History is What We Say It Is

                                     

                                                                                                  NAZI Gestapo: “Papers please!”

       

History is What We Say It Is

America Can Do No Wrong

“The new Florida standards you [AP] write about are appalling. History should never be rewritten to match the politics of the day, as history has valuable lessons to teach.” 

November 12th email from Mitzi Trumbo, daughter of screenwriter, Dalton Trumbo, imprisoned and blacklisted during the anti-communist Red Scare fomented by disgraced Senator Joseph McCarthy, post-WWII.

“Once widely respected as a symbol of American excellence and a global icon of cultural achievement, the Smithsonian Institution has, in recent years, come under the influence of a divisive, race-centered ideology… This shift has promoted narratives that portray American and Western values as inherently harmful and oppressive.” Trump statement accompanying his March 27th executive order to “restore truth and sanity to American history… remove improper ideology… [and] prohibit expenditure on exhibits or programs that degrade shared American values, divide Americans based on race, or promote programs or ideologies inconsistent with Federal law and policy.”

For my readers, you know I am a history buff. I very much believe in the admonition from 19th century philosopher, George Sanayana: “Those who do not study history are condemned to repeat its mistakes.” Today, there are vast swaths of the United States where anything negative in US history, particularly involving white Americans, is simply being banned or erased. School districts and public libraries in red states have banned books depicting slavery as oppression or the annihilation of Indigenous peoples (including taking their lands) as shameful. Including Andrew Jackson’s abrogation of treaties with such peoples followed by his horrific force-march of thousands of Native Americans from their eastern homelands into unfamiliar the western plains, the infamous Trail of Tears.

African American war heroes from all of our wars are disappearing from books and exhibits while traitors to the Constitution, champions of dehumanizing slavery willing to overthrow the US government, are heralded; statues of Confederate leaders are restored and revered. Imagine if Europe followed our model. Hitler’s statue and those leading the Nazi death camps would be proudly displayed in European cities?! Nowhere in Europe can you find such “memorabilia.” In Germany, public high school students are required to visit preserved concentration camps with lots of grim reminders and photographs. It is not uncommon for those students to break down into sobs.

But in Trump’s America, as a Versailles-like grand ballroom is replacing the East Wing of the White House, roughly a third of Americans see this erasure of America’s darkest hours as a necessary proof of patriotism, and that those who oppose this wholesale effort to cleanse our mistakes are un-American “vermin” who should themselves be erased. The latest such effort, ironically led by a graduate with a history BA from Yale University, is Governor Ron DeSantis, who leading a whitewash in the ultra-rightwing historical revision for Florida public schools.

“The standards approved Thursday [11/12] for middle and high school students by the Florida Board of Education include instruction on the use of ‘ ‘McCarthyism’ as an insult’ and how using the terms ‘red-baiter and Red Scare’ is identified with ‘slander against anti-communists.’

“The standards soften decades of criticism of former U.S. Sen. Joseph McCarthy, who led a political movement to root out what he labeled communism in government, the civil rights movement and artistic communities in the late 1940s and early 1950s. The public inquisitions, ideological loyalty tests and firings of that period are widely viewed as a shameful chapter in U.S. history.” Mike Schneider, writing for the November 15th Associated Press.

If you think about all those horribles that have happened as nations have pushed even elected leaders to new autocratic forms of governance, what imagery do you see? Soldiers marching into their own cities and rousting their own citizens, anonymous government officials demanding papers and arresting people who look like they’re criminals or undesirables, transporting them to distant “detention centers,” unsanitary, inhumane while being denied access to a full and fair legal system with impartial judges? What lessons are we not learning? What historical wrongs are we repeating? And where does loyalty to a single human being trump due process, free speech and those other fundamental constitutional rights?

In a government gone rogue, who in the current Trump administration are the functional equivalents of extreme versions of what we could become? Who might become our future Heinrich Himmler, who was second in power to Hitler, Hermann Göring, who was a leader of the Nazi Party and one of the primary architects of the Nazi police state, Joseph Goebbels, minister of propaganda and a fervent follower whom Hitler selected to succeed him as chancellor, or Joachim von Ribbentrop, foreign minister and chief negotiator of various treaties? We’re certainly not there… yet… but why do senior administration figures and those state officials, who follow along, choose practices and models that were used in other totalitarian regimes (real and wannabe) in their ascent to power? Can it be they never studied history… or for those who majored in history, that they very much want the same totalitarian state they actually did study?

I’m Peter Dekom, and for those who are enjoying their newfound power to lord it over others, can they remotely understand it might be like for them if the roles were reversed?

The President Who Always Blames and Cries Wolf

 

The President Who Always Blames and Cries Wolf

“Emergency!” “Radical Leftists!” “Hoax!” “Witch Hunt!” “Fake News!” “I am Your Retribution”

"Those illegal aliens came from a myriad of situations, whether they were criminals or individuals that were taking jobs from Americans… And I'll tell you what, I'll tell you what's going to happen is, we're going to go even harder on the streets… If he releases those 650, we're going to apprehend 1,650 on the streets of Chicago… We're ratcheting operations up in Chicago… That's a very corrupt system in Chicago, whether it's those elected leaders like Pritzer or those out-of-control judges."

U.S. Border Patrol Cmdr. Greg Bovino, in charge of the immigration enforcement operation in Chicago, after federal judges/magistrates ordered a review of the 600+ detainees to determine which are eligible for release immediately (or can post bail) and which are too dangerous to release.

“The Democrats are doing everything in their withering power to push the Epstein Hoax again, despite the DOJ releasing 50,000 pages of documents, in order to deflect from all of their bad policies and losses, especially the SHUTDOWN EMBARRASSMENT, where their party is in total disarray, and has no idea what to do… Some Weak Republicans have fallen into their clutches because they are soft and foolish. Epstein was a Democrat, and he is the Democrat’s problem, not the Republican’s problem! Ask Bill Clinton, Reid Hoffman, and Larry Sommers about Epstein, they know all about him, don’t waste your time with Trump. I have a Country to run!... I will be asking A.G. Pam Bondi, and the Department of Justice, together with our great patriots at the FBI, to investigate Jeffrey Epstein’s involvement and relationship with Bill Clinton, Larry Summers, Reid Hoffman, J.P. Morgan, Chase, and many other people and institutions, to determine what was going on with them, and him.” 

Posts Trump wrote on his Truth Social, November 14th

We’re either watching the beginnings of a civil war or coup d’etat, on the one hand, or the Trump administration and roughly one-third of Americans are living in a parallel universe based on “alternative facts” (which do not exist in reality) and some rather extreme conspiracy theories. Trump’s Solicitor General, John Saur, made a fool of himself arguing before the Supreme Court that tariffs weren’t taxes and that under the guise of regulation, he could declare a continuing 50-year trade deficit an “emergency,” and impose an entire global tariff scheme. There is almost universal acceptance that Trump erratic tariff program has failed miserably.

As 70% of Americans polled are experiencing higher prices across the board – clearly due to tariffs and trade restrictions imposed personally by Donald Trump – Trump lamely presented the price cut in Walmart’s Thanksgiving dinner package, was 25% lower than last year, a his evidence that prices are falling… only to be challenged that Walmart had reduced the packaged items by removing chicken broth; fresh onions and celery; poultry seasoning; Marie Callender’s pecan pie; frozen whipped topping; mini marshmallows; Jiffy Corn muffin mix; and three bags of sweet potatoes. Three items also were downsized: cranberries (from a 14 ounce can to 12 ounces of fresh berries), mushroom soup (two cans to one) and crispy fried onions (from 6 ounces of French’s to 4.5 ounces of Kinder’s). So much for increased affordability and a good economy.

As ICE brutality is increasingly featured the news media (social and mainstream), combined with blue cities’ (some in red states) being quite literally invaded by federal or federalized troops, Americans are feeling very uncomfortable with what looks like a masked private police force loyal only to Trump and the transition of our military from the protector of our Constitution to elevating loyalty to Donald Trump above all else as the ultimate dictator over the military. Writing for the November 14th Newsweek, Hugh Cameron writes that Trump is also losing serious parts of this MAGA base: “Ten months into his second term, President Donald Trump is being challenged by the very base he prides himself on creating, and he finds himself besieged by an army of issues that could threaten his MAGA support and spell trouble for lawmakers who remain by his side…

"‘I think the MAGA base is splitting,’ said Peter Loge, a professor of media and public affairs at George Washington University. ‘Donald Trump will never lose his core support, but what it means to be MAGA or a true Republican is now suddenly being debated.’… Loge, a former senior adviser to President Barack Obama, told Newsweek that the combination of snafus embroiling the administration, rather than any one issue specifically, seems to indicate Trump might be losing his footing… ‘We connect the dots to make pictures, and the recent dots include Epstein, the election, the court being very skeptical of Trump's tariff policies, increasing economic insecurity, falling poll numbers,’ he said. ‘These bits of information, these dots, paint a picture of a presidency in trouble.’”

One giant wedge is Trump’s seeming guilt-ridden effort to bury the Epstein papers. Yet, he has failed to keep the GOP-led House of Representatives from passing a discharge petition forcing the DOJ into a public release of a mass of the relevant underlying documents which, if nothing else, show Trump’s longstanding knowledge of Jeffrey Epstein’s sex trafficking network and his constant efforts to cover it up… thus keeping those documents from the public’s eye. Since pedophilia is one of the worst crimes to most of his MAGA base, Trump’s cover-up puts him increasingly at risk. Sensing that if he could just “deliver” that deep state pedophilia conspiracy that MAGA had assumed was purely comprised of high-level Democrats, Trump tried another stab at deflection.

The US justice department has confirmed it will investigate pedophile financier Jeffrey Epstein's alleged links to major banks and several prominent Democrats, including former President Bill Clinton. On social media, President Donald Trump had said he would ask Attorney General Pam Bondi and the FBI to look into Epstein's “involvement and relationship” with Clinton and others "to determine what was going on with them, and him." Bondi later responded that this would be pursued "with urgency." Clinton has strongly denied he had any knowledge of Epstein's crimes.

Trump is aware that if full and fair elections were allowed for the 2026 mid-terms and the 2028 presidential race (whether can avoid term limits is still in doubt), it is very likely that the Republicans are likely to lose one or both the Senate and the House. Thus, his efforts at making sure those elections are rigged has become his obsession. Texas rigged their congressional maps at Trump’s request; California responded. Relying on a remarkably thin argument that California’s Proposition 50 was a racially biased effort – still governed by the remaining Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act that was otherwise eviscerated by the Supreme Court in Shelby County vs Holder (2013) – the partisan Department of Justice joined a lawsuit on November 13th brought by California Republicans that seeks to block the state from adopting a new congressional map and thwart Gov. Gavin Newsom’s plan to help Democrats seize enough seats in 2026 to control the U.S. House.

This wildly popular Proposition 50 California constitutional amendment generated 64% of the vote to counter that legislative redistricting effort in Texas favoring Republicans. Of course, the highly partisan DOJ did not file a comparable lawsuit against Texas that was equally biased. Trump has recast the DOJ as his private law firm, and combined with new private ICE police force, his almost total control of the military, a Supreme Court that has expanded the presidency into autocracy, over 100 state election officials ready to dismiss Democratic votes, and a Congress that is now mostly his aggregation of obsequious minions, he just might be able to stage a coup and assert actual dictatorial control of the country before the next election.

I’m Peter Dekom, and to those skeptics who say a dictatorship cannot happen here, I think they need to be objective, look around, and realize IT IS!

And the Cambridge Dictionary Word of the Year is Parasocial but Should Be ….

 

And the Cambridge Dictionary Word of the Year is Parasocial but Should Be ….

BULLSH*T… FYI, Parasocial is an adjective defined as: involving or relating to a connection that someone feels between themselves and a famous person they do not know, a character in a book, film, TV series, etc., or an artificial intelligence.

“I agree with President Trump, with the Department of Justice, with the FBI that you need all credible evidence and information out there… That word ‘credible’ is important. And why? Because you have to protect innocent people’s names and reputations whose names might be, as you noted at the outset of the program, intertwined into all these files…

“These are minors in many cases who were subjected to unspeakable crimes, abject evil…They’ve already suffered great harm. We do not need their names being unmasked. The Massie and the Khanna discharge petition does not have adequate protections.” 

Delay-master, House Speaker Mike Johnson, immediately before the Epstein-papers-release discharge petition was overwhelmingly passed by a bipartisan groundswell, after even Donald Trump admitted defeat and allowed GOP votes in support.

“House Republicans should vote to release the Epstein files, because we have nothing to hide, and it’s time to move on from this Democrat Hoax.” 

Trump on Truth Social, November 16th, after he realized the discharge petition would pass with GOP votes.

As Donald Trump tells us that we have the best economy ever, robust full employment, such a tsunami of tariff revenue that he wants to give ordinary Americans a “tariff bonus” of $2000 each, we now have global admiration and respect, that “Biden era” inflation is now under control, no more money will be wasted on that “climate change hoax,” that blue cities (even in red states) are facing or will face crime rate plunge as federalized troops insure that result and undocumented residents will be shipped out as quickly as they can be detained, and that he always favored full “Epstein scandal” transparency, I am beginning to notice that a growing number of his MAGA supporters no longer trust him.

Is Donald Trump so used to fabrication that he cannot help himself, or is his growing proclivity to create a parallel universe, devoid of facts, just a sign of accelerating mental and physical decline that reminds me of his description of Joe Biden in the 2024 campaign? We are experiencing record levels of layoffs, prices are soaring, crops are rotting in the fields, more and more construction sites are empty, China is walking behind our missteps and making new trade deals and trade exchange workarounds all over the globe, soldiers and masked secret police are marching into some of our biggest cities (they don’t even ask for “papers, please” anymore), federal agencies are defying court orders and except for the fattest of fat cats, very few Americans can tell you they are better off than they were last year at this time. Fewer and fewer people are living in that Trumpian parallel universe.

Meanwhile, Noem (DHS) and Patel (FBI) are flying around in fancy new jets, Patel uses his plane and a contingent of FBI “protective” agents to support his relationship with a Nashville based country singer. Roughly a third of FBI agents have been pulled off their traditional serious crime case work to join immigration enforcement. Many FBI agents spent months redacting Trump’s name from Epstein documents under DOJ control. The DOJ has so hollowed out its cadre of super-qualified prosecutors such that virtually any lawyer, regardless of experience of education, who applies to any US Attorney’s Office, is likely to be hired. As reservist major Pete Hegseth likewise hollows out the military, morale among our troops is at an all-time low. White House ballroom, anyone? How about extra-judicial killings at sea without congressional approval?

As House Speaker Johnson decried the lack of privacy that the discharge petition would unleash, even as the victims of Epstein’s debauchery clamored for release anyway, he repeated Trump’s statements that the entire scandal was on Democrats (that “Democratic hoax”) and that the Dems sat on those same papers during the Biden era. That the underlying prosecutions were underway during the Biden era, which have required the DOJ not to release most of the relevant documents, was never mentioned. That Trump was registered Democrat during much of his time with Epstein also seems to have fallen between the cracks.

Even as Trump-ally GOP Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene broke with Trump as he fought against the document release, she noted that this disagreement was tearing MAGA apart. She even faced death threats for going against fearful leader. Indeed, until Trump’s Truth Social post noted above, President Trump had consistently denounced calls for the release of the Epstein files as a Democratic hoax. Yet, with one no vote, the House and Senate passed the petition, with the President still maintaining that this scandal was merely a Democratic hoax… even after agreeing to sign the bill. He added he wanted the investigation to shift to culpable Democrats.

Trump had dispatched aides to warn Republicans that backing it would be seen as a “hostile act.” He placed personal calls to those who dared to do so, and even dispatched his attorney general and FBI director to meet with House Rep Lauren Bobert (R/CO) in the White House Situation Room in efforts to get her to flip her support of that discharge petition. In the end, will Trump be forced Nixon-like from office? He may transition into true lame duck status, and these events are severely damaging to him, but remember he was reelected notwithstanding the fact that he was a convicted felon. I think Trump will probably survive. And if he can rig the midterms to retain MAGA control of Congress, he may well thrive. Shame on America!

But those seeking fame and glory, creating what appear to be credible attacks on legitimate people, have a new ally beyond conspiracy theory-laden social media: artificial intelligence. Take this attack, reported by Gina Kolata in the November 4th New York Times: “Letters to the editor from writers using chatbots are flooding the world’s scientific journals, according to new research and journal editors.

“The practice is putting at risk a part of scientific publishing that editors say is needed to sharpen research findings and create new directions for inquiry… A new study on the problem started with a tropical disease specialist who had a weird experience with a chatbot-written letter. He decided to figure out just what was going on and who was submitting all those letters.

“The scientist, Dr. Carlos Chaccour, at the Institute for Culture and Society at the University of Navarra in Spain, said his probing began just after he had released a paper in The New England Journal of Medicine, one of the world’s most prestigious journals. The paper, published in July, was on controlling malaria infections with ivermectin, and it appeared with a laudatory editorial… ‘This has to be A.I.,’ Dr. Chaccour decided.

“A large language model must have been used to compose the letter, Dr. Chaccour reasoned. He thinks that, searching for references in a niche field where there aren’t many, it popped in two of Dr. Chaccour’s own papers… The study involved an analysis of more than 730,000 letters to journal editors published since 2005. It has been posted online ahead of submission to a peer-reviewed journal…. ‘Something happened in 2023,’ Dr. Chaccour said. There was a sudden emergence of authors who had published few or no letters before then but who suddenly had letters appearing on a regular basis — going, Dr. Chaccour said, ‘from zero to hero.’” The initials of that lead letter-writer? B.S. We are living in a society where truth is devalued, marginalized and ignored. Anonymous attackers and conspiracy theorists have unprecedented power.

I’m Peter Dekom, and I wonder how our economy and our quality of life, even our form of government, can continue if lies are now routinely given the authority that once was accorded to truth.

 

What’s Worse – That Trump Knew or That He Worked So Hard to Cover It Up?

What’s Worse – That Trump Knew or That He Worked So Hard to Cover It Up?

"He feels alone and is nuts!!! I told everyone from day one. Evil beyond belief. Mad, and most thought I was speaking metaphorically. It's obvious he could crack. Stormy Daniels? Lies after lies after lies." Jeffrey Epstein’s response to former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers’ inquiry about Trump (2018)

After many unprecedented delays orchestrated by Trump-lockstep-loyalist House Speaker Mike Johnson (R/LA), Representative Adelita Grijalva, Democrat of Arizona who won a special election back in September, was finally sworn in to her House seat, and did precisely what Johnson did not want her to do: become the 218th representative to sign the bi-partisan “discharge petition’, passing a House effort to force the DOJ to release their treasure-trove of Epstein files.

Let me start with my basic assumptions, based on the Epstein materials that I have seen or which have been reported by credible sources who have reviewed those materials in depth, even in anticipation of the files that will be released by that discharge petition. First, so far at least, I do not believe that Donald Trump personally participated in any direct, unlawful contacts with any of the Epstein victims. Second, I do not believe he procured women for Epstein’s sexual trafficking network. That said, those who have trapsed through the recently released files from the Epstein estate, tell us that Trump’s name is mentioned more frequently than anyone else other than Jeffrey Epstein himself. More even than convicted co-trafficker, Ghislane Maxwell.

Where’s smoke, there’s fire, and there are very few GOP members of Congress who truly believe in the accuracy of Trump’s repeated statements that the Epstein scandal is merely a side show (a “distraction,” he claims, from the “Democrat’s shutdown”), at best a Democratic hoax aimed at discrediting the President with total lies. But by so desperately trying to stop the dissemination of the very documents he pledged to release if elected again, Trump seems to have failed to convince a majority of Republicans, even as many stand by his censorship efforts, and an increasing number of MAGA members, who particularly hate pedophiles and those who hide them.

The evidence is mounting, and VP JD Vance, normally a very loud Trump supporter, seems to have fallen into a silent phase, evocative of VP Gerald Ford’s silence just before rising evidence forced Richard Nixon to resign under an equally dark cloud. Sam Sifton for The Morning, 11/13/25 (NY Times news feed) sprinkles some reminders of this nasty unfolding of events: “Every now and then, nuggets of news emerge. In July, the Justice Department put out a report saying there was no Epstein ‘client list.’ The Times reported this past summer about his Manhattan lair and this fall about the bankers who served him after he’d been convicted of a sex crime.

“And yesterday [11/12], Democrats released three emails in which Epstein talked with others about Trump, suggesting the president may know more about the sex trafficking than he has acknowledged. Hours later, Republicans dropped 23,000 more pages of documents from Epstein’s estate. It led to a mad scramble in our newsroom… ‘We still have a lot to look at and don’t totally know how much of the universe we have seen,’ [NY Times journalist Kirsten Davis] said. But here’s some of what the emails have revealed so far. Please note: The documents are riddled with typos, which we have preserved when we quote from them.

“Epstein’s emails suggest he was close with Trump.

• In 2011, in an email to his associate Ghislaine Maxwell, he wrote: “i want you to realize that that dog that hasn’t barked is trump. [Redacted victim name] spent hours at my house with him ,, he has never once been mentioned.”
• People repeatedly emailed Epstein asking for advice in dealing with Trump, but he wasn’t always forthcoming. In one email, Epstein advised: “donald is close to no one. . he talks to many people. he tells each one something differnt.”
• In an email to the author Michael Wolff in 2019, Epstein wrote of Trump, “of course he knew about the girls as he asked ghislaine to stop.”

2. But Epstein also frequently disparaged Trump.

• In 2018, during Trump’s first impeachment inquiry, Epstein wrote, “you see, i know how dirty donald is.”
• When a former Obama administration official emailed Epstein and called Trump “so gross,” Epstein replied, “worse in real life and upclose.”

3. Wolff seems to have served as an adviser to Epstein.

• Some of Wolff’s emails suggest that Epstein could have contradicted Trump’s claims — or held back in exchange for a favor. In 2015, before a presidential debate on CNN, Epstein asked what they would want Trump to say about his relationship with the financier. Wolff wrote: “If he says he hasn’t been on the plane or to the house, then that gives you a valuable PR and political currency.”
• Wolff also said Epstein could use information about Trump to shift attention off himself. In 2016, before a book about Epstein was released, Wolff told him: “You do need an immediate counter narrative to the book. I believe Trump offers an ideal opportunity.”

4. Epstein chatted casually with a wide network of powerful people.

• He gave Lawrence Summers, the former Treasury secretary, advice about his interactions with a woman: “no whining showed strentgh,” Epstein wrote.
• He talked politics with Steve Bannon, a former Trump adviser. In 2018, after Epstein invited Bannon to Europe, Bannon replied, “their is a crazed jihad against u — ive never seen anything like it — and I’ve seen a lot.” ”

In the end, this saga will play out. If it gets serious enough, and Trump is unable to stop the expected Democratic landslide by election rigging (gerrymandering, partisans in election offices messing with the results, troop seizing ballot and election machines, etc.), a Democratic House is highly likely to impeach Trump again… and the disclosures to impeach could be pretty juicy. Who knows if this time the Senate without enough Senators to block a conviction… just might force Trump to resign or face an embarrassing conviction? But then, we get President JD Vance.

I’m Peter Dekom, and as lurid as this story gets, remember that this is as much as a description of contemporary America as it a tale of a governmental leader gone … possibly… terribly wrong.

Financial Insanity – Betting on Oil, Rejecting Green Alternative Energy

 

Financial Insanity – Betting on Oil, Rejecting Green Alternative Energy

While Donald Trump is a master at manipulating, particularly those gullible enough to believe in simple answers to complex economic and political problems that can be summarized in a very short, catchy label, he almost always has to lie, promise what he cannot deliver and blame others for his litany of shortfalls. The weird part of all this is despite his litany of failures is that he has amassed an unbreakable of diehard aggregation MAGA followers (roughly 30% of the electorate) who believe almost everything he says (maybe generating some doubt over the extent of his knowledge of the Epstein nasties). What’s worse, he's made that following an essential constituency for any Republican seeking primary victory in any congressional race and has somehow convinced his 6-3 reconfigured Supreme Court to de facto amend the Constitution repeatedly to raise the executive branch as the most powerful branch of the federal government, with limited (if any) checks and balances from either the legislative or judicial branches.

Notwithstanding the Supreme Court skepticism over his inflation-accelerating tariff policy and the startling voter rejection over the economy evidenced by the November 4th clean Democratic sweep in just about every election conducted on that date, a clearly aging President Trump remains tone deaf to the rising anti-Trump voices all around him. His polling is falling faster than a stone tossed off the Rock of Gibraltar. And that’s just in the United States. Overseas, most of the rest of the world is figuring out workarounds against his use of the military to wage war without congressional approval and to bully nations into adopting his warped vision of the world. The complete failure of the Trump administration to send anyone to the COP30 climate conference in Brazil is such a blessing to China; it’s hard to overstate the damage he is foisting on American competitiveness, particularly the rising global opprobrium over his inane climate change “hoax” stance.

As China sails her third and newest nuclear powered aircraft carrier – this one mirrors the our Navy’s use of magnetic catapults to launch aircraft – China has also both spread AI into daily use consumer items (creating the standards for AI consumer use) and completely dominated the mega-growth alternative energy marketplace, one which Donald Trump has announced is the pathway to economic destruction for any nation that believes this fossil fuel avoidance strategy could ever work. Except it is growing like wildfire and delivering!

As Trump told the UN that China builds big ugly wind turbines but never uses them herself, China leader Xi Jinping must have cracked a bid wide grin. China is indeed the largest user of wind turbines and solar in the world. As AI places extraordinarily increased demands for more electrical power, Xi knows the only answer is alternative energy. In the United States, massive file server farms that are needed to support AI sit unused for lack of electrical power. Today, China accounts for 74% of the global investment in alternative energy systems and now sells three times the number of cars (virtually all electric) globally as does the United States.

Writing for the November 12th The Morning (NY Times newsfeed), Somini Sengupta and Brad Plumer, tell us: “‘Emerging economies are a very important part of the story,’ an environmental advocacy researcher told The Times. ‘The reason we should be paying attention is that they have the most people in the world, they have the largest number of poor people in the world, and their energy demands are growing. If these economies don’t change, there’s no chance for the world to get to a safer place.’

“[For example,] Ethiopia has banned the importing of new gasoline-powered cars, they write. Nepal has lowered import taxes for electric vehicles so they’re cheaper than gas ones. Brazil raised tariffs on imported cars to help persuade Chinese automakers to build plants there.

“And China is investing heavily — nearly a quarter trillion dollars since 2011, they report, with most of that money going to what’s known as the global south. Adjusted for inflation, that is more money than the U.S. put into the Marshall Plan after World War II.

“A decade ago, the U.S. and Europe were pressuring developing nations to take faster action on climate change. Now the economics have changed, and developing nations are delivering what appears to be good news for the planet.

“India, for example, recently announced that half of its demand for electricity can now be satisfied by renewable energy from wind, sun and water, five years earlier than the 2030 target it had set in the Paris Agreement… Countries like Brazil, India and Vietnam are rapidly expanding solar and wind power. Poorer countries like Ethiopia and Nepal are leapfrogging over gasoline-burning cars to battery-powered ones. Nigeria, a petrostate, plans to build its first solar-panel manufacturing plant. Morocco is creating a battery hub to supply European automakers. Santiago, the capital of Chile, has electrified more than half of its bus fleet in recent years.”

It seems that poorer nations find that the cost of importing or even extracting fossil fuels (for the few that have such resources) is no longer competitive with sustainably cheaper green tech. By decentralizing electrical power generation, likewise, they can save on the massive wiring infrastructure required to transfer power from huge power plants hundreds of miles away. The idea of being released from the fossil fuel bullies that dictate oil prices is particularly appealing to less affluent nations that have better use for their limited capital resources.

But ever-so-wise Donald Trump is determined to lead the United States away from this lucrative and exploding market, saddling us with an obsolete power-generating model for the future, just when the demand for electricity has never been so high. China is deeply grateful for Trump’s blind retro push for a non-growth industry facing decreasing demand. Even US-based oil companies are not exactly heeding Trump’s call for “drill baby, drill.” They are shying away from investing the billions Trump wants to see in oil. Just look at how many US refineries are shutting down!

I’m Peter Dekom, and the notion of going long on fossil fuel extraction and short on green energy power generation is just one more step to reduce the power of the American economic marvel and allow China to zoom past us to the top spot.

A New American Tradition? – Corruption

 

                                                                                       Is any of this corruption or illegal on any basis?

A New American Tradition? – Corruption

Sure, corruption is not new to the United States. From the wild days of the Tea Pot Dome scandal to the give and take-take of Tammany Hall, even to the modern moments of Rob Blagoavitch and George Santos, corruption has clearly been a part of American politics for a very long time. As an American teenager, a diplomat’s son, in Lebanon before the civil wars, I learned about what I call “rate card” bribes, where the prices of those “markups” (baksheesh) were standardized and known by all the locals. But corruption isn’t just about taking bribes. It’s also about using governmental systems for personal advantage or using political office for family/friends benefit. Sometimes, corruption can be simply a misuse of government power.

For example, “Bangladesh’s former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has been sentenced to death for crimes against humanity by a special tribunal over her role in a crackdown on a 2024 student uprising that the United Nations said led to as many as 1,400 deaths… Hasina, who is living in exile in India, was tried in absentia. The 78-year-old president of the Awami League party had denounced her state-appointed defense lawyer and called the tribunal a ‘kangaroo court.’" Newsweek, November 17th.

In Mexico, the importation of American-made firearms and the willingness by narco-cartels to use them against politicians and candidates to protect their drug trade, has created a lucrative pattern of “buying” police, military and federal officials from top to bottom plus an intimidation factor that defies solution. On November 15th, a massive, mostly Gen Z protest in Mexico City, was one of many over the years, citizens terrorized by cartels… and frustration that even as Mexico’s leaders suggest they are pushing hard against the cartels, nothing really changes. “Several thousand people took to the streets of Mexico City to protest crime, corruption and impunity in a demonstration organized by members of Generation Z, but the march ended with strong backing from older supporters of opposition parties.

“The demonstration Saturday was mostly peaceful, though it ended with some young people clashing with the police… Protesters attacked officers with stones, fireworks, sticks and chains, grabbing police shields and other equipment. The capital’s security secretary, Pablo Vázquez, said 120 people were injured, including 100 police officers. Twenty people were arrested… In several countries this year, people born between the late 1990s and early 2010s have organized protests against inequality, democratic backsliding and corruption.” Maria Verza for the November 17th Associated Press.

But can there be legally sanctioned corruption? What is a crime in other countries – like undue influence by the rich to throw money at elections – is legal in the United States. See Citizens United vs FEC (Supreme Court, 2010), where support for any issue or candidate (not controlled by that candidate) through a SuperPAC is unlimited. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas’ acceptance of many forms of what could be viewed as bribery is not challenged because there are no ethical standards applied to Supreme Court Justices.

While use of power efforts may elicit judicial skepticism and wind-up having charges dismissed, is Donald Trump’s use of the DOJ as his instrument of retribution technically corruption? “Federal magistrate judge William Fitzpatrick warned that ‘government misconduct’ may have tainted the case against James Comey as he ordered the Justice Department to turn over all grand jury materials to the defense… In a 24-page opinion, the court cited a pattern of investigative missteps—including potential Fourth Amendment violations, exposure to privileged communications, and irregularities in the grand jury process. The judge said the FBI and prosecutors may have acted recklessly or willfully in ways that undermined the integrity of the proceedings.” Newsweek, November 17th.

What about presidential pardons of individuals highly instrumental in building presidential family wealth? Like Trump’s pardon of crypto-king, Binance CEO, Changpeng Zhao? What about the President’s claiming to save taxpayers’ money by financing the entire East Wing Ballroom construction through “donations”? A look at the donor’s list shows an abundance of companies and individuals who have or are seeking governmental contract or approvals for required licenses (like broadcast licenses before the FCC or merge approvals before the SEC), suggesting that many of these donors might be buying “deal insurance” or desiring not to fall within the wrath of a president who campaigned on the slogan, “I am your retribution.”

Exempted from the Hatch Act (which limits commercial and partisan activity by governmental employees), the President has used the White House to sell all sorts of memorabilia and even to tout Elon Musk’s Teslas (before Musk lost favor). No president in American history, fully corrected for inflation, has made anywhere near the estimated $3 billion that the Trump family has generated in increased wealth through efforts like Trump’s personal function as the chief crypto advocate and “inspiration” for World Liberty Financial, a decentralized finance platform launched in September 2024 with the involvement of his three sons.

People used to resign governmental posts simply because their acts “looked bad,” but the President has long since stopped caring about possibly even violating the Constitutional “emoluments clauses,” which, in material part, state that the U.S. Congress must approve any gift from a "King, Prince, or foreign State" to an elected official in the United States (including the president) and prohibits the president from receiving a gift beyond salary for the job from anyone, foreign or domestic. When Trump owned an upscale hotel in Washington, DC, foreign dignitaries often booked suites. But even though he no longer owns that hotel, the de facto revenues from that hotel are chump change compared to more recent opportunities, including major overseas real estate projects for his family on choice parcels that would probably never be allowed to ordinary developers. Trump seems undeterred in his and his family’s pursuit of wealth and power… and there have been no serious legal challenges to strip those financial opportunities from Trump or his family.

I’m Peter Dekom, and I will leave it to you to determine, in your opinion, whether the President’s activities noted above rise to the level of corruption … or not.

Meme Streets Corruption, to Phrase a Coin

  

Meme Streets Corruption, to Phrase a Coin

"The U.S. President is running a backdoor bribery scheme in which any CEO or foreign oligarch can send him money secretly through his crypto coin scam in exchange for favors." 

Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn. on X, April 9th

Here’s good news: according to the US Office of Special Counsel. “​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​The Hatch Act, a federal law passed in 1939, limits certain political activities of federal employees, as well as some state, D.C., and local government employees who work in connection with federally funded programs. ​The law’s purposes are to ensure that federal programs are administered in a nonpartisan fashion, to protect federal employees from political coercion in the workplace, and to ensure that federal employees are advanced based on merit and not based on political affiliation.​​​​” Here’s the bad news: The President and the Vice President are excepted.​ And at no time in American history have the American people needed ethical boundaries around presidential misuse of his office than today. Bibles, sneakers, Tesla cars, meme coins, hats, mugs, etc. are the little things. Instead, the Supreme Court gives him criminal immunity for anything remotely tied to his official acts.

Even when Donald Trump solicits “donors” for his little desires, like $300M grand ballroom, he’s really selling favors from various regulatory agencies (like the NLRB, SEC, DOJ, IRS, Commerce, etc.), providing a “we won’t investigate and prosecute; you a-get-out-of- jail free” card, better conditions in prison or even commutations and pardons, or lucrative government contracts, inside information and even research funding that would be withheld to save lives unless the “donation” is made. But where Donald John Trump is able to put the money into his own pockets (including the caretaker pockets of his family), the numbers are staggering.

Back in May, Allison Morrow, writing for CNN (5/14/25) opened our eyes to the massive, blatant effort to turn the presidency into the highest paying job behind Tesla CEO. Here’s the grift: after the election, but just before he took office in Trump 2.0 in January, President Donald Trump launched a type of cryptocurrency called meme coin, dubbed $Trump, which people anywhere in the world can buy while concealing their identity. Experts believe this cryptocurrency could make it possible for people to channel money to Trump beyond legal limits for campaign contributions… or boost Trump net worth by raising value by the resulting demand. A new public vehicle, with so much upside. With Trump legitimizing what he once called a “scam,” Trump and family were rolling their doggie bodies in crypto:

“The Trump family’s crypto empire is expanding rapidly, and it’s making earlier ethics debates over his hotel and casino business interests look downright quaint… There are only so many rooms a foreign diplomat can book to curry favor with the president, and that might total into thousands of dollars, at most. And even President Donald Trump might have a limit on how many luxury Qatari jets he’d accept as gifts… But in the opaque world of cryptocurrencies, where transactions are often anonymous and unbound by national borders, there is virtually no cap on the amount of money a person or government could funnel to the president, his family and the growing list of entities they control.

“That list of entities already includes two ‘meme coins’ — digital assets with no utility that serious crypto advocates tend to roll their eyes at — and an exchange called World Liberty Financial, which issues its own token… And soon, anyone with a brokerage account [was] able to buy shares on the open market of American Bitcoin, a crypto mining firm backed by the president’s sons, Eric Trump and Donald Trump Jr. [and Baron Trump enrolled in NYU could be a “consultant”]…

“[Trump even held an] auction for a private dinner with Trump, billed as an ‘unforgettable gala,’ for the top holders of the $TRUMP meme coin. The top 25 were promised face time with Trump and a ‘VIP tour’ of one of his private clubs…The dinner auction may be the most flagrant pay-to-play effort Trump has engaged in as president so far.

“Presidents giving access to campaign donors is nothing new — in the ’90s, the Bill Clinton administration lavished dozens of Democratic contributors with stays in the Lincoln Bedroom, in a scandal known as the Fat Cat Hotel. But crypto offers a level of anonymity and scale that the White House has never seen… [Just in April and May], crypto investors plowed an estimated $148 million into Trump’s meme coin, according to Reuters, which cited data from crypto research firm Chainalysis.

“The vast majority of the coin’s supply — 80% — is held by two Trump Organization affiliates, which make money through transaction fees. Chainalysis estimates that those entities raked in at least $1.3 million in fees in the weeks after Trump announced the private dinner auction… The dinner auction is just part of the crypto controversy… [In May], the New York Times’ David Yaffe-Bellany reported that World Liberty Financial had secured a deal to take $2 billion in deposits from a venture fund backed by the government of Abu Dhabi.”

Even in his recent appearance at the international Gaza-focused conference in Egypt last month, a hot mike caught Trump probably hinting about a possible real estate development deal in Indonesia: “Trump and Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto were reportedly overheard discussing a potential meeting with Trump's son, Eric, an executive vice president of the Trump Organization… The two leaders, whose exchange was also captured on video footage, appeared unaware that a live microphone was recording their private discussion… Speaking to Trump as the two men stood behind a podium with a microphone, Prabowo refers to a region that is ‘not safe, security-wise’ and then asks Trump: ‘Can I meet Eric?’” The Independent, October 14th.

Poor Donald, he and his family just do not have enough money. He’s happy to set tax breaks for the rich, reward his cronies with exemptions from his inane tariffs and watch his holdings and fees print money for the entire Trump clan. Screw the nation, let the deficit rise from the Big Beautiful Bill tax cuts, and it’s just too bad that losers in the lower income brackets have to live with cuts to the SNAP food program and can no longer afford medical coverage. That shutdown resolution left a whole lot of Americans dangling above the jaws of starvation and untreated illness. But then maybe young folks could buy a starter home, one that would not fit a growing family, with a 50-year mortgage… that might be paid off shortly after their student loans are retired.

I’m Peter Dekom, and if you voted for him, please let us know how you are better off with this master of economic loopholes governing your financial life.