U.S. Healthcare – A System Purposely Designed to Benefit the Wealthy and Take from the Rest

 

U.S. Healthcare – A System Purposely Designed to Benefit the Wealthy and Take from the Rest

If you come from a wealthy family, there is so much good news these days. Your taxes will enjoy the largest cut in modern American history under Trump’s Big Beautiful Bill. Students facing massive student loan repayments are having their wages garnished, assuming they can find a job, money for medical research, rural hospitals, student loans for nursing students and subsidies for Affordable Care Act (“Obamacare”) recipients are going or gone… so those burdens have been or will soon be purged from the federal budget… ensuring lower taxes for the foreseeable future. People will be offered a highly discriminatory alternative of buying their own healthcare policies, with premiums, exclusions and caps (particularly on pre-existing conditions… which 40% of adult Americans have) favoring younger, healthier Americans and making health insurance considerably more limited and expensive for the rest.

So, with fewer nurses, higher insurance costs and fewer alternatives for the pre-Medicare group, we may return to the chaos and mass on uninsured Americans that existed before the ACA passed (2010) and when most of its benefits kicked in (2013). The ACA covers roughly 7% of the population, and the ban against those exclusions and limits for preexisting conditions covered most everybody. Bye-bye. California provides a more expansive ACA-driven healthcare exchange (Covered California), has opted for a more comprehensive Medicaid plan, but even California is struggling with how to keep its citizens insured. Since the United States is the only developed nation on Earth without comprehensive universal healthcare, not only are we the outlier… we are actually stepping back from coverage.

Odd that those most likely to see healthcare vaporize are residents in largely rural red states and communities… even in California. Placer County [east of Sacramento to the Nevada border] health officials there and across the country are bracing for an estimated 10 million newly uninsured patients over the next decade in the wake of Republicans’ One Big Beautiful Bill Act.

“The act, which President Trump signed into law this summer, is expected to reduce Medicaid spending by more than $900 billion over that period… ‘This is the moment where a lot of hard decisions have to be made about who gets care and who doesn’t,’ said Nadereh Pourat, director of the Health Economics and Evaluation Research Program at UCLA. ‘The number of people who are going to lose coverage is large, and a lot of the systems that were in place to provide care to those individuals have either gone away or diminished.’

“It’s an especially thorny challenge for states such as California and New Mexico, where counties are legally required to help their poorest residents through what are known as indigent care programs. Under Obamacare, both states were able to expand Medicaid to include more low-income residents, alleviating counties of patient loads and redirecting much of their funding for the patchwork of local programs that provided bare-bones services… Placer County, which estimates that 16,000 residents could lose healthcare coverage by 2028, quit operating its own clinics nearly a decade ago… ‘Most of the infrastructure that we had to meet those needs is gone,’ said Rob Oldham, Placer County’s director of health and human services. ‘This is a much bigger problem than it was a decade ago and much more costly.’

“In December, county officials asked to join a statewide association that provides care to mostly small, rural counties, citing an expected rise in the number of uninsured residents…’ New Mexico’s second-most populous county, Doña Ana, added dental care for seniors and behavioral health benefits after many of its poorest residents qualified for Medicaid. Now, federal cuts could force the county to reconsider, said Jamie Michael, Doña Ana’s health and human services director… ‘At some point we’re going to have to look at either allocating more money or reducing the benefits,’ Michael said.” Christine Mai-Duc and Claudia Boyd-Barrett, writing for the December 27th Los Angeles Times.

Small hospitals are closing. There is a severe doctor and an even greater nursing shortage – but unlike professional nurses, MD candidates have allocated federal resources for student loans… plus federal aid once appropriated to train more nurses has been severely slashed, which adds to the existing problem of securing medical staff. “Nursing, the nation's largest health care profession, is in critical condition. The U.S. faces a shortfall of more than 78,000 full-time registered nurses this year alone, and California's projected nursing workforce gap is among the largest [California accounts for 10% of US nurses]. Nurses are fleeing the profession for familiar reasons: an aging workforce, high turnover and burnout that began long before the COVID pandemic and only deepened after it. But an overlooked cause of this crisis isn't at the bedside - it's in the classroom.

“Nursing schools are not the problem. They are operating under mounting challenges including budget cuts, hiring freezes and a significant number of nurse faculty retirements. Those who remain will take on higher workloads. Not only do we teach in classrooms, but we also scramble to secure training sites for our students and plead with busy clinicians to supervise them during hands-on training in clinical settings. This challenge is particularly severe for California nursing schools, where limited access to clinical placements remains the top obstacle to expanding enrollment...

“The recently-killed Nurse Faculty Loan Repayment program cancels up to 85% of educational loans for those who commit to teach for four years. I know firsthand how vital this program is - it's the only reason I can afford to teach and live in California.

“Congress can pass legislation like the Nursing Workforce Reauthorization Act of 2025, which would maintain funding for nursing education at current levels. This bill has bipartisan support. The Department of Education must recognize nurses as a profession that qualifies for more federal student loans, particularly in states where the cost of living makes academic careers financially precarious.

“For every nurse who's held your hand, helped you deliver a baby or cared for a loved one, there was a nurse educator who taught them how. It's time for us to show America's most trusted profession how much we value them.” My Hanh (Theresa) Nguyen, PhD, a board certified psychiatric-mental health nurse practitioner and an associate professor in the Hahn School of Nursing and Health Science at the University of San Diego as well as a recent alumna of UCLA's National Clinician Scholars Program… Writing for the December 19th Sacramento Bee.” For the developed world’s most expensive healthcare system, we have no excuse for allowing millions of Americans to settle for no or severely limited coverage.

I’m Peter Dekom, and after blogging about healthcare even before the ACA was enacted, we still prioritize wealth over healthcare, and the ONLY solution to this embarrassing anomaly is for us to join the rest of the developed world and offer comprehensive universal healthcare.

Today, Politicians Swear By It

 

Today, Politicians Swear By It

"When Mexico sends its people, they're not sending their best. They're not sending you. They're not sending you. They're sending people that have lots of problems, and they're bringing those problems with us. They're bringing drugs. They're bringing crime. They're rapists. And some, I assume, are good people." 

Campaign speech from Donald John Trump, June 16, 2015

The Internet has brought a certain anonymity to those who embrace personal attacks and toxic speech. Whether they take the form of comments on social media, chat rooms, angry emails… or out-and-out death threats against politicians or those who stand for anything the attacker does not like. If you listened to Homeland Security and the FBI leaders testify before Congress on December 11th, there is no serious threat from domestic terrorism, notwithstanding the litany of death threats and rising political violence against prosecutors, judges and elected government officials criticizing or pushing back against Trump’s wishes.

According to the December 11th Reuters covering that congressional hearing on leadership issues at Homeland Security, including the FBI, “Michael Glasheen, operations director of the FBI's National Security Branch, said antifa was the agency's ‘primary concern’ and ‘the most immediate violent threat that we're facing.’” But Glasheen could not identify “antifa’s” location, leadership or even the extent of its membership… even as rightwing militia – from the Three Percenters, Proud Boys, Constitutional Sheriffs and Peace Officers Association, Oath Keepers, etc. – were openly training using military tactics and semiautomatic weapons against “antifa.”

These militant groups were heavily represented among those convicted of violent felonies for their actions against Capitol Police, the same Capitol they invaded and ransacked on 1/6/21… attackers who were immediately pardoned as soon as Trump began his second term. If you drill down a little bit, you may realize that “antifa” is a fabricated “enemy” representing any outspoken group or individuals that are “woke” or otherwise resisting Trump’s and his cronies’ mandates.

How did we get here? Have genuine domestic terrorist groups, willing to use their militia force to impose Trump’s autocratic demands, found cover under the 1st and 2nd Amendments for their extremism (including lethal “retribution” against officials who disagree with Donald Trump), bolstered by a tsunami of bizarre Supreme Court decisions, including “emergency docket” postponements of decisions that needed to be briefed and argued, yet issued without opinion… and a terrifying “get of jail free” presidential immunity card? Though a trickle of foul language and escalating threats of political violence were already apparent even before Trump 1.0, Trump went a long way to normalize demonizing people, creating a blame target and vile conspiracy theories… and political violence escalated proportionately along the way.

The language of presidents, on both sides of the aisle, has recently escalated to swear words that were routinely bleeped out over publicly available media. It’s downright nasty out there, as Steven Sloan, writing for the December 22nd Associated Press, points out: “As he shook President Obama’s hand and pulled him in for what he thought was a private aside, Vice President Joe Biden delivered an explicit message: ‘This is a big f— deal.’ The remark, overheard on live microphones at a 2010 ceremony for the Affordable Care Act, caused a sensation because open profanity from a national leader was unusual at the time.

“More than 15 years later, vulgarity is now in vogue…. During a political rally this month in Pennsylvania that was intended to focus on tackling inflation, President Trump used profanity at least four times. At one point, he even admitted to disparaging Haiti and African nations as ‘shithole countries’ during a private 2018 meeting, a comment he denied at the time. And before a bank of cameras during a recent lengthy Cabinet meeting, the Republican president referred to alleged drug smugglers as ‘sons of b—.’… It’s no longer accidental… While the Biden incident was accidental, the frequency, sharpness and public nature of Trump’s comments are intentional. They build on his project to combat what he sees as pervasive political correctness. Leaders in both parties are seemingly in a race now to the verbal gutter.

“Vice President JD Vance called a podcast host a ‘dip—' in September. In Thanksgiving remarks before troops, Vance joked that anyone who said they liked turkey was ‘full of s—.’ After one National Guard member was killed in a shooting in Washington [in November] and a second was critically injured, top Trump aide, Steven Cheung, told a reporter on social media to ‘shut the f— up’ when she wrote that the deployment of troops in the nation’s capital was ‘for political show.’

“Among Democrats, former Vice President Kamala Harris earned a roar of approval from her audience in September when she condemned the Trump administration by saying ‘these mother— are crazy.’ After Trump called for the execution of several Democratic members of Congress last month, Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) said it was time for people with influence to ‘pick a f— side.’ Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer of New York said the administration cannot ‘f— around’ with the release of the Jeffrey Epstein files. Democratic Rep. Jasmine Crockett, who recently announced her Senate campaign in Texas, did not hold back this year when asked what she would tell Elon Musk if given the chance: ‘F— off.’

“The volley of vulgarities underscores an ever-coarsening political environment that often plays out on social media or other digital platforms where the posts or video clips that evoke the strongest emotions are rewarded with the most engagement… ‘If you want to be angry at someone, be angry at the social media companies,’ Utah Gov. Spencer Cox, a Republican, said recently at Washington National Cathedral, where he spoke at an event focused on political civility. ‘It’s not a fair fight. They’ve hijacked our brains. They understand these dopamine hits. Outrage sells.’” But open swearing and targeted hate speech, particularly from our leaders, fires up the listeners and, increasingly, is a definite precursor to political violence in a nation with more guns than people.

Other nations (e.g., recently New Zealand) impose guns controls after political violence. Others, with no formal equivalent of the 1st Amendment, determined to stop the fabrication that justifies political violence. Writing for the December 25th Los Angeles Times, Kim Tong-Hyung provides this example that could never fly in the United States: “South Korea’s liberal-led legislature on Wednesday [12/24] passed a bill allowing heavy punitive damages against traditional news and internet media for publishing ‘false or fabricated information,’ brushing aside concerns the legislation could lead to greater censorship.

“Journalist groups and civil liberty advocates urged President Lee Jae Myung to veto the bill pushed by his Democratic Party. They say the wording is vague about what information would be banned and lacks sufficient protections for the news media, potentially discouraging critical reporting on public officials, politicians and big businesses… The Democrats, who have failed to pass similar legislation under past governments, say the law is needed to counter a growing threat of fake news and disinformation that they argue undermine democracy by fueling divisions and hate speech.” Turns out that the dangers of “sticks and stones” pale in comparison with all targeted demonization, provocative conspiracy theories and hate speech, all around us all the time.

I’m Peter Dekom, and the missing ingredient in those hiding their lethal toxicity, under the guise of constitutional rights, is taking responsibility… since some of those utterances cause a whole lot more damage than yelling “fire” in a crowded theater.

Farm Here to Eternity

 

    Major creditors in agriculture the giant, Hansen-Mueller, bankruptcy

Farm Here to Eternity

When the United States of America issued its Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776, the 13 colonies-about-to-become states were mostly agricultural. ”In Colonial America, agriculture was the primary livelihood for 90% of the population, and most towns were shipping points for the export of agricultural products. Most farms were geared toward subsistence production for family use. The rapid growth of population and the expansion of the frontier opened up large numbers of new farms, and clearing the land was a major preoccupation of farmers.” Wikipedia

Inasmuch as farming defined the nascent republic, even so much as to create the basis for congressional representation (why red-blue maps are so visually red), those working in that “field” has steadily declined ever since. Yet, even today, the agriculture industry generates more than $9.5 trillion in economic value, which amounts to 18.7% of the overall national economy, and exports nearly $183 billion in food and agriculture products. Productivity has exploded US agricultural output, and yet less than 2% of the US labor force is engaged in farming, with about 42% (at least before the deportation effort) of that number coming from low-wage, undocumented workers.

Farm states, farmers and those whose livelihoods are generated from that industry are, for the most part, politically conservative. As farmers often live far away from their neighbors, rural social life is often built around the local churches. As much as GPS tracking and modern technology have restructured modern farming, depending on nature for rain and appropriate weather have only served to amplify hope and prayer, religiosity if you will, in rural life. I wanted to start this blog with some preliminary notes on who American farmers are and how import their contributions are to our economy, our very image of who we are as Americans.

But those salt of the earth American farmers – ok including some of those mega-industrial farms too – those bastions of the Republican Party… have been betrayed by the Trump administration, the very government they voted for… in ways likely to change our country forever. No matter how those policies may be voided by the courts or repealed by subsequent administrations, the damage to a vast pool of American farmers just may be irreversible.

It started with Donald Trump’s false assumptions about the workings and values of tariffs. As his seemingly insatiable and vacillating need to impose massive tariffs on a global basis exploded, not only did nations impacted by those tariffs – and no, nations do not pay tariffs, but their exporting citizens may watch such tariffs decimate their traditional overseas markets – retaliated with reciprocal tariffs against US goods, their domestic importers resourced vast pools of traditional US imports with comparable products from other countries.

China has been a long-time importer of US agricultural products, but when slapped by a huge American duty on their exports to the US, China abruptly shifted its agricultural purchase orders to other nations… completely substituting the need to buy American. Brazil and Argentina were immediate beneficiaries. Grain farmers have particularly been hit by these trade disruptions, noting that the US farms that bore the brunt of such Chinese retribution grew soya beans. In 2024, China accounted for 54% of our exports of those beans. So, the bumbling Trump administration is offering farmers who lost traditional sales by reason of these new tariffs, is offering taxpayer payments to them of $12 billion… even when the direct and immediate loss, without considering the expected future losses, was much closer to $35 billion.

What sure looked like pouring salt into those US agricultural wounds – shoring up a rightwing Argentinian government facing a currency crisis with tens of billions of Trump-ordered US dollars – made a whole lot of US farmers seethe with anger. “The farming community has been hit by Trump’s trade war with China in both of his presidential terms. During the first Trump administration $23 billion was paid out to help farmers affected by simmering tensions between Washington and Beijing, according to Reuters. In 2025, farmers are expected to receive $40 billion in economic and disaster aid… Earlier this year China agreed to buy at least 12 million metric tons of US soya beans however it remains to be seen if it fully complies.

“Farmers are set to meet with their bankers for loans to buy seed, fertilizer and other inputs for spring planting [starting in the new year]. Many farmers are likely to carry over debt from operating loans taken out last year, they fear. Agricultural credit conditions have declined for crop farmers, according to the Kansas City Federal Reserve Bank. Weaker farm income has reduced liquidity and increased demand for financing… Farmers may seek to plant more soya beans in 2026, even though export demand for that crop is lower, and it’s less profitable than corn, according to Arlan Suderman, chief commodities economist at StoneX.

“Farm bankruptcies are likely to top 1,000 this year, with Arkansas hit harder than any other state. That would be well above the 2019 peak of 599 filings but far below the high point of nearly 6,000 bankruptcies in 1987 during the 1980s farm crisis. While farmers are under financial stress, Arlan Suderman, chief commodities economist at StoneX, said he does not expect a repeat of that crisis… The outlook for the farm economy is pessimistic heading into 2026, Suderman said, but conditions could change dramatically if China resumes purchases of U.S. agricultural exports and the Environmental Protection Agency pushes for more domestic biofuel production.” Somaiyah Hafeez for the December 22nd RawStory/The Mirror US.

Fertilizer, farm equipment (even US-made given tariff-driven increase in aluminum and steel) and other farming necessities have soared in price, just as global demand has fallen. One particular bankruptcy, joining many others for the reasons noted above, illustrates the bankruptcy ripple effect:

“Farmers across the Midwest and South faced a sudden financial crisis in late October when payments for their harvested grain failed to arrive. From Nebraska to Texas, producers who had delivered crops to a major grain buyer [half-billion-dollar valued Hansen-Mueller] found themselves waiting for checks that never came. Phone calls to the company went unanswered, and as days passed, concern turned to alarm. By early November, the scale of the problem became clear: thousands of farmers and agribusinesses were owed millions, with no explanation in sight.” PennyGem, December 24th. Many farmers expecting those payments, along with some major companies as denoted above, were devastated. Many filed resulting bankruptcies as well.

According to the Red River Farm Network (December 22nd): “The sale of assets from the Hansen-Mueller bankruptcy [was finalized on December 22nd] in Nebraska. Kansas-based Redwood Group has been selected as a successful bidder on spring wheat and oat contracts in Grand Forks; a facility lease and oat contracts in Superior and Duluth and oat contracts in Sioux City. Redwood Group won the bid on business in Kansas City and Houston and railcar leases. North Dakota-based Paterson Grain has the winning bid on a facility lease and oat and barley contracts in Toledo, Ohio. A wheat facility in Sioux City and wheat contracts in Council Bluffs and Kansas City went to West Plains LLC. Hansen-Mueller filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy last month after failing to pay farmers for grain deliveries.” Trump may have destroyed farming livelihoods for thousands of American farmers, but somehow, he continues to have support from that group… so far.

I’m Peter Dekom, and fabricating or distorting economic statistics to parade failed economic policies… finally… is convincing millions of Americans who voted for Donald Trump that they made a big mistake… but will they remember for the midterms… if there are any?

The Disunited Kingdom of America

 

The Disunited Kingdom of America

Power, once taken and not immediately challenged, is seldom given back. Donald Trump has never been less popular. The vast majority of Americans believe he is damaging the economy, that his immigration policies are both cruel and miss his pledge to focus on “the worst of the worst,” and his pursuit of the hallmarks of a monarch are profoundly un-American. He has positioned his minions to take many of the arrows aimed at him. Stephen Miller and Russell Vought are calling the policy shots and using their 900+ page Project 2025 manifesto as their blueprint to reshape America. He has “busses in waiting” to roll over them if necessary.

Having completely made the Department of Justice, layered with his former private lawyers and purged of anyone who won’t follow orders, is now his personal instrument of retribution, a huge law firm that is dedicated to his mandate, he does not have to instruct his minion Attorney General Pamela Bondi to obstruct the Epstein inquiry, even under hard-fought but near unanimous disclosure law. He could release everything with one of his executive orders… but he remains silent. Bondi knows, wink-wink, that she will play games such that the information the public seeks is unlikely to be fully disclosed until there is a Democrat in the White House, assuming elections continue. Everyone in Trump’s cabinet understands what to do without a direct order. The above self-portrait makes his control most clear. He appointees may soon be blame victims.

We watch the machinations of FCC Chair Brendan Carr mirror the President’s de facto repeal of the First Amendment, threatening media giants (especially those seeking merger and acquisition approval) with license challenges and blocks to their corporate growth ambitions. He managed to pull several late-night hosts off the air or end their contracts; he loves suing news outlets for defamation, knowing that since they depend on his administration for corporate approvals, they have or will likely write him big settlement checks. But his Billionaire Battalion is slowing putting the squeeze on their recent media asset acquisitions (e.g., the mega-billionaire Ellison family’s acquisition of Paramount – which includes CBS News now under very conservative leadership) and strongly suggesting that to win government approval (read: Trump’s), in the current bidding war for WBD control, Warner Bros Discovery’s CNN better fall into some Trump-lover’s hands.

For those of us who watched the listing for a story on the December 21st CBS News’ 60 Minutes, we were expecting an exposé on Homeland Security’s cruel deportation practices. But CBS removed that segment at the last moment. As the December 22nd CNN tells it: “CBS News’ ‘60 Minutes’ is facing a credibility crisis after it abruptly shelved a segment featuring the accounts of Venezuelan men deported by the Trump administration to a notorious maximum-security prison in El Salvador. The correspondent who reported the story, Sharyn Alfonsi, said in an internal memo that ‘the public will correctly identify this as corporate censorship.’ According to Alfonsi and two CBS sources who spoke with CNN on condition of anonymity, the story had been fully fact-checked and legally vetted by the time the network publicized it on Friday [12/29]. But [recently appointed] CBS News editor-in-chief Bari Weiss weighed in with questions on Saturday [12/20] morning, the sources said, and Alfonsi said Weiss ‘spiked the story.’”

But as the President who is responsible for extra-judicial executions of Trump-labeled “narco-terrorists” in small boats carrying the relatively minor drugs (cocaine and marijuana vs the main culprit, fentanyl) in small boars, having just pardoned the narco-kingpin who enabled 400 tons of cocaine to be smuggled into the US – former Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernandez convicted and serving a very long sentence in a US federal penitentiary – it became clear that Trump really does not and did not care about illicit narcotics coming into the US.

Trump believes he should win the Nobel Peace Prize, even as most of the nations involved in the peace agreements he claims to have created either deny he was the party who made it happen or such agreements are unraveling fiercely (e.g., Gaza). Still, even if he has to force it, he wants that prize he could never win in an objective world. “President Donald Trump’s aides demanded that FIFA’s made-up ‘peace prize’ awarded to him be literally as big as the World Cup… The White House gave FIFA a list of demands regarding the inaugural FIFA Peace Prize, which was invented by FIFA president Gianni Infantino, 55, to present to Trump at the World Cup draw for the 2026 games, according to a report from The Times of London.” The Daily Beast. December 20th.

Ladies and gentlemen, unfortunately we have a king. Writing for the December 21st, New York Times, Peter Baker points out: “In his first year back in office, Mr. Trump has unabashedly adopted the trappings of royalty just as he has asserted virtually unbridled power to transform American government and society to his liking. In both pageantry and policy, Mr. Trump has established a new, more audacious version of the imperial presidency that goes far beyond even the one associated with Richard M. Nixon, for whom the term was popularized half a century ago.

“He no longer holds back, or is held back, as in the first term. Trump 2.0 is Trump 1.0 unleashed. The gold trim in the Oval Office, the demolition of the East Wing to be replaced by a massive ballroom, the plastering of his name and face on government buildings and now even the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, the designation of his own birthday as a free-admission holiday at national parks — it all speaks to a personal aggrandizement and accumulation of power with meager resistance from Congress or the Supreme Court.

“Nearly 250 years after American colonists threw off their king, this is arguably the closest the country has come during a time of general peace to the centralized authority of a monarch. Mr. Trump takes it upon himself to reinterpret a constitutional amendment and to eviscerate agencies and departments created by Congress. He dictates to private institutions how to run their affairs. He sends troops into American streets and wages an unauthorized war against nonmilitary boats in the Caribbean. He openly uses law enforcement for what his own chief of staff calls ‘score settling’ against his enemies, he dispenses pardons to favored allies and he equates criticism to sedition punishable by death.”

Trump is struggling to rig the mid-terms so the Democrats will never take over either House of Congress… now or in the future. He may well dispense with elections altogether as “corrupt,” sending federal troops to seize ballots and voting machines if he cannot stop the voting entirely. With the criminal complicity of the conservative majority of Supreme Court, power has been wrongfully taken from Congress and even most federal courts and handed, without guardrails, to Donald Trump, whose family wealth has increase by multiples from Trump favored deals around the world. I wonder when we will see the Trump’s Washington Monument, the Trump’s Lincoln and Jefferson Memorials. How about some more big, expensive Trumpy military parades?

I’m Peter Dekom, and unless a MAGA/Trump congressional constituency get the guts to confront what appears to be a physically and mentally unstable autocratic President, we may have to rely on a medical reality that simply ends Trump’s ability to function… on any meaningful basis… or?

Labels as Unconstitutional Weapons of Miss- and Mass Destruction

Labels as Unconstitutional Weapons of Miss- and Mass Destruction

“People in the Western world are accustomed to threats being confined to external enemies, such as the Soviet Union and today Putin’s Russia, China and Islamists in Iran. But the real threat to the West has nothing whatsoever to do with these countries. The threat to the West is internal in the structure of Western ideas that have been unfolding for a century and that demonize the existence of the western world as a racist collection of white supremacists who exploit and suppress people of color. This narrative creates hatred both internal and external of white Western Civilization. It destroys white self confidence and deprives white ethnicities of the ability to defend themselves. The demonization of Western Civilization is institutionalized in Western education.” 

Paul Craig Roberts. Former United States Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Economic Policy

We have devolved into a society where those currently in power believe that if they use the right label, they can literally justify murder, declare war as a fabricated defense strategy and justify taking away fundamental rights accorded to American citizens and those residing within the United States. We have rightwing legislators telling us that those “settlers” from Europe were not immigrants (huh?) but destined to control this new land and those living in it as a natural right. They challenge the “rule of law” (enacted statutes where everyone is protected by and accountable to the law), preferring to manufacture fiats, justified by those labels, imposed on everyone (except themselves) by authoritarian elites (they prefer “rule by law” which they designate by non-democratic means).

Their excuses are manifold. Some claim that those not part of that rule-making elite are simply not qualified to rule. The Irish, Italian and Jewish immigrants to the United States in the 19th and 20th centuries were battered by the descendants of white “settlers” that preceded them. Blacks? They say the 14th Amendment only applied to slaves. These European white immigrants were described as undesirables, incapable of being assimilated into American “values,” individuals that would infect the purity of those prior settlers. That seems to have been a mistaken assumption. People of differing races/ethnicities and non-Christian beliefs continue to fall under that “they cannot assimilate” or ‘will dilute and ultimately destroy the purity of Western civilization” rubric We used to scoff at these attitudes – firmly held in countries like Hungary today – and rising in popularity in many Western allies. Today, these attitudes are everywhere in this country.

All Donald Trump has to do to annihilate small-boat-purported narco-traffickers is to label them as terrorists, whose drugs wage war on innocent Americans, adding that fentanyl is now “officially” a “weapon of mass destruction.” Don’t need congressional or judicial approval as long as the right label is used. We can take back citizenship, or deny that it was ever appropriate, if those who are American citizens exercise their rights under the Constitution (particularly the “Bill of Rights”) in a manner that offends the elite taking or who have taken power. For those who have applied for US citizenship, met all the requirements of citizenship and were about to attend that sacred swearing in ceremony, they are seeing ceremonies cancelled.

Writing for the December 10th Time Magazine, Rebecca Schneid reports: “Lawyers for legal aid groups and individuals seeking citizenship have reported across the country that their naturalization interviews and oath ceremonies have been cancelled, some at the last moment as they waited in line… These cancellations, at the last stage of a bureaucratic journey that can last for years, have caused chaos and confusion for thousands of immigrants who did everything by the book.

“The cancellations stem from sweeping new restrictions on legal immigration introduced by President Donald Trump in the aftermath of the killing of a National Guardsman in Washington, D.C., particularly targeting immigrants hailing from the 19 countries listed in a June White House proclamation that imposed new travel and visa restrictions on countries ‘of concern.’” Writing for the December 11th Associated Press, Rebecca Santana tells of this paranoia, just as the US is about to host World Cup Competition and the Olympics, of a travel industry killer, if the government actually imposes such rules:

“Foreigners who are allowed to come to the United States without a visa could soon be required to submit information about their social media, email accounts and extensive family history to the Department of Homeland Security before being approved for travel… The notice published Wednesday [12/10] in the Federal Register said Customs and Border Protection is proposing collecting five years’ worth of social media information from travelers from select countries who do not have to get visas to come to the U.S. The Trump administration has been stepping up monitoring of international travelers and immigrants.

“The announcement refers to travelers from more than three dozen countries who take part in the Visa Waiver Program and submit their information to the Electronic System for Travel Authorization, or ESTA, which automatically screens them and then approves them for travel to the U.S. Unlike visa applicants, they generally do not have to go into an embassy or consulate for an interview.”

It also seems that the Department of Homeland Security, which has arrested more than a few American citizens in their immigration sweeps, is hell-bent on changing the rules for all US citizens: “The dispute flared after [senior U.S. Border Patrol officer, Greg] Bovino responded on social media to online criticism surrounding a widely shared incident involving a young man described as a U.S. citizen who was detained by federal agents. In his response, Bovino wrote: ‘One must carry immigration documents as per the INA. A REAL ID is not an immigration document.’…

“Because the comment was posted in reaction to complaints about a U.S. citizen being questioned or detained, critics interpreted it as implying that citizens, too, should be prepared to show documentation proving lawful status—effectively a ‘papers, please’ standard… Federal law does impose a “carry your papers” requirement—but it applies to non-citizens, not U.S. citizens.” Thomas Smith, writing for the December 20th, Newsbreak.com.

Labels from the oft and misused “creeping communism,” “radical leftists,” “haters of America” and the use of the most mysterious “Antifa,” a purported organization with no known address, no identified members or leaders, that is generally a fabricated terrorist group that simply disagrees with Trump and his policies. But Trump uses these labels to rile up his base… and the result appears to foment and justify political violence. Perhaps, Trump may want Americans to learn German so that they fully understand these new rules and where they seem to have originated.

I’m Peter Dekom, and if my blog and/or podcast stop for some unknown reason, perhaps I didn’t have my papers on me when I was detained.

What Happens When Lower Federal Courts Still Believe in the Constitution

 

What Happens When Lower Federal Courts Still Believe in the Constitution

And the Supreme Court Does Not?

Whether it is classical “take ‘gifts’ or money” from those whose cases are likely to come before you or flagrantly announce to the world where you stand politically, the result is corruption and a loss of trust before the general public. Thus, we have Supreme Court Justices literally taking advantage of their rather unique complete lack of any constitutional ethical restrictions; short of impeachment by a highly partisan Congress, they are not bound by the same rules of ethics that apply to every other federal judge. All judges and justices – state and federal – are expected to put aside their personal biases, their political affiliation (including any deference to who appointed them), steer clear of obvious improprieties and embrace neutrality. Except the United States Supreme Court. The two most blatant violators on that Court are Justices Alito and Thomas.

“Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito has been infuriating his critics for years. He has gone on undisclosed luxury vacations with conservative donors who have business before the court. He appears to have leaked the result of a major case to conservative activists before the decision was announced…. But the revelations … concerning the political flags flown at Alito’s homes [pictured above] — an upside-down American flag in the days after Jan. 6, 2021, and an ‘Appeal to Heaven’ flag in the summer of 2023 — have pushed Alito’s behavior into an entirely different realm, one that raises serious questions about Alito’s partisanship, his ethics and the integrity of the court… The upside-down American flag has historically been used as a sign of distress by the U.S. military but became a symbol of support for Donald Trump’s ‘Stop the Steal’ movement following the 2020 election, and the Appeal to Heaven flag has been used by Christian nationalists. Both were flown by Jan. 6 rioters.” Politico, May 30, 2024

Through benefactor Harlan Crow and the rightwing mega-wealthy cadre he represents, Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas has far exceeded the largesse bestowed on Justice Alito, including a super-luxury motor home, lavish vacations (as reflected in the two photographs to the right above), with financial benefits accorded to family members. Thomas has been less overt than Alito in his unbridled support for Donald Trump, leaving political pressure to his wife, Virginia. “Ginny” was strident in the “Stop the Steal” movement, for example.

While Alito and Thomas weren’t obviously “right wing litmus test” appointments, virtually every other federal justice appointed by Donald Trump was. When a legal system defers to the whims of a single leader, the constitutional guardrails begin to collapse. I think it is valuable to reach back to my 2018, Rule of Law vs Rule by Law, blog to understand that most relevant underlying principle:

Who creates the laws, and their reference points and political, legal or cultural limitations determine rule of or by the law. A theocracy, like Iran, elevates Quranic law, as interpreted by Shia’s highest theologians above any laws created by human beings. Germany’s Nazi Party also had a legal system, but its laws were applied to amplify individual power and the party of the Fuhrer himself. When the law emanates from a single leader, one who cannot be contained by a judicial system, that is clearly rule by law. The LexisNexis Rule of Law Foundation determined that “rule of” requires examination of four core values, noting that “The stronger each of these components are, the greater the rule of law.

• Equality Under the Law - All people, businesses and governments are accountable, and the law applies to everyone in the same way, no matter who you are.
• Transparency of Law - Laws must be clear, precise, affordable and accessible while protecting fundamental human rights.
• Independent Judiciary - An independent judiciary ensures equality and fairness of law between people and public officials.
• Accessible Legal Remedy - There must be access to timely resolution in a court of law.”

It is little wonder, then, a move to autocracy almost always starts with the wannabe dictator’s attack on the judiciary. It can be personal attacks on individual judges… or attacks on the “integrity” judicial decisions. If a government can simply ignore a judicial decision or appoint judges who are merely rubber stamps to the determination of a unilateral authority, that system of government cannot protect its citizens from the arbitrary application of the law, an essential trait for “Rule of.” Recent decisions of Trump’s reconfigured Supreme Court reflects partisanship on steroids and an overt deference to a single, supreme authority figure: The President.

But even if the Supreme Court has produced a “rule by law” 6-3 rightwing cabal, there is a rising rebellion among federal trial and appellate judges that simply refuse to play the “autocracy game.” These “rule of law” judges, some appointed by Trump himself, have been subject to personal attacks by the President, when they do not “follow orders,” and many have, as a result, faced death threats (to themselves and their families) just for doing their job. Writing for the December 1st Washington Post, Brianna Tucker explores this noble assemblage of honorable federal judges:

“In a dozen interviews with The Washington Post, former judges and one soon-to-be-retired judge described a judiciary under incredible strain and its integrity threatened by partisan attacks, antagonistic rhetoric from public officials and ambiguous decisions handed down by the nation’s highest court… Many judges said the politicization of judges, the Supreme Court’s expanding use of emergency dockets and sustained criticism from the Trump administration have pushed the courts and democracy to a fragile tipping point—one where cooperation with rulings and adherence to the rule of law can no longer be assumed.

“‘There’s not a person in our country that, whether they think about it or not, does not depend upon the ability of these fundamental rights and liberties to be protected in an action in court if there is someone who violates that,’ said Paul Grimm, a retired judge for the U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland… The consequences, judges warn, are already becoming visible in who’s willing to serve as a jurist, global shifts in judicial norms and the types of justice the U.S. system can still deliver…

“The judiciary is considered the weakest of the government’s three branches. It can’t enforce its orders and relies on compliance from other branches, persuasion and perception for efficacy. The former judges strongly maintain that courts are the sole backstop to power imbalances and backsliding into authoritarian government… The White House dismissed the criticisms of the judges, citing ‘unlawful’ lower-court rulings…‘The real threat to the rule of law are these lower court judges who are consistently ignoring the law in service of their own personal political agenda. The reality is, with over 20 Supreme Court victories, the Administration’s policies have been consistently upheld as lawful,’ White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson said in a statement.

“But some of them warn that Trump’s clashes with judges echo how leaders in foreign countries sought to undermine the strength of their courts—from right-wing court reforms in Hungary to attempts by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to shift power away from the judiciary… ‘All you have to do is look back on what occurred in Nazi Germany,’ said Barbara Pariente, a former chief justice on the Florida Supreme Court.” The Department of Justice has become Trump’s personal law firm charged with inflicting “retribution” on his political enemies, and he is using federal agents and troops as his personal instruments, often acting without warrants or even valid and clear identification, against US citizens.

I’m Peter Dekom, and what the Trump administration, its appointees and its officials are creating is a one-party autocracy under his direct and sole authority… without reference to the US Constitution.

 

The Parallel Universe of Trump’s MAGA Land

Living in a World of Post-Truth Politics

“These are numbers that don’t make a lot of sense but they kinda sound good.” 

Statistician Andrew Gelman

“In essence, the insistence on ‘alternative facts’ stymies the possibility of compromise. When one side clings to its own version of reality, there can be no constructive debate or middle ground. Each faction becomes entrenched in its own worldview, unwilling or unable to understand the other. Democracy thrives on the ability to reach compromise through debate; when this fundamental aspect of political negotiation is undermined, democracy falters.“ 

Marc Friedman, blogger, October 29, 2024

“The MAGA religion thrives on grievance, nostalgia, and the intoxicating allure of a strongman’s promises. It replaces scripture with tweets, prophets with pundits, and salvation with slogans. Yet, like all dogmatic movements, its greatest weakness is reality—an inconvenient truth that, sooner or later, even the most fervent faith cannot ignore. Until then, the MAGAnites march on, mistaking zeal for wisdom, rage for righteousness, and a golden idol for a god.” 

Blogger Ivan4America, May 2nd.

What truly frustrates so many in the anti-Trump/MAGA world, even as fissures are finally cracking into that parallel universe, is the utter rejection of empiricism, refusal to analyze and think like the elites they despise. Yet MAGA land is struggling with the Epstein files and the disconnect between Trump’s rosy picture of the economy and his followers simply being unable to find that rosiness in their own lives. They were promised “America First” and a withdrawal of American involvement in foreign conflicts, as Trump baits Venezuela with boat strikes and one of our largest fleets hovering nearby. Trump’s 18-minute speech on December 17th touted a “reality” that challenges the hard perception of so many of his committed followers… and subsequent poll numbers show his efforts are falling on increasingly deaf ears.

But Donald Trump’s proclivity to fabricate (see his hand-drawn and very incorrect embellishment of a NOAA hurricane map above) and exaggerate are seen some as the gospel, others as merely illustrative and still others as flat wrong. Michael Hiltzik, writing for the December 19th Los Angeles Times, notes: “Much attention has been focused on Donald Trump’s use of words — that is, his peculiar style of oratory. But more attention should be paid to another feature of his discourse: his use of numbers.

Trump doesn’t use numbers the way most of us do, as ‘things that can be added, subtracted, multiplied, and divided,’ as Columbia University statistician Andrew Gelman put it. Rather, he uses them as rhetorical objects… That habit was vividly on display during Trump’s televised speech Wednesday night [12/17]. He claimed that President Biden’s immigration policies had admitted ‘11,888 murderers.’ That his own tariffs and trade deals had brought in ‘$18 trillion of investment’ from abroad. That deals he negotiated with drug companies and foreign countries had ‘slashed prices on drugs and pharmaceuticals by as much as 400, 500 and even 600 percent.’…

“It’s almost tempting to call all these assertions ‘whoppers,’ but that hardly does justice to the sheer audacity of Trump’s number-mongering. Yet, again, his goal is not to provide numbers to be added, subtracted, multiplied and divided, but to shower his audience with numbers big enough to make their eyes glaze over.

“As Gelman observes, the problem with this approach as policy ‘is not just the innumeracy, it’s the blithe disregard for it, the idea that being off by multiple orders of magnitude ... just doesn’t matter.’ The Trump tradition is to dismiss hard information as ‘fake news’ or ‘alternative facts,’ and hope that voters will just go along… Stay tuned, because Trump’s numbers are likely to get ever more preposterous. But actual math can be a harsh mistress, and it may not be long before the absurdity of Trump’s version becomes obvious to everyone.”

If evangelical MAGA followers, believe Trump is the anointed one, I wonder whom they think created the laws of physics. In post-truth MAGA America, ideology has replaced facts. Matthew McIntosh, in the October 25th Brewiminate, posits: “This transformation has not occurred in isolation. The digital age has supplied the perfect infrastructure for post-truth politics, a sprawling ecosystem of echo chambers, algorithmic curation, and viral storytelling that rewards outrage more than accuracy. Within that environment, MAGA became less a political movement than a shared mythology, one sustained by repetition and ritual rather than evidence or accountability.

“The danger is not only that facts are ignored, but that they are replaced, redefined by those who wield emotional authority. When evidence collides with identity, identity often wins. And when entire communities begin to live within those identity-based realities, institutions built on shared verification (courts, elections, journalism) start to lose legitimacy. What follows is not merely misinformation, but disorientation: a public sphere in which persuasion no longer requires proof, only conviction.

“This is the crisis of belief at the heart of post-truth America. It is not a temporary fever but a reordering of how truth itself functions in political life. The question that now confronts the nation is stark: can a democracy survive when its citizens no longer agree on what is real?... “Digital media has amplified this shift. Algorithms that reward engagement (likes, shares, and emotional intensity) have effectively transformed anger into currency. Studies by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have shown that false information spreads faster and farther than factual reporting on platforms such as X (formerly Twitter) and Facebook. The architecture of attention itself has become post-truth, privileging speed, simplicity, and outrage over nuance and verification. The political consequence is a populace that no longer consumes information to learn but to belong.

“The erosion of factual consensus, however, is not simply a media problem. It reflects a broader cultural redefinition of what truth means. For much of the twentieth century, Americans shared a baseline of institutional trust (in science, journalism, the judiciary, and education) even amid political divides. In the MAGA era, that baseline has collapsed. Truth is no longer a common space but a contested one, shaped by emotional narrative rather than empirical evidence. This is not just epistemological drift; it is a civic unraveling.

“The loss of that shared foundation marks a profound transformation in American life. When facts lose their gravity, politics ceases to be a forum for debate and becomes a theater of belief. What once anchored public discourse now floats freely, pulled not by reason but by feeling and by those most adept at manipulating it.” Until that world is shattered by an avalanche of painful facts slamming into the sham-filled ideology. Do new leaders redefine that body of assumptions? Do such notions fade in time? Or are they replaced by another set of toxic values? Worse, do they take down the very society that gave them the freedom to entertain and spread those falsehoods in the first place?

I’m Peter Dekom, and history shows cycles of deep and cruel religiosity are often replaced by periods of enlightenment and invention… or….

So Why Is It So Cold, Wet, Drought-Ridden and Storm Damaged Out There

 Toxic Alaskan runoff as ice melts  

                                    Montana’s Glacier National Park

So Why Is It So Cold, Wet, Drought-Ridden and Storm Damaged Out There?

If Climate Change is About Global Warming, Please Explain

With so many conflicts around the world centered on access to oil and gas, including releasing Russian and Venezuelan reserves into an already glutted marketplace, why do so many believe that continuing to base major economies on fossil fuels is sustainable? Short-term visions and greedy nationalist denials of climate change produce an easy button from those countries where fossil reserves are massive and still define their economies. The United States has switched from embracing alternative energy to lying to return to an oil-based growth paradigm. The EPA seems to have become the Environmental Petroleum Accelerator. Even looking at changes in the real EPA’s website, you can watch as purposeful distortion has replaced scientific logic.

Writing for the December 11th FastCompany.com, Kristin Toussaint, gives us a reminder of how American denial works: “Human activity is driving climate change; that’s a fact that more than 99.9% of scientific papers agree on… But the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has quietly removed that information from a web page explaining climate change’s causes… It’s yet another move by the Trump administration that downplays climate science. Trump has previously called climate change a ‘hoax’ repealed numerous climate laws, and has bolstered the use of fossil fuels, the burning of which are the main cause of rising heat-trapping greenhouse gas emissions.

“An EPA page titled ‘Causes of Climate Change’ once began by directly noting that ‘since the Industrial Revolution, human activities have released large amounts of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, which has changed the earth’s climate.’… Now, that page begins by stating, ‘Natural processes are always influencing the earth’s climate and can explain climate changes prior to the Industrial Revolution in the 1700s.’…

“Daniel Swain, a climate and weather scientist at the University of California Agriculture and Natural Resources, noticed the change earlier this week [mid-December]. It began when a weather communications colleague reached out to him about the EPA’s ‘Indicators of Climate Change’ section being offline… That section wasn’t just one web page, but an entire subdomain that included data, maps, and detailed stories on certain climate change indicators like shrinking glaciers and rising sea levels. It was often used by experts, including Swain himself, to grab ready-made info graphics and other resources.” We’re making cars that still rely mostly on diesel or gasoline power, which is not helping Detroit. China, which accounts for almost three-quarters of alternative energy investment and manufacturing, also exports about a third of all vehicles internationally. And when the hard numbers surface, the resultant metrics suggest not only the big temperature vectors but a strong interplay among all of the changes producing dire results.

“The Arctic last season was the hottest it has been in the past 125 years. The extent of sea ice during its usual maximum in March was the lowest in 47 years of satellite recordkeeping. The North American tundra was more green with plant life than ever recorded… ‘The Arctic continues to warm faster than the global average with the 10 years that comprise the last decade marking the 10 warmest years on record,’ said Steve Thur, NOAA’s acting chief scientist and its assistant administrator for oceanic and atmospheric research…

As a result of this warming, ‘melting permafrost is altering ecosystems, turning over 200 watersheds in Arctic Alaska orange as iron and other elements are released into its rivers,’ Thur said. Researchers have observed higher acidity and a greater concentration of toxic metals in these rusting streams. [See above photo of toxic runoff in Alaska.]” Not to mention that melting Tundra releases millennia of trapped methane (24 times heavier than carbon dioxide as a greenhouse eminent) into the atmosphere.

We have accelerated heat increases to the point that we lose about 4,000 glaciers a year, which impacts all aspects of climate change. Ice reflects heat and light; the darker ocean and land beneath absorb these when the ice melts. Increased Arctic temperatures expand, pushing colder air south (the Polar Vortex). But there are results where warmer temperatures and slower moving currents combine to create those atmospheric rivers, engorged on warmer water, creep slowly, dumping massive rainfall where it is not needed. The Pacific Northwest, particularly Washington State, has been repeatedly flooded, rivers rising, land saturated with more rain expected.

Summarizing results from weather blogger, Max Velocity, Ben Foster (December 16th) tells us that “heat builds further into the Pacific Northwest—at the same time rain and snow are falling – adding to the flood concerns because warmer air can boost snowmelt and increase runoff… He also said a warm pocket of air pushes into the Midwest and Ohio Valley, with some areas as much as 25 degrees above average, including Missouri. Max Velocity specifically warned that snow that fell in Illinois and Indiana would likely melt [quickly]. He noted the warm-up may only last about 36 hours, but even a short-lived thaw can be enough to create new problems – slushy roads, refreezing later, and added water feeding already swollen creeks.”

Looking at the mess of shifting temperatures and vacillating currents in mid-December, Max Velocity noted another shot of arctic air arrived, less intense as the recent blast, but still it brought colder air back into the upper Midwest and Great Lakes… That’s classic winter whiplash: melt, then refreeze, then blow snow around again. It’s not just annoying. It’s when people get caught off guard exacerbating the problem from ice today and tomorrow the wind. Unfortunately, these patterns are wreaking major and permanent changes such that our emergency systems, infrastructure basics and building construction simply are not prepared for such dynamic shifts.

I’m Peter Dekom, and Mother Nature, armed with the laws of physics, is not susceptible to the demands of ignorant leaders, greedy corporations and even the whims and wishes of everyone on Earth…