FEMA’s Greatest Disasters – DHS Secretary Kristi Noem or Nature’s Fullest Wrath

Central Texas July Fires

California Fires

FEMA Boss, DHS Secretary Noem

                                                                                   

FEMA’s Greatest Disasters – DHS Secretary Kristi Noem or Nature’s Fullest Wrath?

They call them the once-in-100-years/500-years/1000-years, etc. disasters, but in the last few years this killer/billion-dollar-plus natural disasters phenomenon seems to occur twice a month on average. As of January 10th, before the DOGE/Trump budget cuts, NOAA’s National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI) has updated its 2024 billion-dollar disaster analysis. In 2024, there were 27 individual weather and climate disasters with at least $1 billion in damages, trailing only the record-setting 28 events analyzed in 2023. Even as the words “climate change” and related descriptive terms are now formally purged from federal websites and printed materials, as the Big Beautiful Bill cut the very successful job-creating alternative energy infrastructure and reemphasized the use of fossil fuels, the Texas floods took no fewer than 135 lives.

And yet, everything “Trump” is all about serving his ego and the wealthiest in his crony-pack. As the Congressional Budget Office (July 21st) released is reassessment on the fiscal impact of the now-passed Big Beautiful Bill, which dropped the tax rate (which overwhelmingly favored the mega-rich and giant US corporations over everyone else), and slashed over a trillion dollars off of Medicaid, SNAP and other social programs serving the lower levels of the US economy (leaving those programs to underfunded states to resurrect), the CBO reported a $3.1 trillion hit to our already bloated deficit and at least ten million people losing medical coverage. This bill created the greatest upward shift of wealth to the economic top, the greatest reduction of benefits to the lowest earners… further exacerbated by a further $9 billion cut to federal programs. And FEMA is still on the chopping block.

Weather disasters can no longer be predicted with the former accuracy, and states are now left to fend mostly for themselves as climate change disasters accelerate. Trump is reopening coal mines as the global demand for coal is plunging, commanding oil companies to “drill, baby, drill” as that resource is now a global pariah and telling Detroit to return to focusing on gasoline and diesel powered trucks and cars as China takes over the global EV market, selling four vehicles in the international marketplace for every US-made car or truck sold there. Job-killing, climate change disaster accelerants. Just looking at the incredible mediocracy (I’m being polite) of the leadership at the DHS (which controls FEMA), you know that self-destruction is the fate Trump has commanded for FEMA.

Infamous former South Dakota Governor Noem displayed her ignorance of the major constitutional parameters around her job – her legendary misstatement of the principle of habeas corpus while testifying before a congressional committee went viral fast – and developed more of a reputation as a puppy murderer and “whatever Trump wants” sycophant. Her easily disproven fabrications of how effective her response to the Texas floods placed her in a class of super-damage-enhancers and far from any solution as to how the federal government was going to handle the rising tide (literally) of natural disasters… just as FEMA was in the process of being shut down (transferring disaster relief to underfunded states).

Even as Noem and Trump claimed an efficient and full FEMA response to the Texas floods, facts suggested otherwise. A slow and inadequate Noem failure timely to approve a very small expenditure to launch rescue swift-swift boats cost lives. The dearth of FEMA operatives on the ground left virtually the entire rescue and recovery effort to Texas. The FEMA response was so bad and demoralizing to hapless FEMA officials unable to perform what had at once been routine, that its staff understood that the Trump administration just did not care: “The head of FEMA’s Urban Search and Rescue branch, which runs a network of teams stationed across the country that can swiftly respond to natural disasters, resigned on Monday [7/21].

“Ken Pagurek’s departure comes less than three weeks after a delayed FEMA response to catastrophic flooding in central Texas caused by bureaucratic hurdles put in place by the Department of Homeland Security, which oversees the disaster response agency… Pagurek told colleagues at FEMA that the delay was the tipping point that led to his voluntary departure after months of frustration with the Trump administration’s efforts to dismantle the agency, according to two sources familiar with his thinking. It took more than 72 hours after the flooding for Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem to authorize the deployment of FEMA’s search and rescue network.

“After spending more than a decade with FEMA’s urban search and rescue system, including about a year as its chief, Pagurek said in his resignation letter, obtained by CNN, that he was returning to the Philadelphia Fire Department and did not mention the Texas flooding.” CNN, July 21st. David Graham, writing for the July 15th The Atlantic, describes the immutable path to defund and de-staff most of FEMA, cutting essential federal programs to fund those tax cuts: “One thing that’s helpful in a crisis is steady leadership. Unfortunately, disaster-stricken Americans are stuck with Kristi Noem instead.

“Noem, the secretary of homeland security, was unequivocal at a March Cabinet meeting: ‘We are eliminating FEMA.’ (She was echoing President Donald Trump, who’d suggested getting rid of the agency.) This weekend [mid-July], when asked point-blank whether that was still the plan, she had a different claim. ‘No, I think the president recognizes that FEMA should not exist the way that it always has been,’ she said. ‘It needs to be redeployed in a new way.’

“Noem is right that FEMA’s current deployment seems to not be working all that well. But no matter how officials describe their plans, the Trump administration is dismantling the federal government’s ability to prepare for, warn about, and help Americans recover from disasters… Trump’s attacks on FEMA have never been particularly coherent: He attacked the agency last year for doing too little after Hurricane Helene, and then said he wanted it to do less. But the basic premise that FEMA needs rethinking is not unreasonable, nor is it partisan. Professional emergency managers, including top FEMA leaders who have served under both parties, have suggested that states should do more to handle smaller disasters, making the federal government more of a coordinator and funder for major-disaster relief. (FEMA is also somewhat awkwardly wedged in the Department of Homeland Security, which the Trump administration narrowly views as a border-and-immigration authority, more or less.)

“But moving to a more state-reliant paradigm would take real investment in federal policy beyond just FEMA—both financial and administrative, neither of which Trump is interested in making… Such a shift would require research that readies the country for changes in climate and increases in extreme weather. Instead, the Trump administration is seeking to eliminate research into climate change, which the president has described as a ‘hoax.’”

Succumbing to pressure from Texas, weeks after the devastation, Trump finally ordered FEMA aid to eight states on July 23rd, notably excluding California. No single individual in history has created more damage and disruption to this nation than Donald Trump, and his clown car of cabinet and subcabinet leadership seems to be the equivalent using gasoline to extinguish raging fires.

I’m Peter Dekom, and what happens when we finally realize the damage to our people and our lands Trump has promulgated… and the resultant costs that are a vast multiple of what they would have been had we been willing to face reality at the appropriate moment?

Banana Republic Marxism for America, Trump Style

 

Banana Republic Marxism for America, Trump Style

“The less you are, the less you express your life, the more you have, the greater is your alienated life and the greater is the saving of your alienated being.” 

Karl Marx on learning to live with less, 1844.

“Well, maybe the children will have two dolls instead of 30 dolls, you know? And maybe the two dolls will cost a couple of bucks more than they would normally.” 

Donald Trump at the end of an April cabinet meeting.

“If this is your first time being poor, I’m Kiki, and I’m trying to make it affordable to eat by using depression, recession, and wartime recipes.” 

TikTok creator Kiki Rough in an April upload.

As if income inequality weren’t bad enough, Trump’s protectionist trade policies – which almost certainly will not bring back the manufacturing jobs of yore – required that “Americans must learn to sacrifice” for the good of the country during a transition period of undefined length. Trump embraced his old mantra, say whatever you think they want to hear and call the truth “fake news.” Backing up his campaign rhetoric that he would bring down consumer prices, when the opposite is our painfully reality, for example, “President Donald Trump wrote on Truth Social Friday [4/2] that gas prices were down to $1.98 a gallon — and it triggered hilarity… Fact-checkers and online commenters immediately reacted as Trump added that gas prices are $1.88 in three states. ‘Can you believe it?’ he asked.

“According to the American Automobile Association, which charts national gas prices, the lowest price comes closer to $2.61 a gallon for E85 gas. Regular unleaded gasoline is $3.18, AAA's data shows… CNN fact checker Daniel Dale wrote about Trump's post with the headline saying, ‘Trump keeps making up gas prices.’… In response to Trump's question, ‘Can you believe it?’ Dale responded, ‘No, because prices weren’t close to $1.88 in any state.’” Raw Story, April 3rd.

Indeed, the Trump billionaire sycophants, like his billionaire Commerce Secretary, redefine the “American dream” to look a whole lot like the life for the Marxist proletariat, as reflected in the Soviet era: “U.S. Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick says factory gigs are the ‘great jobs of the future’ that Gen Z could work in for the ‘rest’ of their life—and so could their grandkids. But the workforce’s youngest cohort probably won’t be running to fill the roles… Some white collar workers may be on the brink of layoffs thanks to AI, but the Secretary of Commerce says they will always have a place in America’s factories. As the U.S. puts up high tariffs and curbs immigration, the administration hopes to fuel an intergenerational manufacturing boom.” Fortune Magazine, May 2nd.

In late March, even as almost 70 million Americans depend on Social Security checks, Lutnick marginalized the importance of Social Security, which Elon Musk had called a “Ponzi Scheme,” by saying: ““Let's say Social Security didn't send out their checks this month, my mother-in-law — who's 94 — she wouldn't call and complain… She'd just think something I messed up and she’d get it next month. A fraudster always makes the loudest noise, screaming, yelling and complaining.” On the business and tech podcast All-In. Noone is protecting these programs!

Trumps policies represent rich people embracing Marxist/Communist sacrifice for the motherland for the masses… but how do they justify their own personal wealth? That’s the “banana republic” side of the equation: the rich leaders and their corrupt cronies always do well in these purported Marxist/Communist havens. The rest of the nation suffers under misguided economic policies that only target the masses for sacrifice. Those who complain are “eliminated,” one way or the other. The institutions that support the masses in their quest for equality – like law firms and universities – are brought to heel, a rough boot to the throat of dissenters. Writing for “We’ve Got this Covered,” Newsbreak.com, May 5th David James explains:

“Donald Trump and the American right throw around the word ‘communism’ like confetti. Disney movies with girl heroes: communism! Life-saving vaccination programs: communism! Getting a post deleted on social media: somehow also communism!... But it seems that all this has been a smokescreen to allow Comrade Trump to sneak Karl Marx in through the back door or the White House, as his defense of tariffs has resulted in an argument ripped from the pages of a communist pamphlet. According to Trump, ‘beautiful baby girls’ don’t need ‘30 dolls’, but can have just three or four. He’s also critical of their stationery expenditure, saying no child needs 250 pencils when ‘they can have five…

“An American president being openly critical of consumerism, advising citizens to spend less on objects, and instructing people to not prioritize possessions is radical and, at least on paper, probably makes Trump one of the most prominent Marxist figures in the history of American politics.

“Trump, of course, would never identify openly as a Marxist or communist, but his economic policies have backed him into a logical corner where the only response is to accidentally fall ass-backwards into Marxist theory. It remains to be seen whether Trump’s strategy of ‘fewer toys for kids’ will pay off in electoral popularity. Heck, maybe the American people will throw off the shackles of capitalism, refocus themselves on an ascetic life free of worldly goods, and dismiss the illusion of consumer choice.

“Or they could just get really mad on social media when their darling daughter Jenny asks for a Barbie that’s now been slammed with a 145% tariff that they can’t afford. Either way, we can only hail Trump’s embrace of the fundamentals of Marxism and hope his philosophical and economic enlightenment continues!” To bring home this elite vs proletariat model into greater clarity, you just have to look at an entire currency system, able to avoid governmental monetary and fiscal policies and hide behind blockchain secrecy… look at the tech billionaires and the Trump support for their rising cryptocurrency program… yes the same cryptocurrency he derided as a scam in Trump 1.0. For the elite class, there is now an entirely separate economic system, not built on wages but on asset wealth, and one where only truly big players can make money.

As David Wilson, writing for the May 2nd Fast Company, tells us, the tech world is governed by capitalist extremist author, Ayn Rand, such that the mavens of this new tech movement, like crypto entrepreneur Mark Andreasson believes in this new order for the rich oligarchs: “With [his firm’s] cofounder [Ben Horowitz ] … Andreessen’s 2023 ‘Techno-Optimist Manifesto’ as its guiding ethos (“It’s time the build”), [his investment] firm has spent the past year cozying up to Donald Trump and growing its investments in companies that its sees as essential to the future of America, many of them defense tech and security startups. It’s now pairing this new perspective with visuals that seem straight from Objectivism, the 20th-century philosophy developed by author Ayn Rand.

“‘My philosophy, in essence, is the concept of man as a heroic being, with his own happiness as the moral purpose of his life, with productive achievement as his noblest activity, and reason as his only absolute,’ Rand wrote in the appendix to her novel Atlas Shrugged, first published in 1957. No wonder the philosophy resonates so deeply with entrepreneurs and investors; these are creators who need to tune out the naysayers of the world in order to change it. But, of course, the flip side of Objectivism is that it prioritizes the individual at the expense of everyone else.” This class split is reflected in the House proposed budget, which has nothing for FEMA, does not mention supporting social programs like Medicaid, Social Security and Medicare as pledged but allocates $300 million to fly Trump back and forth from his Florida home and his golf resorts to the Capital. Creating the “new poor” is not cool!!!! 

I’m Peter Dekom, and this rising Trumpian justification for class distinction for most Americans is not only un-American, it’s disgustingly ugly.

The Brownsville Experiment – The Future of Education in America?

 

The Brownsville Experiment – The Future of Education in America?

"They don't tell me the answers… They just give me resources…I want to figure what stuff are in the world that I don't know… I did get a science kit for Christmas. I got a real microscope, actually." 

Alpha School Kindergartner, Sarah Schipper

Back in 2015, before all the hype about artificial intelligence, I read about a new, experimental private elementary/middle school (AltSchool, tuition $20,875) in the South of Market district in San Franciso. It was wired, connected and financed … and digitized to the max. Each child had a computer terminal connected to a parallel font of experts and tons of linkage to information on steroids. “Founded in 2013 by former Google head of personalization Max Ventilla, AltSchool has poached high level executives from Google and Uber. It’s got users---in this case, parents---applying by the thousands. It’s actually making money [attracting] Mark Zuckerberg [who] became one of its largest investors.” Wired, May 4, 2015.

It was an experiment, with fewer teachers leading classes of self-exploring teachers backed by a massive adjacent “airy and open office with vaulted ceilings, sunlight streaming onto low-slung couches, and rows of hoodie-wearing employees typing away on their computers while munching on free snacks from the kitchen. And while you can’t quite be sure, you think that might be a robot on wheels roaming about…

“AltSchool is a decidedly Bay Area experiment with an educational philosophy known as student-centered learning. The approach, which many schools have adopted, holds that kids should pursue their own interests, at their own pace. To that, however, AltSchool mixes in loads of technology to manage the chaos, and tops it all off with a staff of forward-thinking teachers set free to custom-teach to each student. The result, they fervently say, is a superior educational experience.” Wired. That adjacent room was staffed by a litany of digital-friendly experts, tracking the students in their classrooms, serving as an information resource to feed the knowledge-hungry students. Experts who knew how to answer questions, even if it meant reaching into the rising universe of Internet accessible resources.

But that was then, ancient history in today’s AI-driven world. As education gets more complicated, information more detailed and based on layered, sequential learning, as classrooms become increasingly crowded with fewer teachers, and state and local public education is facing pressures to cut taxes and reduce expenses… as the Department of Education slated for Trump/Musk demolition with pressure to make public schools increasing locally run and funded… something’s gotta give.

With a cacophony of roughly 13,000 individual school districts, some prioritizing culture wars against “woke” lessons and books or like Oklahoma’s rewriting of US history (the 2020 presidential election was “stolen”) or Louisiana’s promulgating Bible studies as a part of history classes, student performance is US public schools continue to plummet as measured by international testing. We used to be first among even developed nations; today, depending on subject matter, we are somewhere between 19th and 38th. We must do better… and we can!

Even MAGA anti-woke boss Donald Trump sees the writing on the wall, even as the federal government cuts its financial support to state public schools. “[In late April,] President Donald Trump signed an executive order to integrate AI into K-12 classrooms nationwide, aiming to cultivate tech-related expertise in future generations. The directive also establishes the White House Task Force on AI Education and requires Department of Education Secretary Linda McMahon to prioritize the use of AI in discretionary grant programs for teacher training.” Joshua Rhett Miller, writing for the May 1st Newsweek.

Oddly, red state and anti-woke leader, Texas, is way ahead of that directive. It seems that in just two hours of self-directed elementary and middle school education, an AI experimental school in Brownville has produced an excited, non-boring educational curriculum that is not reliant on teachers standing in their classrooms teaching their subjects. It’s called the Alpha School, founded in 2022, and you can just look at the faces of the students (above photo) to know they are not bored.

Miller continues: “The days of dodging class or suffering from a lack of motivation appear to be a thing of the past at Alpha School, a private pre-K through eighth grade institution that utilizes personalized artificial intelligence to teach an entire day of core academic lessons in just two hours.

“The tech-savvy students then spend their afternoons working on non-academic critical life skills like public speaking, financial literacy or even how to ride a bike. Staff — known here as ‘guides’ rather than teachers — say they strive to facilitate a sense of independence into each child while overseeing a supportive, nurturing environment like any attentive teacher in any solid school district in America… Once inside, it becomes clearer that whatever is happening at this school, it's unique. In kindergarten, the students show a palpable level of excitement as 6-year-old Sarah Schipper collaborates with a dozen other classmates to solve a simple logic game. In the lesson, students deduce the correct path by jumping on colored dots to find their way across six multi-hued rows. Wide smiles, upbeat pop music and gentle suggestions of where to hop next dominate the lively room.

“‘There's a little code and we aren't able to see it,’ the bubbly kindergartener said. ‘And we have to guess it — and people can cheer for us and give us ideas of how to win.’… Sarah and her classmates encouraged each other to make bold choices at each pass but had a sense of compassion for any wrong move. One girl suggested the cohort would ‘grow from losing’ while another boy kindly proposed a more collaborative approach — along with less shouting.

“The cooperative activity serves as a springboard into Alpha's AI-powered 2 Hour Learning platform, where students use laptops for 30-minute sessions in core academic subjects, including math, English, science and social studies. The personalized approach utilizes proprietary and third-party apps and allows students to master topics up to five times faster than traditional methods, Alpha claims… Sarah, who prefers Alpha's life skills workshops that come later in the day, said she wants to be a scientist and study ‘microscopic things,’ insisting the tech-laden model will help her attain that goal while honing an unabashedly self-sufficient educational perspective.”

Whatever else is said and done, it is clear that unless there is a major upgrade to public education in this country, as the United States seems to be untethering from the rest of the world, the United States just might spiral into a second-rate power, rather than the most productive on earth. The Brownsville experiment is actually no longer an experiment. It works! We just need to fund and support that methodology with everything we can. American children have the brains to succeed; we just have to fill those brains with necessary information. 

I’m Peter Dekom, and forget about “tax cuts” as the “job creators” (a thoroughly failed theory), and let’s just restore the American dream with what we absolutely know works: the best education we can give to rising generations.

Increasing Pain from the Anti-Education Trump Administration – Student Loans

Increasing Pain from the Anti-Education Trump Administration – Student Loans

Is higher education “hire education”? The United States accelerated in the 20th century and, until the recent spate of Trump attacks on some of the world’s most preeminent research universities, into the 21st century. The post-WWII GI bill and the post-Sputnik (1957) reemphasis on STEM at all educational levels leap-frogged the United States to become the home of most of the finest universities, the super-job creators (to be contrasted with the perpetual failure of supply-side tax cuts that always promised solid jobs but never delivered) and the primary staircase to upward mobility.

But as Trump’s prioritization of big corporations and the mega-wealthy – in tax and regulatory policies – upward mobility died, post-secondary education became increasingly unaffordable and universally respected top US institutions of higher learning were sliced and diced in a politicized culture war. Government STEM/medical research was decimated in a flood of distracting false narratives (fighting “woke elites” and, that trait that defined the United States for centuries, diversity); brilliant international students were pushed aside. As the United States slammed that door on opportunity through higher education, China, Canada, France led a whole host of nations welcome that future brain trust to their shores.

Additional factors pushed higher education farther into unpopular unaffordability. There is no question that the current configuration of the federal government, the only real pocket deep enough to fund research and education at a job-creating level, has elected to confiscate the curriculum-setting prerogative of universities and to weaponize education-into-correct-thinking political/cultural values.

With learning relevant skillsets available online, the lure of places where the best and the brightest can aggregate, has faded with each effort to replace educational validity with political control. Not only is the Department of Education purposely being shut down, leaving underfunded states to find ways to impose pseudo-educational objectives into overcrowded classrooms led by school boards with religious and cultural mandates from ultra-conservatives with little appreciation of the real world of STEM learning… but the federal deficit is sucking up the limited debt market, kicking interest rates up for anyone seeking a loan. Particularly students.

As Trump mandates loyalty to him and his policies, as a condition imposed increasingly on… er… everybody, Collin Binkley, writing for the July 15th Associated Press, explores the withdrawal of federal money from educational support: “President Trump is reshaping a student loan cancellation program into what some fear will become a tool for political retribution, taking aim at organizations that serve immigrants and transgender youth.

“The Education Department is preparing an overhaul of the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program that would strip the benefit from organizations involved in ‘illegal activities’ and allow the U.S. Education secretary to decide which should lose eligibility. A draft proposal released by the department includes definitions of illegal activity that center on immigration, terrorism and transgender issues.

“Several advocates invited to weigh in on the draft proposal raised concerns it would give the department subjective authority to decide if an organization is engaged in anything illegal — a power that could be used to remove hospital systems or state governments from the program… ‘That’s definitely an indicator for me that this is politically motivated and perhaps will be used as a tool for political punishment,’ said Betsy Mayotte, president of the Institute of Student Loan Advisors and one of the advocates asked to review the policy as part of a rulemaking process.”

Writing for the July 13th Wall Street Journal, Dalvin Brown and Oyin Adedoyin, dig deeper, as the federal government has now reversed a six decade trend of supporting federal student financing: “The federal government is retreating from its central role in financing higher education… President Trump’s big tax-and-spending law includes new restrictions on how much students can borrow and how they repay. The provisions begin to reverse the government’s near takeover of the $1.7 trillion student lending market over the past six decades.

“As a result, families are reassessing the costs and risks of college. Many are likely to turn to private lenders, which typically charge higher interest rates and require creditworthy cosigners. Those lenders recently accounted for some 8% of outstanding loans, according to data from Enterval Analytics.

“In particular, as many as half of graduate-student borrowers may take private loans to cover funding gaps, according to Jordan Matsudaira, director of the Postsecondary Education & Economics Research Center at American University, and former chief economist at the Education Department… Republican lawmakers say they want to reduce taxpayer risk from the ballooning federal student-loan portfolio while forcing colleges to curb their prices… Higher education observers and borrowers worry the changes will price out middle-class families and reduce access to careers that require expensive graduate training.”

With unqualified idealogues throughout Trump’s cabinet and subcabinet appointees, we are also watching the evaporation of the kind of federal research funding that literally made America great. The big winner in all of this is, of course, China (and their little brother Putin), eager to step in to absorb the kind of students that used to fund American preeminence in finance, technology, medicine and the new world of AI supercomputing. Trump is doing the opposite of his “greatness” meme.

Ignoring fossil fuel generated disasters… as a “climate change hoax”… doesn’t make the harm go away. Dissuading bright students from getting that higher education does not make even the rich folks richer… because living and building companies in the education impaired US economy forces them to leave the United States and focus their investment capital to where the increasingly complex STEM values are moving. Soon, we may face a China too far ahead of us for us to complete… isolated without even our former allied support.

I’m Peter Dekom, and I sure hope that US voters wake up to the Trump-imposed death spiral that is crushing our greatness.

Lone Supreme Court Voice, Making Waves & Alienating the Conservative Majority

Lone Supreme Court Voice, Making Waves & Alienating the Conservative Majority

I find myself backing Harvard and Harvard graduates these days with increasing frequency. As a Yale grad, I’ve long since stopped biting my figurative tongue, finding community and resonance with that Cambridge “cabal.” Just to make my biases even clearer than they already are: I call the current assembly of Supreme Court, the “Corruption Court,” based on the blatant conflicts of interest that are ignored and the luxury “gifts” to certain members of that panel from interested parties. I will note that my view does not apply to Amy Coney Barrett or to Ketanji Brown Jackson, the two newest members of the bench. As much as Justice Jackson is Harvard undergrad and law school, Justice Barrett is Notre Dame all the way.

Jackson is part of the liberal troika on the Court (along with Sonia Sotomayor and Elana Kagan), while Coney Barrett, a devoted Roman Catholic who often imposes her religious beliefs into her opinions, is part of the Court’s six-member conservative majority, a group that has favored Donald Trump’s domination and control of the nation at virtually every turn.

Barrett clerked for Justice Antonin Scalia (since deceased), who embraced the most bizarre doctrine of contextual “originalism,” a notion that any constitutional interpretation by a court is limited to the historical context existing at the time that the relevant constitutional provision was passed. Hence, regulating an AR-15 must be reviewed within the context of flintlocks and muskets (which was the firearm status quo when the 2nd Amendment was passed). Harvard law-educated Scalia is notorious for his oft-repeated statement, like the one he delivered in a 2013 speech at Southern Methodist University, discussing the Constitution: “It’s not a living document. It’s dead, dead, dead.” Barett is a total devotee of her mentor, Antonin Scalia.

Today, this blog is visiting that lone liberal voice, sounding a consistent warning about the Court’s rightward “whatever Trump wants” drift. Ketanji Brown Jackson. I will note that throughout American history, those lone vociferous minority positions have often redefined the United States, time and time again. Something a long time, and time again. I believe that Justice Jackson just may be that voice of the future. As Adam Liptak, writing for the July 5th New York Times, describes her: “Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson wrote just five majority opinions in the Supreme Court term that ended last month [June], the fewest of any member of the court. But her voice resonated nonetheless, in an unusually large number of concurring and dissenting opinions, more than 20 in all.

“Several of them warned that the court was taking lawless shortcuts, placing a judicial thumb on the scale in favor of President Trump and putting American democracy in peril. She called the majority’s opinion in the blockbuster case involving birthright citizenship, issued on the final day of the term, ‘an existential threat to the rule of law.’… Her opinions, sometimes joined by no other justice, have been the subject of scornful criticism from the right and have raised questions about her relationships with her fellow justices, including the other two members of its liberal wing.

“‘She’s breaking the fourth wall, speaking beyond the court,’ said Melissa Murray, a law professor at New York University. ‘She is alarmed at what the court is doing and is sounding that in a different register, one that is less concerned with the appearance of collegiality and more concerned with how the court appears to the public.’

“Her slashing critiques sometimes seemed to test her colleagues’ patience, culminating in an uncharacteristic rebuke from Justice Amy Coney Barrett in the case arising from Mr. Trump’s effort to ban birthright citizenship. In that case, the majority sharply limited the power of district court judges to block presidential orders, even if they are patently unconstitutional…

“She has been particularly active in filing concurring opinions — ones that agree with the majority’s bottom line but offer additional comments or different reasoning… Indeed, she has issued such opinions at the highest rate of any member of the court since at least 1937, according to data compiled and analyzed by Lee Epstein and Andrew D. Martin, both of Washington University in St. Louis, and Michael J. Nelson of Penn State.

“She has also been active in dissent. Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. did not write his first solo dissent in an argued case until 16 years into his tenure. Justice Jackson issued three such dissents in her first term… Marin Levy, a law professor at Duke, said Justice Jackson had been doing two things in her dissents: ‘The first category concerns standard disagreements on the merits,’ Professor Levy said. ‘The second category feels quite different — I think here we see dissents in which Justice Jackson is trying to raise the alarm. Whether she is writing for the public or a future court, she is making a larger point about what she sees as not just the errors of the majority’s position but the dangers of it as well.’”

Ms Jackson’s dissent in the recent decision to limit individual federal trial court justices’ from issuing nationwide injunctions against perceived unconstitutional misconduct – saying that the majority imperiled the rule of law, creating “a zone of lawlessness within which the executive has the prerogative to take or leave the law as it wishes” – drew the ire of Coney Barrett: “Justice Jackson added her own dissent, speaking only for herself… ‘We will not dwell on Justice Jackson’s argument, which is at odds with more than two centuries’ worth of precedent, not to mention the Constitution itself,’ Justice Barrett wrote, in an opinion signed by all five of the other Republican appointees… ‘The principal dissent focuses on conventional legal terrain,’ Justice Barrett went on, referring to Justice Sotomayor’s opinion. ‘Justice Jackson, however, chooses a startling line of attack that is tethered neither to these sources nor, frankly, to any doctrine whatsoever.’” NY Times. For me, Justice Barrett’s criticism appears more like the pot calling the kettle black. I fail to see that roiling logical litany of two centuries of cases that Barrett alluded to.

Oh, and on July 8th, the Supreme Court’s shadow docket produced another Trump giveaway, although individual decisions on the merits, case-by-case, can still stop wrongful federal layoffs. In an 8-1 vote, the justices lifted an order from a federal judge in San Francisco who blocked mass layoffs at more than 20 agencies. Once again, a lone dissent from Justice Jackson noted: ““Under our Constitution, Congress has the power to establish administrative agencies and detail their functions.” Hence ceding that power to the President was incorrect. That woman has guts… and I admire her more every day. The Trump administration went on a layoff frenzy… immediately.

I’m Peter Dekom, and I cheer Justice Brown Jackson on, with a parallel belief that, if this nation indeed survives, her vision will reflect who we become.

Ultra-Violence and Bedlam in Demon California

Ultra-Violence and Bedlam in Demon California

I’ve already blogged about the decline in all forms of crime, including murder and other violent felonies, in California. Moreover, the national statistics, reported by the National Institute of Justice (September 12, 2024) surveying available data, noted: “The study found that undocumented immigrants are arrested at less than half the rate of native-born U.S. citizens for violent and drug crimes and a quarter the rate of native-born citizens for property crimes.” Recent arrests by reason of immigration status muddy the waters of any current numbers, but the headline is simple: undocumented migrants are hardly the criminals that DHS and DOJ claim, with no real supporting numbers. But high crime rates for the undocumented is what Trump’s followers want to believe, what they really need to believe. As they like to say: “Fake news.”

American citizens, with even a hint of color in their skin tones, have taken to carrying their passports (if they have them) everywhere they go. Immigration Tsar Tom Homan, with DHS Secretary Noem’s support, has openly stated that skin tone is a relevant criterion for ICE agents to detain and incarcerate individuals, without due process, often subjecting them to quick deportation… even with zero record of criminal convictions. DHS has vowed to appeal any judicial ruling that challenges that criterion. Elected members of Congress, performing their elected services, have been arrested and charged with crimes relating to their demanding access (as permitted by law) to ICE facilities.

Woe to American citizens anywhere near an ICE raid, even if they are not protesting and have made their citizenship clear to arresting officials. Not that even undocumented detainees can be arrested (“detained”) without recourse to due process as required by the Constitution (that founding document applies to anyone within the US, not just citizens), but stories of Americans swept up and detained happen with increasing frequency. Who knows how many US citizens have been deported to foreign prisons – there’s really no way to know. How would you feel if you were arrested by a plain clothes, self-declared ICE agent with no warrant and no visible identification? It happens every day. One particular recent example grabbed my attention:

“[Army veteran] George Retes, 25, who works as a security guard at Glass House Farms in Camarillo [north of Los Angeles], said he was arriving at work on July 10 when several federal agents surrounded his car and — despite him identifying himself as a U.S. citizen — broke his window, peppered sprayed him and dragged him out… Retes was taken to the Metropolitan Detention Center in downtown Los Angeles, where he said he was put in a special cell on suicide watch and checked on each day after he became emotionally distraught over his ordeal and missing his 3-year-old daughter's birthday party Saturday [7/12]… He said federal agents never told him why he was arrested or allowed him to contact a lawyer or his family during his three-day detention. Authorities never let him shower or change clothes despite being covered in tear gas and pepper spray, Retes said, adding that his hands burned throughout the first night he spent in custody.” Associated Press, July 16th. How glorious it is to be an American citizen these days?!

I am sure none of us missed the Trump tirades against radical leftists and violent criminals who had “taken over” Los Angeles. In short, he maintained, he was rescuing this city from the lawless duly elected state and municipal officials’ purportedly condoning and encouraging violent resistance to ICE pursuits of those dangerous undocumented criminals running rampant in the streets. That most of those protests were provoked by the ICE agents themselves seems to fall between the cracks. One of my neighbors, a member of the local press corps, was injured (along with other clearly labeled journalists) when she was struck by a large “non-lethal” projectile… and required medical attention. The wound sure looked horrible to me.

The ”violence” was so pervasive, maintained the President, that he was forced to federalize 2,000 (and then another 2,000) California National Guards over the objections of the Governor, and order 700 active-duty Marines, to support ICE agents and guard federal buildings in violent Los Angeles. Many were forced to sleep on concrete floors. They were not trained to be police officers and most never figured that they would be deployed against their fellow citizens. Morale plunged as Trump continued to fabricate reports of rebellious violence that could only be quelled by military force. Forget the Posse Comitatus statute that banned such activity absent a showing of invasion or rebellion (never established).

So, what was/is life for those military troops ordered to settle an otherwise peaceful Los Angeles? Writing for the July 17th Los Angeles Times, Jenny Jarvie, Grace Toohey and Christopher Buchanan write: “They were deployed by the Trump administration to combat ‘violent, insurrectionist mobs’ in and around Los Angeles, but in recent days the only thing many U.S. Marines and California National Guard troops seemed to be fighting was tedium… ‘There’s not much to do,’ one Marine said as he stood guard outside the towering Wilshire Federal Building in Westwood this week.

“The blazing protests that first met federal immigration raids in downtown Los Angeles were nowhere to be seen along Wilshire Boulevard or Veteran Avenue, so many troops passed the time chatting and joking over energy drinks. The Marine, who declined to give his name because he was not authorized to speak to reporters, said his duties consisted mostly of approving access for federal workers and visitors to the Veterans Affairs office.

“More than five weeks after Trump mobilized an extraordinary show of military force against the will of California Gov. Gavin Newsom and L.A. Mayor Karen Bass, few National Guard troops and Marines have remained in public view, most retreating to local military bases in Orange County… As an indication of the military’s dwindling role in immigration enforcement operations, U.S. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth on Tuesday [7/16] ordered the release of 2,000 National Guard troops. Now, Bass, Newsom and others are demanding the complete removal of remaining troops — or about 2,000 California National Guard soldiers and 700 Marines… ‘Thousands of members are still federalized in Los Angeles for no reason and unable to carry out their critical duties across the state,’ Newsom said on X , accusing Trump of using California National Guard troops as ‘political pawns.’.. ‘End this theater and send everyone home,’ the governor said… Bass said the troops’ primary mission in L.A. was to guard federal buildings that ‘frankly didn’t need to be guarded.’”

They never had much to do, but I suspect that is to be expected when the underlying justification for their deployment was totally fabricated… in MY HOMETOWN. As I and my friends, many attorneys practice here, have realized: we now know what it is like living in a police state, where purported “police” with no identification no longer even require “probable cause” to arrest anyone they choose. This is NOT the American I was born and raised in.

Despite Trump’s plunging numbers and particularly the overreaching nature of ICE efforts, Trump and his power-hungry appointees have pledged to ramp up their sweep of all these “dangerous” undocumented aliens (70% of whom have no criminal records).

DJT’s Legacy – Making America Small Again

DJT’s Legacy – Making America Small Again

For a President who seemed to be unstoppable, Donald Trump has not only overplayed his hand, but he is also losing some of his most diehard worshipers in the process. The United States was once a very small, isolated nation trailing the developed world in technology, commerce and influence. In 1789, it was a country of about 4 million people, 95% agricultural, with grit and determination. Over the next two centuries, the nation was flooded by immigrants, mostly European, but joined by racial, religious and ethnic minorities that led us into global technological and financial leadership. That immigrant melting pot, a lettuce bowl to some, is what made America great. We capitalized on that confluence of ideas and passion, ideas exchanged within that blend of people; DIVERSITY is what made America great in the first place. Now, it’s a dirty word, as Donald Trump strips away the leverage that took that population blend to the top: The greatest aggregation of innovation, learning and research within our finest universities.

Even Trump’s signature top-of-mind goal, the results of his autocratic immigration reform, pales in comparison with the accomplishments of late 20th and early 21st century presidents: Ronald Reagan’s successful statutory immigration reform in 1986 (the last major such reform) and Barack Obama’s deportation of double Trump’s numbers without the chaos, cruelty or constitutional lapses. Trump’s underlying political tool, destabilization with intimidation, fear and chaos, has shocked even members of his base but has really turn off support from the vital independent voters needed to elect MAGA candidates in the upcoming midterms. Even as MAGA dominated legislatures are desperately attempting to cull voting rolls of likely Democrats, expanding gerrymandering to marginalize their opponents, there is a rising groundswell against these abusive policies.

Trump is not getting the message. As food rots unharvested in the fields, as small businesses are failing for lack of low cost labor, and social and traditional media abound with stories and images of cruelty – from masked plainclothes ICE raiding undocumented workers at their places of employment (pretty much ignoring the small number of criminals they promised to prioritize in order to meet bizarre quotas), families separated, people shipped to terrifying foreign prisons without any effort to verify their status via due process and the construction of concentration camps like Alligator Alcatraz for even the lowest level undocumented workers they can find – has turned the majority of Americans in opposition to Trump’s secret police immigration enforcement officers and their cruel methodology… and now there is a 79% majority favoring immigration and a clear path to citizenship (July 11th Gallup poll report).

But even with $170 billion added to Trump’s enforcement effort, the remaining pool of potential recruits is drawing sub-par applicants, seeking power over other people, seems likely to anger voters even more. Quality enforcement is not remotely the goal anymore. As Andrea Castillo, writing for the July 20th LA Times notes: “The independent watchdog concluded that to meet the goal of 10,000 new immigration officers, ICE would need more than 500,000 applicants. For CBP to hire 5,000 new agents, it would need 750,000 applicants.

“It doesn’t appear either goal was met. In 2017, ICE hired 371 deportation officers from more than 11,000 applications and took 173 days on average to finalize hires, the news outlet Government Executive reported. And Cronkite News reported that when Trump left office in 2021, Border Patrol had shrunk by more than 1,000 agents… [The last time we went on such a massive immigration officer hiring spree] Josiah Heyman, an anthropology professor who directs the University of Texas at El Paso’s Center of Inter-American and Border Studies, studied the mid-2000s hiring spree. He said smuggling organizations have only gotten more sophisticated since then, as have security measures, so it’s more valuable for smugglers to ‘buy someone off’ instead of attempting to bring in people or drugs undetected.

“Beyond corruption, Heyman said he worries the drive to quickly increase Homeland Security staffing could lead to Americans being deported, as well as an increase of assault and abuse cases and deaths of detainees.” That bullying tendencies are vastly more prevalent in the current state of applicants should worry us all.

And then there’s the economy. As Trump’s cancelation of alternative energy infrastructure, he mistakenly believes that “drill, baby, drill” will spur the production of cheap gasoline, coal and diesel fuel. But global markets, not Donald Trump, set the price for these fuels… and the trend lines are terrible. Losing the predicted 700,000 jobs that were created by this proposed US infrastructure is bad enough, but Americans are losing EV vehicle incentives and charging stations by the thousands. Newsweek, July 16th. China should send the Trump a thank you note, and Detroit automotive workers should be screaming bloody murder. We are tanking in that international marketplace as China’s BVD electrical cars are so hot, that for every US car sold overseas, China is selling four vehicles (the above photo shows one of many BVD models).

Even as Trump once claimed he was first in his undergrad class at Wharton, hard facts say otherwise as Trump will not permit his academic record to be released to the public. Given Wharton’s list of honored graduates in Trump’s year of graduation, it is obvious, Mr Trump was nowhere near a top student. Given his grasp of macroeconomics – necessary to understand trade policies (like what tariffs really do) and the function of the Federal Reserve – virtually all independent economists at established financial institutions are predicting serious increases in interest rates, compounded by new federal loan policies that are likely deny even lending support for graduate students, even in the very necessary growth STEM fields. Trump would prefer to revel in his own power to destroy the American higher educational system than adhere to his pledge of reducing costs for us all.

Our military did not “obliterate” Iran’s nuclear enrichment program; Israeli intelligence tells us that they have stores of such materials, some of their centrifuge processers are already back online and Iranian munitions and money are already being restored to the Houthis, Hezbollah, Hamas, etc. “Mission accomplished!” Only in the uncritical, fact averse minds of MAGA Trumpers.

I could continue with the bungling efforts of a self-congratulatory Trump clown car, but where we are seriously losing the game is in our efforts to contain and compete against China, already a miliary and economic superpower. They are almost on par in the development of AI, are enhancing not tanking their universities, currently have the capacity to disrupt our power grid and internet system… and they have stepped to replace American soft power global influence (our foreign aid is almost gone), letting most the world know that the United States is already a second rate power. We are willing to assume massive debt (as long as people by our treasuries) to prioritize tax cuts for the rich. But how long can the world’s greatest debtor nation remain the superpower most Americans assume we will continue to be. That does not work for most of the rest of the world.

I’m Peter Dekom, and most Americans cling to the belief that we will remain (perhaps grow) as the number one superpower on Earth; don’t hold your breath as we slide in precisely the opposite direction.

Born in the USA and Getting Away with Murder

Born in the USA and Getting Away with Murder

The United States is increasingly looking like a third world country when it comes to law enforcement. Convicted violent criminals are pardoned when their violence, which injured and resulted in the death of police officers, was in support of the President. Clemency and other pardon activities favor donors (and their family members) to Presidential campaign coffers and favored candidates. Our reconfigured FBI is headed by an idealogue with no police experience who spends more time in his beloved Las Vegas (enjoying the nightlife) than he does at the helm of his storied agency… not to mention purging agents that may have been involved in Trump investigations and using agents to track down pro-Trump discredited conspiracy theories.

For the most part, local police are woefully undertrained, at least by international standards. As police officers in much of Europe train for up to three years, a local US cop is lucky to get even 6 months of training. The number of successful lawsuits against police use of excessive force not only reflects this undertraining but saps local municipal budgets with massive judicially determined payouts. Understaffing is the consequence of such payouts. The use of powerful “non-lethal” containment methods, from large projectile to powerful tasers, makes matters worse. As do the ubiquitous smartphone videos of officers pummeling handcuffed arrestees already subdued and pinned to the ground. The recent use of federalized National Guardsmen, backed by active-duty Marines, deploys reluctant untrained “cops for a week or two” almost exclusively against pollical protestors opposing the incumbent administration.

So, police are too often called to counter protesters who support causes that the local administration opposes (or is under national pressure to oppose). Meanwhile, federal agencies aimed at preventing consumer fraud, criminal dumping of toxic effluents, intentionally releasing addictive drugs and substandard prescription drugs by major companies, etc. are being defunded or actually being shut down. The resultant rise in what were once prevented crimes is staggering.

But what happens when our local police are shifted to priorities that just do not keep Americans safe, where court rulings ensure the open use and spread of firearms, from AR-15s to large capacity handguns, including unpermitted concealed or open carry rights? Do “stand your ground” laws deter crime or cause crime? The statistics in places like Texas and Florida are not good. But as part of this official encouragement of lawlessness, a reflection of the distraction of local police everywhere from traditional law enforcement priorities, is this harsh reality from the resulting staffing shortages: roughly half of all the murders in the United States remain unsolved.

Starting with Louisville, KY, a typical small city where murderers have even odds of never getting caught, NY Times columnist, German Lopez, writes (on July 7th): “Louisville’s police department acknowledges serious problems; it says it is about 300 officers below full staffing. The department is trying to address those issues, said Jennifer Keeney, a spokeswoman. She shared a message for the family members of murder victims: ‘We understand they are grieving, frustrated and in pain. We want them to know it’s frustrating for us, too, and that we do care.’

“Louisville is representative of a national issue. In the United States, people often get away with murder. The clearance rate — the share of cases that result in an arrest or are otherwise solved — was 58 percent in 2023, the latest year for which F.B.I. data is available. And that figure is inflated because it includes murders from previous years that police solved in 2023…

“Compared with its peers, America overall does an unusually poor job of solving killings. The murder clearance rates of other rich nations, including Australia, Britain and Germany, hover in the 70s, 80s and even 90s. Several issues, including a lack of resources, the sheer volume of cases and a distrust of the police, have converged to make the jobs of American detectives much more difficult. ‘It’s a serious problem,’ said Philip Cook, a criminal justice researcher at Duke University.

“The lack of legal accountability emboldens criminals, leading to more crime and violence… ‘It’s a vicious cycle,’ Brian Forst, a criminologist at American University, told me. ‘When the bad guys see that the police are not there to deter crime and catch criminals, they remain on the streets to do more bad stuff. And the rest of the community is less deterred from crime. They think, ‘Why not? I’m not going to get caught.’’”

Let’s face it, we prioritize gun ownership over the lives of our children (guns are the leading cause of death among children and teens in the US), we have more guns than people and a serious misinterpretation of an amendment that simply allowed Revolutionary War citizen soldiers to keep their weapons in the ensuing peacetime… to promulgate a fairly unrestricted individual right to own firearms of all descriptions, often arming street gangs with weapons superior to the police engaged to arrest them. What’s even more absurd, the seminal case on point and the first such case since the Second Amendment was passed in 1789 to address open gun ownership rights, the 2008 Supreme Court in Heller vs DC, went so far as to require the application of gun ownership rules from 1789 (i.e., that applied to flintlocks and muskets).

We watch online and television criminal process programming where the cops always get their man (perpetrator, anyway), applying readily available state-of-the-art forensics, a team of dedicated expert investigators and statistically extraordinary results… that hardly reflect real world facts. Unless you use your weapon in plain sight, often under the obviously watchful eye of nearby cameras, the United States is a great place to murder, whether for profit or simply… because one can. I wonder how many murders were committed under the NRA expression: “the only way to kill a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun.” The rights of the bad guy with a gun and the good guy with a gun to have a gun are often the same.

I’m Peter Dekom, and while rightwing zealots decry the failure to support the rule of law, they seldom really mean traditional crimes… they usually mean containing those expressing views they do not like.

Toxic Metrics and the Death of "Community" in America

 Mark Zuckerberg’s jet  

Mark Zuckerberg’s jet

main residential compound  

and yacht 

                                     

Toxic Metrics and the Death of “Community” in America

Donald Trump always hated the community (Queens, NYC) where he was born and raised. He yearned for the New York across the river, where money was the ultimate metric of success: Manhattan. And when that part of NYC rejected him and his values, he fled to a state in the midst of an experiment in anti-democratic autocracy: Florida. Was he looking for that 1789 “community” that had defined a tiny (4 million people) and highly isolated new nation, 95% engaged in farming, or did he not care anymore? The hallmark of early-era America, outside of the few urban areas, was small pockets of farmers, linked by weekly church attendance, which were communities where everybody knew everybody. Where people met and married, where barnstorming was a collective mutual support construction practice and where individuals cared for members of that community, into which they were born and where they were buried when their time came.

“Community” grew as immigrants invaded both cities and vast tracts of arable land that was slowly being confiscated from the Native Peoples who lived there. As the 1803 Louisiana Purchase offered more room for new communities, settlers from other, mostly European countries, brought their crops (and agricultural knowhow), recipes, religious structures (almost all Christian), music, language and culture to what was, at first, a melting pot and later a lettuce bowl of diversity. Those First Amendment rights were particularly attractive to former residents of monarchies plagued by religious intolerance.

The Civil War, Reconstruction and the Industrial Revolution changed all that. People left their communities, often devastated by war damage, having fought wars, to seek economic/well-paid jobs and opportunities far from their home communities. Former slaves, now free to travel, left the repressive lands they once worked under whip and chain… to seek opportunities northward.

Today, those communities – from ethnic urban enclaves to farming communities and small towns – have slipped out of national relevance, except where they could be manipulated by unscrupulous politicians, from Reconstruction to Tea Party/MAGA frustration to liberal countermeasures. Territorial “communities” were soon replaced by shared job center connections. As advanced education became an employment-essential, mobility raised certain new variables to communities and individuals’ increasingly feeling unconnected. For those admitted to nationally prestigious universities, there was little reason to return to a job-impaired small town or rural community upon graduation. Facebook and other social networks were often the only way for college friendships to continue. But maybe “community” does not matter now.

You can see, even in our most basic assumptions, that we prize efficiency (even modest) over community. As Andy Boenau, writing for the July 9th FastCompany.com, explains: “If you want to understand how even modern American cities became hostile to human life, don’t start with the political conspiracies; look at the way city planners and road engineers calculate success… Every day, public agencies across the country greenlight projects that cost millions of dollars, destroy neighborhoods, and ultimately kill people—all in the name of saving drivers a few seconds. This is standard operating procedure, justified by a single, dangerous metric: vehicular delay… In transportation bureaucratese, it’s called Level of Service (LOS). Think of it as a report card with grades A to F describing how freely cars move. But this grade has nothing to do with safety, quality of life, economic productivity, or human flourishing. It’s entirely about how long a vehicle waits at an intersection or slows down during rush hour. The built environment is shaped around that metric.” People and their welfare take second place all the time.

For some, feeling unconnected or isolated, distances collapsed as online connectivity replaced in person reality. Increasingly, individual identity and political affinity merged into one. It’s hard for a Massachusetts liberal to drive through virtually any Oklahoma residential district where Trump and MAGA signs are everywhere, and those with liberal leanings are likely to hold back.

“In today’s America, political identity isn’t just about voting—it’s shaping who we want as friends, neighbors, and even in-laws. A study published in Political Psychology found that partisanship now overrides nearly all other social identities—including race, religion, and education level—when people evaluate others. Using a national survey, researchers showed participants profiles of hypothetical individuals and asked them to judge how much they liked each one, or whether they’d want to live near them or have them as family. Political affiliation was the strongest predictor of these social preferences, with people consistently favoring those who shared their party and expressing dislike for those who didn’t…

“A new study published in the European Journal of Political Research found that voters who feel ideologically close to ‘dark’ political candidates—those scoring high in Machiavellianism, psychopathy, or narcissism—were more likely to express stronger affective polarization. The effect wasn’t caused by dislike of the opposition, but rather by an emotional attachment to their own combative leader…

“In one of the largest cross-cultural studies of its kind, researchers from 25 countries found that people are more likely to support dominant, authoritarian leaders when they perceive intergroup conflict or national threat. Published in Evolution and Human Behavior, the study included over 5,000 participants and tested whether scenarios involving war or peace affected leadership preferences. In conflict situations, people were more likely to prefer leaders who appeared physically dominant, aggressive, or forceful. This preference showed up across cultures—from the United States and China to Kenya and Russia… The findings support the idea that humans have an evolved tendency to turn toward strong leadership during times of danger.” Eric Dolan writing for PsyPost, July 5th. Perhaps the United States is just too big to be governable.

While the metrics of success, at least in the United States, focus on growth (as in Gross Domestic Product), low unemployment, share prices and relative currency values, we have a pretty angry fractured population. Our old celebrities, movies stars pale in comparison to todays’ musical and athletic powerhouses… and everything pales in comparison to billionaire status. Gated “communities” (where no one really speaks to anyone else) are replaced by mega-billionaire, guarded “enclaves” and “compounds.” What are not national priorities are wellness metrics (note: US life expectancies are declining), measures of relative happiness (Finland seems to be the happiest nation on earth… but it’s so… er… socialist, right?) and livability (Denmark’s Copenhagen takes that prize).

Just looking at how skewed our metrics truly are, understand how “rich folks” bias tilts our GDP calculation (the value of the aggregation of US economic transactions). Let’s use a relative earnings model as an example. Look at 10 Americans earning $100,000 each and one American earning $10M. The average earning of that $11M total is obviously $1M/per capita… and GDP is not a median or a mean calculation; it is an aggregated amorphous number that has virtually no statistical relevance for anyone. Simply put, mega-wealth, mega-earnings and the special tax rules that amplify the wealth of the richest, skew “success” dramatically but mean nothing to average Americans. Unlike the stocks and bonds market, the labor and GDP statistics, there are no routinely scheduled or international comparisons for happiness, affordability and wellness. Reports on such metrics (that should really matter), are reported randomly with little attention or alarm/joy.

I’m Peter Dekom, and in a country where Americans increasingly hate each other, where mass misery loves highly polarized company, we live with a government that uses statistical manipulation to tell you why you should be happy and satisfied… when you really are not.