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.

A Legacy of Disappointment & Shame

   

A Legacy of Disappointment & Shame

Last year (September 27th), my blog Whose Supreme Court is It Anyway focused on Supreme Court Justice John Roberts, who at the time seemed to have surrendered to the reality that the 6 to 3 heavily rightwing Trump reconfigured Supreme Court could outvote any moderate course. It was the year, before Trump 2.0, that Roberts wrote the opinion in Trump vs United States that ruled that a president, acting within aA Legacy of Disappointment & Shame colorable scope of his official acts, would be exempt from any criminal liability. Of the more than 23 “emergency” “shadow docket” rulings over Trump 2.0 policies, where delays have been granted in Trump’s favor without an opinion or review on the merits, 90% have been supportive of expanding the power of the President.

To emasculate lower federal court rulings against Trump’s excesses further, in Trump vs Casa (decided this summer), the Robert’s Court limited trial court injunctions against constitutional violations simply to the judicial territory of the specific lower court. The Court was limiting the power of what they called the “administrative state,” but instead of just taking away the deference that courts used to accord highly trained experts in federal agencies, they handed such decisions to uninformed judges who often applied their vision of common sense or replaced the ruling with a highly ideological result sought by conspiracy theorists.

Reflective of Roberts’ rewriting the Constitution to enable Donald Trump’s reach for autocracy, as clearly stated in the 900+ page Project 2025 agenda book and supported in an October 5th editorial in the Wall Street Journal, is this excerpt from a letter to that Journal from Georgetown University Professor of Law, Stephen I. Vladeck, published on October 15thagainst that editorial: “In the words of Justice Elena Kagan, those rulings have cleared the way for President Trump to ‘transfer government authority from Congress to the President, and thus to reshape the Nation’s separation of powers.’

“Across two dozen unsigned and usually unexplained grants of requests for emergency relief, the Supreme Court, with Chief Justice John Roberts almost always in the majority, has approved Mr. Trump’s refusal to spend billions of dollars Congress has appropriated—an executive impoundment power constitutional conservatives, including then-White House lawyer John Roberts, have long rejected.

“The court has allowed the president to terminate government contracts for spurious and often retaliatory reasons. It has greenlit the decimation of agencies and cabinet departments that Congress created and structured. And it has done so while, at the same time, calling into question the power and propriety of individual federal district judges blocking federal policies—a power constitutional conservatives regularly invoked, to great success, during the Biden administration… You laud the Roberts Court for reducing ‘the prospects of lawfare’ against political opponents and limiting ‘the arbitrary power of the administrative state.’ But one need only read your fine editorial pages to see how much the court’s recent misadventures have had the opposite effect.

“The Roberts Court may have achieved a ‘constitutional revitalization,’ but it’s more troubling than the one you describe. Its rulings reflect a vision of the Constitution in which the executive is dominant, the legislature all-but irrelevant, and the Supreme Court there to protect the executive from pesky lower courts that insist it must follow the law… As you note elsewhere, that isn’t what originalist judges should do—or what the Founders wanted.”

Ah, but, sooner or later, those docket decisions are all destined to face a hearing on the merits, replete with oral arguments, full briefing and, ultimately, a decision embodied in one or more published opinions. The decisions this rightwing Roberts Court used to kill Joe Biden’s student loan forgiveness program and his environmental rules – effectively that on obviously “major question” matters, the Court must view Presidential edicts narrowly absent an expressed grant of power by Congress in the enabling statute – if applied in the same way, would strongly suggest that Trump’s unilateral declaration of an “emergency” based on trade imbalance is hardly what the statute upon which he relied, the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA), a 1977 law that never mentions “tariffs,” was intended to allow.

The consolidated cases challenging Trump’s tariff frenzy now before the Supreme Court (Learning Resources v. Trump, and Trump v. V.O.S. Selections, Inc.) faced oral argument on November 5th. Gravel voiced Solicitor General, John Saur, could not fast-talk past the wall of judicial skepticism he faced as he lamely attempted to claim that a “tariff” was not a tax, just a trade regulation, and that a pattern of half a century of trade practices could be deemed an “emergency.” My personal belief is that Roberts and friends have painted themselves into an ugly, MAGA-driven corner where the entire Supreme Court panel knows Trump exceeded his authority, even though the conservative majority have been Trump enablers, but the remedies would be catastrophic… and angry MAGA followers would be likely to scream at any attempt to limit King Trump.

“[During the above oral argument}, Roberts appeared to lean against the administration’s arguments that Trump had the power to unilaterally impose tariffs with virtually every nation. But the arguments barely touched on the implications of ruling against the president. Not only are the economic consequences enormous—the government says it expects to collect between $750 billion and $1 trillion in tariffs by next June—but the political implications could be even greater.

“Trump has championed an aggressive tariff regime for decades; as president, he views import taxes as essential to remaking the U.S. economy. Taken together, the economic stakes and the president’s intense personal commitment to his tariffs almost make the case too big to lose…If the court does rule against the president, it could say that federal law doesn’t allow Trump to impose these types of tariffs on his own. It could also say that tariffs are taxes and Congress, which holds the taxing power, can’t outsource that authority to the president even if it wanted to.” Jess Bravin writing for the October 11th Wall Street Journal. But if the Court does not limit Trump’s tariffs, the rule of law will have officially ended, and the reign of King Trump will have officially begun.

I’m Peter Dekom, and if democracy in the United States ends, John Roberts will join Stephen Miller and Russell Vought as the principal architects of Donald Trump’s return replacement for the long-believed-to-be-dead King George III.

On Jailing Presidents

 

France’s Ex-President Nicholas Sarkozy escorted inside Paris’ La Santé Prison to begin his sentence

On Jailing Presidents

Post-WWII arrests, convictions and (sometimes) incarceration of heads of state were pretty routine in Communist bloc/CIS nations, unstable developing countries (mostly in Africa, South America and Asia) but also those which have also embraced Western-style governance like Israel (Moshe Katsav, Ehud Olmert) and even NATO allies like France (François Charles Amand Fillon, Jacques Chirac and Nicolas Sarkozy). Israel’s PM, Benjamin Netanyahu, is currently in an extended trial for fraud and corruption and, if convicted, faces jail time as well. Whether by pardon or failed votes to convict impeached presidents in the US, no former US president has faced criminal conviction. Given the complexion of the Trump-appointment-dominated 6-3 Supreme Court, we cannot expect a parallel risk for Donald Trump here.

In July of 2024, the US Supreme Court gave Donald Trump (and any subsequent president) a get-out-of-jail free card in Trump v. United States, 603 U.S. 593, a landmark decision in which the Court determined that presidential immunity from criminal prosecution presumptively extends to all of a president's "official acts" – with absolute immunity for official acts within an exclusive presidential authority. Courts have subsequently given Trump broad leeway in what comprises an “official act,” and the Court’s reasoning seems to have stretched well beyond any legitimate constitutional basis. With that “trump” card in pocket, Donald Trump has pushed the envelope going after his political opponents with open vengeance and ordering federal troops to invade cities with Democratic mayors or governors often with brutal repression.

Today, however, I would like to discuss the recent beginning of a five-year prison sentence for former French President (2007-12) Nicolas Sarkozy, the first French ex-president to go to jail for conspiring to fund his election campaign with money from late Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi. BBC journalists, Paul Kirby and Hugh Schofieldin, provide these details (on October 21st): “More than 100 people applauded and shouted ‘Nicolas!’ as he left his villa in the exclusive 16th district of Paris, holding his wife Carla Bruni-Sarkozy by the hand… His son Louis, 28, had appealed to supporters for a show of support, while another son, Pierre, called for a message of love – ‘nothing else, please’.

“Nicolas Sarkozy, 70, was driven through the entrance of the notoriously overcrowded 19th-Century prison in the Montparnasse district south of the River Seine at 09:40 local time (07:40 GMT), while dozens of police officers cordoned off most of the surrounding streets… He continues to protest his innocence in the highly controversial Libyan money affair and posted a message on X as he was driven to the jail, saying: ‘I have no doubt. Truth will prevail. But how crushing the price will have been.’… ‘With unwavering strength I tell [the French people] it is not a former president they are locking up this morning - it is an innocent man,’ he wrote. ‘Do not feel sorry for me because my wife and my children are by my side... but this morning I feel deep sorrow for a France humiliated by a will for revenge.’

“Moments after Sarkozy entered jail, his lawyer Christophe Ingrain said a request for his release had been filed. Nothing justified his imprisonment, said Mr Ingrain, adding: ‘He'll be inside for at least three weeks or a month.’… Sarkozy has said he wants no special treatment at La Santé prison, although he has been put in its isolation section for his own safety as other inmates are infamous drugs dealers or have been convicted for terror offences…

“Sarkozy's cell in the prison's isolation wing is believed to be on the top floor and will measure between 9-11 sq m (95-120 sq ft). There had earlier been talk of him serving his term in the another wing for ‘vulnerable people’, where other VIPs have been jailed in the past.

“He will have a toilet, a shower, a desk, a small electric hob and a small TV, for which he will have to pay a monthly €14 (£12 [/$16]) fee, and the right to a small fridge… The former president has the right to receive information from the outside world and family visits as well as written and phone contact.

“But he is in effect in solitary confinement, allowed just one hour a day for exercise, by himself in the wing's segregated courtyard… ‘Conditions of detention in an isolation wing are pretty hard," La Santé ex-deputy head Flavie Rault told BFMTV. ‘You are alone, all the time. The only contact you have is with prison staff. You never come across another detainee for security reasons and there's a type of social isolation which makes life difficult’.”

Could this happen here? Trump’s mass pardon of the 1/2/21 convicted felons who invaded and desecrated the US Capitol, with resulting death and serious injury, whom he labeled as “patriots,” tells you all you need to know. Having brazenly committed what appeared to be unlawful retention of highly classified documents, the same charges his DOJ is alleging against his former senior advisor, John “now my enemy” Bolton, Trump seems to revel in his newfound status (at least to him) of “absolute, unquestioning” power… clearly above the law.

His 2024 election shut down all federal prosecutions against him, as the DOJ seems to be going after those federal employees, just doing their assigned jobs, who assisted in those investigations. But those efforts cannot erase his 34-count fraud conviction in NY state court or his massive civil judgment for the same unlawful acts. Instead, Trump is directing his DOJ to pursue criminal prosecutions against those state officials (in NY and Georgia) who investigated and/or successfully litigated the above results.

I’m Peter Dekom, and what was a difficult but publicly necessary prosecution of state leaders in France and Israel is a level of accountability that the MAGA Republican Party would never condone here, even as a once objective GOP drove a corrupt Richard Nixon from office, requiring a presidential pardon to prevent Nixon’s probable conviction and incarceration.

It’s the Process That’s Hard to Swallow (or Too Easy?)

  

It’s the Process That’s Hard to Swallow (or Too Easy?)

If we are what we eat, we are large containers of preservatives and extenders with some obviously nasty results. Nothing brings that home like the rising incidences of type 2 diabetes and the rise in colon rectal cancer among Gen Z. A study by the Centers for Disease Control found that, for U.S. children and young adults, new diagnoses of type 1 diabetes increased by approximately 2 percent every year, while new cases of type 2 diabetes increased by more than 5 percent every year. Comparable studies of colon-rectal cancer (CRC) have witnessed what used to be a disease associated with the elderly to be increasingly migrating into younger American demographics. CRC is on the rise among adults in their 20s, 30s, and 40s, increasing by as much as 2% each year since 1994. In adults under 50, it has become the No. 1 cancer killer of men, and the No. 2 cancer killer of women.

But the rise among Gen Z and younger Millennials has been particularly startling. Much of this can be traced to the rise in obesity, a sedentary lifestyle, socio-economic indicators, and, more than ever, dietary shifts, particularly within the ultraprocessed food landscape, embracing more sugary beverages and the increased consumption of fast food and processed snacks among a younger generation that has often been labeled as the “convenience generation.” Studies have also shown a graded association between increased screen time and higher levels of insulin resistance in children and adolescents, even independent of obesity or even just excess weight.

Writing for the October 20th The Morning (NY Times news feed), Alice Callahan, a PhD nutritionist, explains how we got here: “Humans have been processing food for millenniums. Hunter-gatherers ground wild wheat to make bread; factory workers canned fruit for soldiers during the Civil War… But in the late 1800s, food companies began concocting products that were wildly different from anything people could make themselves. Coca-Cola came in 1886, Jell-O in 1897, and Crisco in 1911. Spam, Velveeta, Kraft Mac & Cheese and Oreos arrived in the decades that followed. Foods like these often promised ease and convenience. Some of them filled the bellies of soldiers in World War II….

“During World War II, companies devised shelf-stable foods for soldiers — powdered cheeses, dehydrated potatoes, canned meats and melt-resistant chocolate bars. [K-rations pictured above.] They infused new additives like preservatives, flavorings and vitamins. And they packaged the foods in novel ways to withstand wet beach landings and days at the bottom of a rucksack.

“After the war, food companies realized that they could adapt this foxhole cuisine into profitable convenience foods for the masses. Advertisements told homemakers that these products offered superior nutrition and could save them time in the kitchen. Wonder Bread commercials from the 1950s, for instance, claimed its vitamins and minerals would help children ‘grow bigger and stronger.’ An ad for Swift’s canned hamburgers boasted that they were ‘out of the can and onto the bun’ in minutes….

“In the 1980s, investors wanted food manufacturers to show larger profits, so they developed thousands of new drinks and snacks and marketed them aggressively... The tobacco companies Philip Morris and R.J. Reynolds diversified into the food industry, dominating it through the early 2000s. They applied the same marketing techniques that they crafted to sell cigarettes — targeting children and certain racial and ethnic groups. Kraft, owned by Philip Morris, created Kool-Aid flavors for the Hispanic market and handed out coupons and samples at cultural events for Black Americans… Obesity tripled in children and doubled in adults between the mid-1970s and the early 2000s.

“By the 21st century, you couldn’t walk through a school cafeteria, a supermarket or an airport without being inundated by ultraprocessed foods. Obesity kept rising, and food companies addressed it by making products they marketed as ‘healthier,’ like low-carb breakfast cereals, shakes and bagels; artificially sweetened ice creams and yogurts; and snacks like Oreos and Doritos in smaller, 100-calorie packs… They were popular, but they did not make us healthier. Scientists soon linked ultraprocessed foods to Type 2 diabetes, cognitive decline and cardiovascular disease. For generations, obesity had been seen as a problem of willpower — caused by eating too much and exercising too little. But in the last decade, research on ultraprocessed foods has challenged that notion, suggesting that these foods may drive us to eat more…

“Today, scientists, influencers, advocates and politicians publicly condemn ultraprocessed foods, which represent about 70 percent of the U.S. food supply. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. calls them ‘poison.’… Are we at a tipping point? Maybe. There are signs that people are eating slightly fewer of these foods. But our reliance on ultraprocessed food was ‘decades in the making,’ one expert told me, and ‘could take decades to reverse.’” I don’t agree with much that comes out of the mouth of HHS Secretary, Robert Kennedy, Jr., but his take on our dietary habits seems accurate. And while there is a nascent backlash among some younger Americans, switching to organic foods, free of chemicals, it still a relatively small movement, countered by rising food prices… organic produce tends to be more expensive. But it is cheaper than slowly dying.

I’m Peter Dekom, and if there ever were marching orders for parents feeding their children, convenience without thought (and there are healthy prepared foods) can lead your children into a lifetime craving addiction for ultraprocessed foods that could shorten their lives, if not kill them.

Trust Has Left So Many Buildings

 

Trust Has Left So Many Buildings

Bully Bargaining, Bad-Mouth Battles, Back-Stabbing, Bad-Faith Blathering

Here’s a question for you… and the answer may define our times, our future or our lack thereof. Whom do you trust? Does an equivocating, “mommy, I didn’t do it” rise to the destruction of trust? “No, Henry, I think that your new shirt looks great on you.” When it makes him look fat and idiotic? Can we even live among our fellow human beings without the diplomatically useful white lie? If you tell your children that they should never lie, are you actually giving them good advice? Is trust about never lying? Is there a difference where there is an intent to deceive or manipulate, where material consequences or significant rewards are the great differentiators? Can it be measured if there is a risk of serious harm? Can you accept lying to keep your job or high status or acceptance among your peers without losing personal integrity? When can you balance accepting black lies to feed your family? And when does embracing lies out of genuine fear threaten to derail an entire nation… like the United (?) States of America?

At the core of just about every major life-impacting issue facing our nation, our planet and perhaps even our very survival, is dealing with people you (we?) do not trust. Our forefathers assumed that people elected to high office would be men (sorry, they did not take women or slaves as relevant deciders) of the same level of seriousness and integrity as they felt they held dear. Simply put, they were wrong. How many elected members of Congress do you trust? Exaggeration, “weaving,” “alternative facts,” hyperbole, misinterpretation and total fabrication have become the tools of political “discourse.” Political violence is no longer a rare occurrence.

Political favoritism and unbridled use of money (Citizens United vs FEC, 2010 Supreme Court) to saturate the public with “whatever” (lies most certainly included) are now part of our system of government. “Donating” to a powerful politician with discretion to exempt a company from tariffs, approve a merger or acquisition, grant or sustain a required license to operate or shunt withering criticism, even prosecution, against that company or otherwise powerful individuals… are the new normal. Gone are the ancient duels that settled differences in days of yore. Vice President Aaron Burr prevailed in a duel against Treasury Secretary Alexander Hamilton at the inception of our nation. Today’s duels may not directly involve bullets (although that can be argued), but another kind of lethality – from career decimation to prosecution and incarceration – looms large today. Fear and confusion define our nation as never before.

Since our rise to global prominence in the late 19th century, the United States has never been more disliked or distrusted by other countries than we are today. Most nations have figured out how to deal with our bully tactics and fabrication of “evidence” of global wrongs perpetrated against the United States. Some bow and compromise, but there are no major powers who have accepted that result. Any compromises they have accepted have always been good for them. But powerful nations – like China, India, Russia and even Iran and North Korea – have not simply bowed to American demands. China began preparing a Trump containment strategy during Trump 1.0, expecting him to be reelected sooner or later. And they have outflanked Trump on the global stage – from their Belt and Road Initiative to replacing our withdrawn foreign aid and playing the “rare earths” card – with complete disdain for his goals.

Emma Tucker, Editor-in-Chief, Wall Street Journal, October 24th, put the trust issue like this this: “Chinese leader Xi Jinping has tailored a playbook specifically for President Trump. His new strategy is to offer concessions on issues that Trump personally cares about. But when the Trump administration hits China, Xi hits back even harder. Separately, prosecutors say that NBA stars and technology straight out of a James Bond movie were part of a complex, far-reaching network of fixed underground poker games. And in Miami Beach, an effort to gate off an upscale strip of homes has become a flashpoint for broader debates about public access, privilege and political influence.” Emma Tucker, Editor-in-Chief, Wall Street Journal, October 24th. Ballroom anyone?

Yet as a lawyer, my concern has extended beyond a cowardly GOP contingent in Congress that will not act without direction from the White House to the complete annihilation of justice that seems locked into our system of governance. That the DOJ has become the President’s personal legal weapon of “I am your retribution” campaign pledge is bad enough, but the pattern of high court rulings, from the infamous 2024 Trump vs US immunity decision to the pattern of according Trump unwarranted victories by ignoring and reversing lower federal court decisions.

“A new report on rulings from judges at different levels of the judicial branch indicates that the Trump administration receives more favorable rulings from the Supreme Court than it does from district or circuit courts, indicating a ‘bipartisan fight for the rule of law’ at lower courts and more ‘ideologically driven’ outcomes at higher levels… The report from Court Accountability, an organization that ‘works to combat corrupt abuse of government power and support movements in advancing a thriving democratic future,’ examined hundreds of cases dealing with the Trump administration, including executive orders or actions taken by President Donald Trump himself… Legal challenges to the administration at the district court level won around 60 percent of the 240 orders judges have issued. That includes their winning 55 percent of the time when Trump-appointed judges were rendering the decisions…

“‘Our findings reveal that the district courts are engaged in a bipartisan fight for the rule of law — but when cases against the administration reach the circuit courts, Republican-appointed judges have largely voted in Trump’s favor, often writing ideologically driven dissents that their MAGA allies on the Roberts Court have then adopted to enable Trump’s autocratic rule,’ the report stated… On the Roberts Court, Republicans rule. And as the Roberts Court begins its first full term of the second Trump administration, Trump has already amassed a 21-2 record on the so-called ‘shadow docket’ [“emergency” appeals for interim decisions without opinions or an examination by the Court of the underlying merits] to prevent lower court orders against the administration’s lawlessness from going into effect… The use of the shadow docket obscured the legal rationale of the rulings, the organization said.

“The justices have left us to guess why they are letting Trump persist in his lawlessness across a wide range of issues from immigration to federal spending, while leaving lower courts without guidance on how to carry out the high court’s unexplained orders, the report said… At the Supreme Court, however, the rate was unquestionably pro-Trump — among the 23 rulings and temporary orders made and examined by Court Accountability relating to the administration’s actions, Trump had a 90 percent win rate.” Chris Walker, writing for Truthout, October 15th.

From gifts from parties with cases before the Court (expensive vacations, forgiven loans for luxury motor homes) to embracing symbols that make a mockery of judicial “neutrality,” the Supreme Court, not bound by the canons of ethics that apply to the rest of federal judiciary, is the poster child for the tolerance of judicial corruption. As Walker has pointed out, citing the lowest approval polling for the Supreme Court since polling began, in addition to term limits, “Establishing a stronger ethics code for justices — including stronger mechanisms for enforcing such a code — could also go a long way toward restoring [public] trust.” It’s time to act to contain rogue judges.

I’m Peter Dekom, and “trust” can start with grassroots baby steps reaching out to people who disagree with you, but unless we can find a way to rebuild trust as a primary American value, the United States of America will continue to unravel and fade away.