President than protect free and fail elections or the Constitution itself. Foreign countries have learned that the way to get favors from Donald Trump is to nominate him for the Nobel Peace Prize. Trump has been taking credit for ceasefires where he doesn’t even know the names of the individual leaders, who actually implemented the end of those local hostilities. Trump is as likely to receive that accolade as would Attila the Hun, where he alive today. Arming military forces to invade and subjugate cities run by his political opponents, blue cities like Los Angeles, Washington, DC and, next he promises, Chicago, Trump’s signature move these days… hardly the stuff a Nobel prize represents.

Vladimir Putin clearly has no serious intention to alter his longstanding belief that Ukraine must both submit to his leadership (ceding territory along the way, even lands he has not yet occupied) and devoid of any meaningful security guarantees. Even as Trump posted on a social media post on August 18th that he had spoken to Putin and set in motion arrangements for a summit at a location to be decided, “Russia’s top diplomat said Friday [8/22] there are no plans for a meeting between Russian President Vladimir Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to discuss their three-year war, days after President Trump said he had begun arrangements for them to sit down together… ‘There is no meeting planned’ between the Russian and Ukrainian leaders, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said in a taped interview for NBC’s” Meet the Press with Kristen Welker. AP, August 23rd. As European leaders met earlier to discuss how security for Ukraine might work, Moscow’s Foreign Minister, Sergey Lavrov, called this effort “a path to nowhere.”

Given how Trump quickly abandoned his most fervent anti-Putin demand for an immediate ceasefire or else there would be “serious consequences,” Putin knew instantly that without the kinds of sanctions and ramped up military aid only the US could provide, ending the war against Ukraine was no longer a priority. That solicitor of the Nobel Peace Prize sabotaged that peace effort. Further, as Trump made any criticism of Israel or any statements of support for Palestinian statehood clear evidence of an individual’s disloyalty to America, support of terrorism, his denial of visas and cancellation of student visas of anyone making such statements is predicated on his statement that constitutional protections do not apply to non-citizens. This expressly contradicts the Supreme Court’s decisions in Bridges v. Wixon (1945, regarding speech that opposed the then current administration) and Boumediene v. Bush (2008 holding that the writ of habeas corpus even applied to prisoners in US custody at the Guantanamo base in Cuba).

As Trump’s unpopularity soared, he pressed red states to resort to gerrymandered districts to give Republicans a 100-seat margin of victory in the House, knowing that the Supreme Court ruled that it could not stop partisan gerrymandering (2019, Rucho v. Common Cause). Democrats have responded with a parallel effort to gerrymander in reverse. The net impact is the potential of a fully and legally rigged 2026 midterm and a 2028 presidential election, one that cannot represent the will of the American people. But if distortions work in Trump’s favor, they have become routine. For example, “Economists expressed alarm at President Donald Trump's moves to undermine the independence of the Federal Reserve and the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

“The U.S. economy has long enjoyed a reputation as the safest place in the world to invest or build a business, which has given the country a nearly incalculable advantage, but economists compared Trump's efforts to stack the central bank with loyalists to cancer – but arguably worse, reported the New York Times… ‘It’s like throwing sand in the gears,’ said Glenn Hubbard, who led the Council of Economic Advisers under George W. Bush. ‘It just makes the economy less efficient.’” Travis Gettys in Raw Story, August 22nd, citing mostly conservative economists. Gettys also interviewed a Trump 1.0 administrator: “A former White House official sounded the alarm on a ‘secret blacklist’ compiled by President Donald Trump's team that tracks the loyalty of more than 550 companies and trade associations.

“Miles Taylor, who wrote the anonymous ‘resistance’ New York Times op-ed while serving in Trump's first administration, called out the loyalty scorecard first reported by Axios as ‘another totally unprecedented (and quasi-authoritarian) development out of the White House’ on his ‘Treason’ Substack page… ‘The goal is apparently to reward public displays of allegiance to the administration and freeze out companies deemed unsupportive of the president’s agenda,’ Taylor wrote. ‘Among other things, the ratings are said to take into account: social media posts, press releases and public endorsements, video testimonials and paid ads, attendance at White House events, and presumably any other gestures of loyalty the administration can log.’”

And even after the UN has officially declared a major famine in central Gaza, impacting half a million people, Israeli autocrat, Benjamin Netanyahu, denies the obvious as he begins his all-out assault on Gaza, with many additional Palestinian casualties expected. I will end today’s blog with an observation from The Economist’s Digital Editor, Adam Robert (August 23rd), noting how collusion between and among autocrats today, reinforces the disappearance of freedom and the rule of law: “Did Churchill ever break into applause at the sight of Stalin, or JFK give a little ovation for Khrushchev? I suspect not. So it was striking to see Donald Trump’s thrilled reaction as Vladimir Putin approached him in Alaska last week. Some online cynics joked that it was natural that the American leader clapped: it’s not every day you get to meet your hero. Too strong? Perhaps. But Mr Trump has shown an abiding affection for the Russian autocrat. As our Lexington columnist notes, the American first praised Russia’s leader on television back in 2007 and has been a steady admirer since. Lexington unpacks the real collusion between the two men.

“My hunch about their relationship: Mr Trump is drawn to anyone who exudes an aura of strength. Talk of morality, rules, duty or strategy bores him. He yearns, instead, to strike bold and quick deals with tough guys and to win prizes and adoration as a result. That makes for an unstable world.” As a rule of thumb, as Trump tends to support the purported strongman in any conflict, regardless of any immoral stance, he heaps criticism and opprobrium on the vulnerable weaker party.

I’m Peter Dekom, and as Trump is now using armed troops against regions of the United States that openly oppose him, ask yourself it this represents your view of democracy and freedom in this country.

Medicine, AI and You – Risks and Benefits

Medicine, AI and You – Risks and Benefits

Studies have shown that over-reliance on AI – increasingly blind reliance on AI solutions – produces inferior results. But the combination of AI with intelligent human interaction shows how well the process can work. But remember, AI is only as good as the algorithms and data fed into the system, plus what that system is allowed to access “out there,” if permitted to explore. Add to this complexity is since AI can be very self-directing, this leads many to the conclusion that we do not completely understand the universe we are creating. It’s more than the old, “garbage in, garbage out,” if you are not completely aware of what goes in… the risks of generative AI, particularly worrying in medical diagnosis and treatment.

But for the medical community, living without AI can generate second-rate medical practices. AI’s ability to find pathways to new treatments, vaccines and the resulting insights… able to conduct virtual experiments over thousands, even millions, of models without risking attempting such solutions in the real world first, is amazing. The ability to analyze complex data (e.g., CT Scans, MRI results, even simple x-rays) and compare the input to millions of comparable screenings where specific diseases or anomalies have been identified (both in living scans and post-mortem analyses), allows the tiniest trace of the identifying characteristic, ones that even seasoned radiologists might easily miss, to diagnose diseases at the earlier, and most treatable phase. In short, AI can save a lot of time… avoid dead-end experiments... “possible, best guess” treatments that go nowhere… and hence lives. Robotic surgery (I’ve had several) increases accuracy, reducing the size of incisions and allowing for instant diagnosis of observations along the way… and AI only makes those processes safer and more efficient.

The aggregation of data, the creation of “basic” software which can teach itself from there, the sophistication of the computing power needed to process it all, and the necessary human training on how to use this technology and maximize both accuracy and the treatment solutions are very expensive. Tech players in this universe are spending billions of dollars to make this all work. That those able to buy and/or create such technology are wildly well funded, puts our future in the hands of the billionaires and mega-corporations able to afford this escalating investment. When this is combined with the GOP agenda of defunding government-supported research… pushing our future into the hands of profit-seekers and those attempting to define and dominate the marketplace, often in defiance of antitrust laws, should worry us all. As Trump’s Big Beautiful Big Bill attests, our current governmental vectors favor the mega-rich (individuals and corporations) at the expense of everyone else. When this applies to AI and medicine, we should be suspicious.

The mergers and acquisitions in this medical AI space track the unbelievably massive valuations and dollars taking place among the biggest of the big boyz. We can note that when smaller companies create more effective interfaces, software and database aggregation, the behemoths in medical AI step in to buy them, often taking these new capabilities out of the competitive marketplace.

One of the primary writers in this space is Ian Krietzberg, who writes for Puck.com. In his July 16th contribution, he notes that not only are sophisticated researchers embracing AI but too many amateurs are engaged in self-diagnosis, a practice destined to increase as Medicaid and other programs face cutbacks, as small clinics and hospitals close and as medical costs continue to skyrocket given our current political push towards more corporate profitability:

“Nearly half of clinicians are now using A.I. for their work. Patients are turning to ChatGPT to self-diagnose mysterious ailments. And everyone from the chief innovation officer of Boston Children’s Hospital to R.F.K. Jr. is excited about the revolution unfolding in plain sight. What could go wrong? … Long before ChatGPT infiltrated classrooms and became an obsession at cocktail parties, Boston Children’s Hospital embarked on what Dr. John Brownstein, its chief innovation officer, described as an ‘A.I. journey.’ For years, Brownstein told me, the hospital had been using machine learning in data-rich environments—like radiology, pathology, or the intensive care unit—to generate ‘predictions’ about patient outcomes. Then came the generative A.I. explosion. Now, Brownstein said, his team is anticipating that A.I. is ‘going to be part of the fabric of almost all the technologies we use in the hospital.’ For many people in the A.I. field, the integration with medicine represents a potential holy grail.

“Obviously, these technologies are still error-prone, and the stakes are much higher when you’re incorporating A.I. into potentially life-or-death healthcare decisions, rather than, say, enabling Gemini in your Gmail. But physicians are finding early success with A.I. tools, and the rate of adoption is steadily ticking up: According to Elsevier’s fourth-annual ‘Clinician of the Future’ report, which was released today [7/16], 48 percent of clinicians had used A.I. for work in 2025, nearly double the 26 percent reported the year before, and more than triple the figure from the year before that. The 2,000 or so physicians who responded to the survey described their primary use cases for A.I. as identifying drug interactions, analyzing medical images, and providing a patient’s medication summary.

“This rapid adoption curve, Brownstein said, can be attributed in part to the industry’s seeming openness to this technology. At Boston Children’s, 30 percent of the hospital’s workforce has already started using A.I., although mostly via ‘low-risk’ applications, like administrative tools. The hospital was also one of the earlier adopters of (controversial) ambient listening tools, which use A.I. to auto-transcribe patient-doctor visits, and has partnered with OpenAI to advance their work on the diagnosis of rare diseases. ‘We’ve been very careful about the deployment of these tools, recognizing that some come with more risk than others,’ Brownstein said, adding that the hospital has also started using physician-facing tools, at least in part, for care guidance”—a step toward wide-scale, predictive, personalized healthcare.

“Still, plenty of doctors remain cautious. In Elsevier’s 2024 survey, 85 percent of clinicians said that A.I. could cause critical errors, and 93 percent were worried about misinformation. In this year’s survey, only 40 percent of clinicians claimed that A.I. could be trusted to assist with clinical decision-making, and only 30 percent said their institutions were providing adequate training—an issue that Brownstein acknowledged as an impediment to adoption. ‘At the end of the day, whoever’s using them has to sign off and take responsibility for whatever the output is,’ he told me. ‘It still resides with the clinician to provide that consideration. Yes, there’s a future world where a lot of patients are going to turn directly to these tools, but that’s not where we are.’”

In the end, there are a pile of medical, political and economic risks that appear to be unavoidable. Compounding this maze of issues is the raw complexity of AI, the “unknowability quotient,” and the proclivity of most Americans to outsource their opinions, when they do not understand the variables, to politicians who may be equally uninformed but are most willing to use the confusion to manipulate their constituents.

I’m Peter Dekom, and Americans do not need to dwell in the small technical details of AI to make informed decisions, but there is enough basic information to demystify the process to an understandable level.

When the International Marketplace No Longer Trusts US Government Reports & Controls

When the International Marketplace No Longer Trusts US Government Reports & Controls

Even Russia has “elections,” but nobody trusts their projected statistics

“The Federal Reserve is a uniquely structured, quasi-private entity that follows in the distinct historical tradition of the First and Second Banks of the United States." 

Unsigned Supreme Court order in Trump vs Wilcox, Supreme Court (May 2025), not allowing the President to fire members of the Fed Board

To most Americans, the machinations and operations of all those bureaucratic money thangs remains a mystery which they generally do not understand. But those “thangs” can destroy an economy and decimate our credibility in a very, very bad way. Over a century ago, the Federal Reserve was created by Congress to act as a fully independent central bank, primarily overseeing the banking industry, overseeing monetary supply and setting federal interest rates within a neutral and credible forum. The idea was to make our financial credibility able to withstand differing election results and to temper those fiscal and monetary changes that were relegated to Congress and the President. For example, the Fed cannot veto congressional budget allocations or limit deficit spending. Until Trump 2.0, the United States set the gold standard for reliable financial data and statistics for all central banks worldwide. We were really trusted.

What the Fed does that allows the government to approve federal budgets with big deficits is to provide objective and reliable data that those we are asking to lend us that deficit shortfall (through the sale of US treasury bonds) have faith in government statistics. And the Fed itself relies on accurate reporting from other federal agencies, like the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), to set its rates and regulations. What it cannot survive is when an elected official, almost always the President, attempts to mandate what the Fed decides. The ability of someone outside of the Fed to intervene and supersede the Fed’s normal neutral operation destroys the US government’s international credibility, and like any bank that does not trust a borrower’s numbers, lenders (those who buy US treasury bonds) either do not lend or, if they do, they jack up the interest rate to cover the increasing risk based on this unreliability factor.

Even as Donald Trump believes if he could force Fed rate (the interest rate the Fed charges federally insured banks, which impacts the overall debt marketplace in various and complex ways) to drop significantly, that would stimulate the economy while reducing borrowing costs, ultimately for consumers. But as Trump has fired the heads of the BLS because he did not like the recent jobs report and has attempted to discharge and preempt Fed Chair Jerome Powell because he won’t drop the fed rate by a large number, the international marketplace, which bully Trump cannot control (he cannot force foreign investor to buy our treasuries at any price he were to set), the international marketplace began quivering, rating agencies were downgrading our credit rating, and we are now forced to pay higher interest yields to make up the difference.

That's reality, which Trump has no power to change. Nations that manipulate financial controls and reported statistics – like Argentina, Iran, Sudan, Nigeria, Zimbabwe, etc. – often watch their annual inflation rates soar, sometime over 100% or more in a single year. One of the major contributors to WWII was the German reaction to hyper currency devaluation as that post-WWI loser nation struggled to pay war reparations to France and other victorious allies. The resulting instability often is reflected in violent civil unrest, where differing factions pledge unrealistic policies to reduce inflation, or outright war. It’s never pretty.

If Trump were able to fire Federal Reserve Board members, he would have the clout to dictate Fed policy and thus decimate its reputation for neutrality. Jerome Powell fought back and, at least until recently, was able to keep those international financial wolves from destroying that cherished gold standard neutrality. Trump then figured all he really needed to do is successfully fire any Fed board member, because if he could fire one, he could fire any of the for “cause.”

Trump, who has been personally held legally responsible for bank fraud, has used a very flimsy excuse of mortgage “fraud” against individuals (particularly an issue for government employees and elected officials who have lived in one jurisdiction but now are forced to work in another, in determining what is a “principal residence). He has used that premise to attack California Senator Adam Schiff and now to attempt to fire Federal Reserve board member, Lisa Cook.

That latter attempt to fire Ms Cook (she refused to go) really shook the international markets, as this report from the August 26th Fortune magazine illustrates: “Markets sold off worldwide after President Trump announced plans to fire Fed governor Lisa Cook and threatened steep tariffs on China, raising fears about Fed independence and the dollar’s role as a reserve currency. S&P futures were down this morning. However some hopes emerged as investors focused on the Fed’s institutional strength.

“There was a global selloff in the markets today [8/26] and every major index—U.S. futures, Asia and Europe—was down this morning. Two major factors drove the negativity: President Trump’s announcement last night that he will fire U.S. Federal Reserve governor Lisa Cook, thus calling into question the economic independence of the world’s most important central bank; and Trump remarking that he may impose 200% tariffs on China if Beijing restricts the U.S.’s access to supplies of rare earth minerals that are 90% controlled by China.” Christopher Rugaber, writing for the August 26th Associated Press, expands, explaining what happens when a weak Fed chair succumbs to political pressure:

“The Fed wields extensive power over the U.S. economy. By cutting the short-term interest rate it controls — which it typically does when the economy falters — the Fed can make borrowing cheaper and encourage more spending, accelerating growth and hiring. When it raises the rate — which it does to cool the economy and combat inflation — it can weaken the economy and cause job losses… Economists have long preferred independent central banks because they can more easily take unpopular steps to fight inflation, such as raise interest rates, which makes borrowing to buy a home, car or appliance more expensive.

“The importance of an independent Fed was cemented for most economists after the extended inflation spike of the 1970s and early 1980s. Former Fed Chair Arthur Burns has been widely blamed for allowing the painful inflation of that era to accelerate by succumbing to pressure from President Nixon to keep rates low heading into the 1972 election. Nixon feared higher rates would cost him the election, which he won in a landslide.

“Paul Volcker was eventually appointed chair of the Fed in 1979 by President Carter, and he pushed the Fed’s short-term rate to the stunningly high level of nearly 20%. (It is currently 4.3%). The eye-popping rates triggered a sharp recession, pushed unemployment to nearly 11% and spurred widespread protests… Yet Volcker didn’t flinch. By the mid-1980s, inflation had fallen back into the low single digits. Volcker’s willingness to inflict pain on the economy to throttle inflation is seen by most economists as a key example of the value of an independent Fed.

“Investors are watching closely… An effort to fire Powell would almost certainly cause stock prices to fall and bond yields to surge, pushing up interest rates on government debt and raising borrowing costs for mortgages, auto loans and credit card debt. The interest rate on the 10-year Treasury is a benchmark for mortgage rates.” Trump supporters believe that because Donald Trump is perceived as a successful businessman, he knows what he is doing. Perhaps he knows that his tariff program combined with his tax cuts for the rich has been the largest upward shift in wealth (at the cost of everyone else) in recent memory. But he clearly does not understand that tampering with the independence of the Fed may appear to be a path to lower US interest rates… but it a rather dramatic path to rampant inflation, for the reasons noted above, at levels consumers have not witnessed in almost a half a century.

I’m Peter Dekom, and those little mysterious goings-on in our financial world, if not properly contained, can inflict a whole lot of hurt for all but the richest in the land who have the assets (some overseas) to withstand Trump’s pending horrific mistakes… but rising unemployment, a real estate crash and hyper inflation are lurking right around the corner.

The American Police State – Heading towards Permanence?

 

     Armed soldiers in front of empty DC restaurant

The American Police State – Heading towards Permanence?

"The chance of having violent acts committed upon you in [House Speaker] Mike Johnson's Louisiana, in red state Louisiana, a red state that Donald Trump carried and every Republican has carried since Bill Clinton… are 400 times higher than in California. Let me say that again, let me underline that again: You have a 400 percent higher chance of being murdered in red state Louisiana, Mike Johnson's home state, than you do on the left coast in Gavin Newsom's California." 

 MSNBC's Joe Scarborough, citing government statistics.

One of the first lessons I learned in analyzing political statements: when politicians cite anecdotal evidence without fact-checkable statistics, prepare for a lie masquerading as spin. When truth and facts no longer matter to our nation’s leadership, democracy withers and dies. This is precisely the traditional justification for dictatorial takeovers and policies driven by the brutal and costly prosecution of critics and opponents. John Bolton, anyone? Intimidation works. And God help any federal employee of note who tells an inconvenient truth that contradicts Donald Trump, even if there is indisputable proof of the accuracy of the contradiction. Bolstered by Israeli intelligence, as Lt. General Jeffrey Kruse was summarily fired as head of the US Defense Intelligence Agency after confirming that Iranian nuclear enrichment sites were not, as Trump has maintained, totally “obliterated” by the US B2 strike in June.

In recent anecdotal statements by Donald Trump, noting the reasons for a spate of additional “my way or the highway” executive orders and city takeovers, he cited as success the lack of murders in DC since the military occupation of that city. He did not mention that locals are staying home in droves, instead citing anecdotal statements he claims to have heard from visitor/friends they have enjoyed excellent meals at local DC restaurants that were “packed.” This flies in the face of restaurant owners and reservation sites (e.g., OpenTable.com) showing that there are between 30% and 50% fewer such diners in DC across the board.

The soldiers in DC, mostly National Guardsmen from red states, are now armed… but not allowed (yet) to arrest anyone. They still do not venture into the high-crime neighborhoods, but their fear and intimidation factor is intense, profoundly undemocratic and very much counter the Posse Comitatus Act, which severely limits the use of federal military in domestic situations. As Trump announces his intention to deploy similar armed forces in “high crime” cities (all with seriously falling crime statistics, even using FBI numbers) – mentioning only blue cities like Chicago, Baltimore, Oakland and New York and completely ignoring red cities with substantially higher crime rates at every level – he seems to be enjoying the new power such deployments yield, compelling him to continue creating a new pseudo-federal statutory system by fiat (executive order). Who needs Congress, and if he cannot force Congress to follow his detailed orders, he will force reconfigure Congress itself?

All of these efforts are amplified by his demand of red states to gerrymander the nation’s congressional voting districts (Texas stepped up first) to ensure that Democrats may never again control Congress or federal elections. The Democratic counter, hemmed in by local neutral districting boards, is at best challenging. In 2019, the Supreme Court of the United States ruled 5-4 in both Rucho v. Common Cause (North Carolina) and Lamone v. Benisek (Maryland) that partisan gerrymandering claims present political questions that fall beyond the jurisdiction of the federal judiciary. So go for it!!!

Even as the United States is rapidly losing the protection of constitutional restrictions, even as lower courts are trying to protect those basic rights, ultra-conservative members of the Supreme Court want to see their draconian mandates enforced to the letter: “A growing sense of frustration with some lower courts — articulated in terms that at times sound similar to Trump’s own rhetoric — has crept into a series of opinions this summer from the Supreme Court’s conservative justices as they juggle a flood of emergency cases dealing with Trump’s second term… Lower court judges may sometimes disagree with this court’s decisions, but they are never free to defy them,” Justice Neil Gorsuch admonished in an opinion last week tied to the court’s decision to allow Trump to cancel nearly $800 million in research grants.” CNN, August 26th.

But the President has zero compunction against ignoring that Court; a new executive order signed by President Donald Trump August 25th bans the burning of the American Flag, in direct contradiction to a precent set by 1989 Supreme Court in the Texas v. Johnson deeming the action an act of "symbolic speech." He fabricated the notion that flag burning incites major riots. Trump’s total justification for sending troops into blue states is predicated on his mere unsupported statements, which resonate well with too many voters, that disproportional crime is primarily a blue state problem that he alone can fix. “Trump’s torrid rhetoric claiming that crime is out of control, which is often misleading, is a classic page from the playbook of strongman leaders. It could precipitate high tensions between the federal government and states over the limits of his constitutional and legal authority…

“The president’s threats prompted alarmed Democrats on Sunday [8/25] to warn that there would be no justification for him to dispatch troops to a city such as Chicago over local opposition… ‘We should continue to support local law enforcement and not simply allow Donald Trump to play games with the lives of the American people as part of his effort to manufacture a crisis and create a distraction because he’s deeply unpopular,’ House Democratic Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries told CNN’s Dana Bash on ‘State of the Union.’” Stephen Collinson, CNN, August 26th.

But unless the Supreme Court intervenes to ban gerrymandering and to limit the President’s use of federal troops in states that won’t vote him under false pretenses, democracy will indeed be replaced by autocracy, and there will be virtually no legal means to reverse that trend. A gerrymandered Congress supported by a rejiggered electoral college will prevent a neutral Supreme Court from ever getting appointed and confirmed to restore democracy. As I have blogged before, the United States has no constitutional basis to allow states to secede from the union, no mechanism even for a national vote to this effect. As Trump crushes our best universities, pulls research grants intended to benefit all Americans, allows a very rich elite to call the shots while cutting benefits for the rest, expect a major exodus of younger Americans to other nations as they seek democracy and equal opportunity that died in the US. And expect the US to falter and succumb to successful competition from other nations.

I’m Peter Dekom, and I am deeply saddened as I spend the rest of my life watching the country I love and adore become a brutal dictatorship based on fabricated “emergencies” and policies devoid of any meaningful factual basis.