Alone Again, Naturall

 

Alone Again, Naturally

Except for Strongmen with a proclivity towards violence as a ubiquitous solution

“We are in a full-scale war with the US, Israel and Europe; they do not want our country to stand on its feet.” 

Iran’s President Masoud Pezeshkian, in an interview published on the website of the country’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, December 27th ,

“The decades of Pax Americana are, for us in Europe and also for us in Germany, largely over.” 

Germany’s chancellor, Friedrich Merz, December 13th; Europe should prepare for a “fundamental change” in the transatlantic relationship

Upon exiting the Constitutional Convention Benjamin, Franklin was approached by a group of citizens asking what sort of government the delegates had created. His answer was: 

"A republic, if you can keep it."

Strongmen and powerful leaders know that through flattery and manufactured “peace awards,” they can tame the egomaniacal Trump beast. The man who bombs small, self-declared narco-terrorist boats not even heading to the United States, orders a deep strike deep into Iranian territory, shovels billions of dollars of weapons into Israeli PM Netanyahu’s murderous coffers to be used to extinguish innocent Palestinian lives in Gaza as that American leader asks the Israeli President Isaac Herzog to pardon Netanyahu (who is also under ICC indictment for war crimes), marches federal or federalized troops into blue cities, where he has already cut support for local police, to help purge “criminals” and rid those cities of even the peaceful mostly Hispanic undocumented workers… who claims to have ended more wars and regional conflicts (even as the participants say otherwise) than any leader in history… does not understand why he has not been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. Hint: THAT WILL NEVER HAPPEN!

Trump is enamored of powerful cruel foreign rightwing populists or just plain dictator/kings, who have a most efficient way to deal with those that oppose or criticize them: harsh imprisonment, torture and/or death. His new cause célèbre is “retribution.” As thousands are literally “detained” here or on rare occasion, formally arrested, for speaking their anti-Trump sentiments, often without warrants, VP JD “I really do have a Yale law degree” Vance screams at Europe, where openly supporting Nazis violates the law, that all those nations will fail for violating free speech. In Europe, the rising “on the edge of being full Nazis” AfD Party is becoming one of the most powerful voices in Germany’s parliament. With Three Percenters, Oath Keepers, Proud Boys, etc. standing behind the Trump/Vance MAGA movement, ready to purge anti-MAGA dissent, are sending the same message they sent by invading the Capitol on January 6, 2021.

Europe feels directly threatened by Vladimir Putin. It is their borders, their neighborhoods that face the very real wind from rattling Russian sabers. But Trump finds no kindred spirit with European democracies, which he considers weak and ineffective. He supports strong populists as directly as he can. Stephen Collinson, CNN, December 29th reminds us: “Trump openly boosts favored candidates and seeks to bend their national political and justice systems in their favor. Just in case no one noticed, the White House committed to paper its support for far-right European populists trying to topple allied leaders in its new national security strategy… In his second term, Trump is acting as the global head of a nationalist political movement, seeking to shape partisan politics in Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, Honduras, South Korea, Venezuela, South Africa and across the Atlantic….In most cases, Trump promoted leaders and candidates who favor his populist nationalism, those who flatter him, or who face legal battles that mirror his own.”

Not once since Russian forces invaded Ukraine in February of 2022, without provocation, has Vladimir Putin evidenced the slightest intent to cease his attacks, end his claims to Ukraine territory and return the thousands of kidnapped Ukrainian children taken by force to become “Russians.” Until it is captured. He never speaks in specifics, stating that even a ceasefire would require major concessions from Kyiv. There has never been a phone call or a meeting between Trump and Putin where there are true compromises that Putin would accept.

Despite sanctions against Russian oil, that black gold flows with virtually no limits. Russia’s shadow fleets of oil and gas tankers are everywhere. As Putin showers Ukraine with state-of-the-art bombs, targeting shells and missiles – knocking out more civilian targets including schools and hospitals that military ones – Trump fights efforts to equip Ukraine with comparable weapons to give Putin a better reason to seek peace. Given Russia’s nefarious history with Europe and wars that have been driven by Christian Nationalism, Western leaders on that continent do not remotely believe that Putin has any plans to limit his ambitions to Ukraine.

“The Kremlin’s objectives in its ongoing conflict extend significantly further than the capture of specific regions like Donetsk, according to a recent analysis of the geopolitical landscape. The Institute for the Study of War (ISW) reports that Moscow is signaling that any potential peace agreement must address a sweeping set of broader demands that target the foundational security structure of the West. Rather than focusing solely on a ceasefire within Ukrainian borders, Russian leadership is pushing for a fundamental realignment of international influence in Europe…

“The findings suggest that the war in Ukraine is merely one component of a larger Russian strategy to challenge the post-Cold War order. By demanding that NATO cease its expansion and roll back its military presence, the Kremlin is seeking to re-establish a sphere of influence that existed decades ago. This stance creates a significant diplomatic hurdle for international mediators, as it indicates that resolving the territorial dispute in Ukraine may not be enough to prevent a wider conflict between Russia and Western powers… The ISW notes that the Kremlin has consistently rejected European-led security guarantees for Ukraine, viewing them as insufficient or contrary to Russian interests.”

“Instead, Kremlin officials have positioned the removal of NATO infrastructure as a non-negotiable prerequisite for a lasting settlement. This position directly contradicts several peace frameworks currently being discussed in the West, which often prioritize Ukrainian sovereignty and immediate border stabilization over the total restructuring of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.” Kurt Steffens writing for the December 29th Altitude Post.

And if China decides to take Taiwan by force, an island nation that the US is treaty-bound to protect, don’t expect to see European nations rushing to fight along side the US… as they did in every war since WWI & II. We are on our own…. And we are one of the least popular nations on Earth these days, with the possible exception of Israel. Trump does not believe in “limitations,” constitutional or otherwise. Congress and our federal judiciary, to the extent they are not simply following his orders, are simply speed bumps easily ignored.

I’m Peter Dekom, and we may well be transitioning from a failing experiment in democracy to a rising autocracy under the heel of an immoral leader with obvious serious mental and physical impairments that are getting worse by the day.

"The new American Dream is leaving America."

 

“The new American Dream is leaving America.”

Virtually all the media attention on immigration is focused on the US detention and deportation (self-deportation or forced) of low-wage, undocumented aliens, mostly people of color. We are now witnessing the Trump administration’s efforts to deny US citizenship to children born here of undocumented parents or short-term visitors, an issue now before the Supreme Court that must reinterpret the 14th Amendment from what has been accepted practice for over a century and a half if xenophobic Trump is to prevail. “Diversity, equity and inclusion” have replaced racism as unacceptable national values, and even speaking a foreign language in public, particularly Spanish, can be an invitation for “your papers please” check and possible detention/deportation.

For a nation of immigrants – sorry, Donald, white folks are not “heritage Americans” – a fact which has combined cultural and foreign experience for centuries to invent, modernize, build, grow and internationalize everything from complex technology, high-output agricultural products, financial systems and trade exchanges as well as terrible but effective weapons of war, we are slaughtering massive flocks of golden-egg-laying geese. Look at some of our biggest companies… from Google to Tesla – and feast on foreign born US citizens who have founded some of our biggest companies or mega-tech entities, like Microsoft, being led by foreign born CEOs. Immigrants, are job creators here like no other. Those who have traveled to study in the United States from foreign shores… and stayed… have been among the most productive Americans ever. But they’re not coming so much anymore. “This sudden drop — a decline of 30-40 percent in new students from abroad, and 15 percent in international student enrollment in this academic year — could end up costing the US economy $7 billion.” Holly Baxter, writing for December 28th The Independent.

As swearing-in ceremonies for American citizen wannabes, having passed all required tests and screenings, are being cancelled, as immigration courts (legally required to consider asylum claims) are backlogged years (the Trump administration went on a firing spree of immigration judges), and as student visas come with a de facto Trump-pledge – the Bill of Rights does not apply to you – making the visa application process beyond onerous – the triple benefits of having those international students (paying tuition, the best and the brightest often staying and future leaders of foreign nations having a solid connection with the US) vaporize.

Indeed, the Trump administration is more interested in promoting worthless “woke” values, bringing the finest universities in the country to heel, and cutting the very funding for research that absolutely made America great than in using our educational excellence to keep America great. China is accelerating past us in educational, technical and economic dominance… building a military that does not fear the United States and new trade agreements to squeeze global dependence on the US out of its threat-making influence capability.

In addition to deterring bright people from immigrating to the US, we are beginning to drive out American citizens with money, education and choice to emigrate to other nations around the world. Even those with modest savings. Holly Baxter explains: “During the Obama administration and the first four years under Trump, [Cuban American Alyssa] Bolaños worked in immigration. Again, this is not unusual for somebody from her background: Latinos make up more than 50% of Border Patrol agents in the United States, as well as almost a quarter of ICE agents. The reasons for this seem to be because the job is highly paid and stable. Immigration officers are also needed in the states where Latinos are most likely to live, near the southern border in states like New Mexico, California and Texas. And in a country where most immigrants and refugees come from Spanish-speaking countries, being able to speak the language is a distinct advantage.

Bolaños was comfortable in her immigration job for years. She felt that she was mainly helping out families who were trying to improve their lives and navigate a difficult system. But then, during the first Trump administration, things started to change… ‘I left the field because of the policies he was putting in place,’ she says. How she saw those policies playing out on the ground began to affect both her mental and physical health. ‘My whole family’s immigrants,’ she adds. ‘So I really went into it wanting to help people like our family.” In the end, she walked away feeling ‘defeated and just broken down.’ She still offers her services freelance to families who need it, but she knew by the end of the first four years of Trump that she never wanted to work in an official capacity for the United States again.

“Things quietened down a little when Biden was president. But then came 2024, and a second Trump term… ‘This January came around and very quickly things got even worse than the first time,’ she says, ‘and that was kind of our sign of: OK, no, we can't do this again. We can't live in this country. And we left.’… On social media, content about leaving the US has exploded. Since 2021, content produced by influencers who have left America and are now seeking to make money remotely by documenting their everyday lives on Tiktok and Instagram has become increasingly popular. Even on Reddit, where usernames are anonymous and content is image-free, the community of people expressing an interest in leaving America has grown exponentially in the past four years. The subreddit r/AmerExit — a place specifically for Americans to share tips about the logistics of moving abroad — has 171,000 weekly visitors and over 1,000 posts per week.

“‘I moved from Tucson to Copenhagen a month ago! Love my hometown, but god damn public transit and access to affordable healthcare is so nice,’ writes one recent contributor. ‘I love love love not owning a car, and not feeling deprived because I don't,’ writes another, who says he moved to Scotland… A quick scroll through the posts shows that almost everyone in the planning stages of leaving the US is a graduate or a skilled worker in roles that remain in demand inside the country: an architect looking to move to the Netherlands, a commercial truck driver heading to Canada, an IT consultant hoping to move to Denmark, a software engineer and speech-language pathologist hoping to move their young family to ‘France, Netherlands, Germany, Australia, or Japan’.

“Uruguay — the current location of Alyssa Bolaños’ family — is a popular choice. One poster, who describes himself as a cybersecurity expert, echoes the reasons given by most others for their departure plans: ‘I am a father of 3 and me [and] my wife are considering moving abroad given the current climate in the US. We no longer feel safe - daily school shootings, daily kidnappings by federal agencies, etc.’ In just two, matter-of-fact sentences, it’s a damning indictment of the America Trump promised to make great again.” Democracy matters. Democracy plus safety really matter… and with upward mobility in this nation relegated to the history books, where the country is run for the benefit of the mega-rich (many of whom are also leaving), well, leaving becomes vastly more attractive.

I’m Peter Dekom, and the only winners in this trend are those who have figured out how leave and start a new life… and our enemies.

How Did Deeply Religious MAGA Evangelicals So Completely Reject Christian Teachings?

 

How Did Deeply Religious MAGA Evangelicals So Completely Reject Christian Teachings?

“To say no to President Trump would be saying no to God… And I won’t do that… When I walk on White House grounds, God walks on White House grounds… I have every right and authority to declare the White House as holy ground because I was standing there, and where I stand is holy!” 

Pastor and Trump-appointed White House Spiritual Advisor, Paula White, in 2019.

“The Church, like a mother, accompanies those who are walking. Where the world sees threats, she sees children; where walls are built, she builds bridges. She knows that her proclamation of the Gospel is credible only when it is translated into gestures of closeness and welcome. And she knows that in every rejected migrant, it is Christ himself who knocks at the door of the community.” 

Pope Leo XIV, October 9th, a truth rejected by US VP, JD Vance, who claims to be a practicing Roman Catholic.

It’s a question that is increasingly making the rounds of protestant ministers. How did Jesus’ admonitions – telling his followers not to cast stones or sit in judgement of others, to be kind and charitable to strangers and to turn the other check in tolerance of those who challenged them – relegate those essences of Christianity to unacceptable “woke” behavior and to demonize large swaths of human beings into extreme cruelty and even death? For those who raise their hands to the heavens, steeped in passionate prayer in evangelical parishes around the United States but honor Donald Trump and all his demonization and official cruelty, what delusional force is leading them to conclude that they will rise to Heaven as a reward for these beliefs?

One of the most articulate Christian voices asking the same question is theologian, pastor, and author Jody McKewen (an excellent blogger), who has explored this mass deviance from genuine Christian teaching, a rising reflection that seems to have emanated here in the battles against segregation most evidenced by the rise of the post-Civil War KKK and its persistence into the civil rights era, which began in the 1950s and continued well into the 1970s. we witnessed the rise of a new “conservative movement” purportedly standing for traditional Christian values, which, according to McKewen (writing on February 26, 2025) saw the rise of “white Christians in the South opposed [opposing Brown vs Board of Education – 1954], claiming that racial integration went against ‘God’s natural order.’…

“By the late 1970s, evangelical leaders like Jerry Falwell Sr. took this resentment and realigned white evangelicals with the Republican Party through the formation of the Moral Majority… But in reality, it was about gaining political power and maintaining control over social change. Instead of focusing on Jesus’ message of love, justice, and care for the vulnerable, Falwell and others turned faith into a political tool—one that prioritized:

• Power over humility
• Nationalism over the global body of Christ
• Control over compassion…”

How can a purportedly devout Christian movement tolerate leadership from a convicted felon who has defied his own pledge toward complete transparency in order to protect probable pedophiles? Or accept the ultimate worshipper of gold – from bathroom fixtures and Oval Office decoration to the demolition of the East Wing of the White House to add a completely self-indulgent golden “ballroom, for a king, in its place… and spreading his name all over American iconic historical buildings… as Americans struggle to pay for necessities, watching their healthcare disappear in service to the mega-wealthy? How many evangelicals truly believe that Trump is God’s anointed one, whose leadership and mandates cannot be questioned.

Matthew McIntosh, in the October 25th Brewiminate, posits: “The digital age has supplied the perfect infrastructure for post-truth politics, a sprawling ecosystem of echo chambers, algorithmic curation, and viral storytelling that rewards outrage more than accuracy. Within that environment, MAGA became less a political movement than a shared mythology, one sustained by repetition and ritual rather than evidence or accountability.

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

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

There is nothing preordained requiring us to descend into this hostile, cruel and uncharitable world as our future. Trump is unpopular, his policies are failing dramatically, but his slams to the system will take a long time to repair… if we are to restore the dignity that was once America.

I’m Peter Dekom, and I would like to leave you with just a few of the New Testament teachings that MAGA seems to reject (thank you Pastor McKewen):

“Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.” (Matthew 5:9)

“Love your neighbor as yourself.” (Mark 12:31)

“The greatest among you will be your servant.” (Matthew 23:11)

"I Am the Law!"

 

“I Am the Law!”

And I only represent my “winners” and ultra-loyalists, no one else.

“Merry Christmas to all, including the Radical Left Scum that is doing everything possible to destroy our Country, but are failing badly.” 

 Donald Trump on Truth Social.

“We want to make sure that Santa is being good. Santa’s a very good person… We want to make sure that he’s not infiltrated, that we’re not infiltrating into our country a bad Santa.” Trump, on Christmas Eve, while speaking to kids ages 4 and 10 in Oklahoma. As he also touted, “Clean coal.”

Today’s blog won’t address immigration cruelty, failure to focus on the “worst of the worst” or the harsh disruption to small businesses whose dependence on lower-wage workers has pushed so many out of business. That topic is just too vast to be buried in a blog about the fact that over 80% of Americans have been relegated to second class status, as the Trump administration has focused on just two priorities: 1. eliminating those who oppose him and 2. his policies fostering the wealth of the elite members of his billionaire/centimillionaire approved, inner circle of oligarchs… the latter being the kind of people that the rarely enforced antitrust laws were intended to contain. The Republican majority in Congress has abdicated its legislative role to Trump, bolstered by a Supreme Court abusing its emergency docket and applying “interpretation by originalism” – a system that requires historical context, rendering the Constitution a dead and mostly voidable document.

Perhaps you believe that those “donors” to the monarchical Trump ballroom are contributing financing out of their patriotic goodness… not expecting favorable federal approvals when required, relief from tariffs or lucrative government contracts. Maybe you believe the billions of dollars of increased Trump family wealth during his presidency were simply a matter of luck. Or was the reality of the “Big Beautiful Bill” – with massive tax cuts for the wealthiest in the land, with a few token gestures for a few others, while decimating medical coverage for tens of millions of Americans, raising healthcare costs for almost all but the richest Americans, increasing the deficit that bears massive interest paid by all Americans – just good policy… and not the greatest transfer of wealth from the middle and lower earning brackets to the mega-rich in US history?

Maybe you were one of those gullible Americans who actually believed that Trump would not involve the US military in overseas military conflicts or that using federal or federalized troops was truly necessary to purge crime from the streets of blue cities, wherever located. Perhaps you understood the logic of declaring Canada should be the 51st state or that, after centuries, annexing Greenland was a national security necessity. Perhaps you were one of those who believed that it was ok to blow up small cocaine boats (without congressional or judicial approval), perhaps not even headed for the United States, to stem the tide of narco-traffickers… even though the flow of fentanyl, America’s drug culprit on steroids, was not touched. And that it was just fine to pardon the incarcerated ex-president of Honduras, responsible for the importation of 400 tons of illicit drugs into the US… and then hint that what was really happening was forcing regime change in Venezuela.

While Trump’s usurpation of the congressional right to set and approve tariffs settled down to an average 15% across the board, this form of regressive taxation (where those who spend the most of their income on average consumables pay an effective tax rate higher than the rich who only spend a small part of their income on such products), maybe you believed that these tariffs had no impact on rising costs. With a supermajority of Americans believing that Trump has mishandled the economy, rejecting administration platitudes that in just a year or two, Americans would see positive results… few believed that projection… recalling the pledge to cut costs on “day one” of Trump 2.0. And then there was the Trump administration’s expertise: lying with statistics.

“On Dec. 18, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that inflation had fallen to an annual rate of 2.7% in November, down from 3% in September and well below the 3.1% consensus of economists. And on Tuesday, the Bureau of Economic Analysis reported that real gross domestic product had shot up by a surprising 4.3% annual rate in the third quarter of 2025 ended Sept. 30.

“Unsurprisingly, the Trump administration and its Republican acolytes seized on the figures to boast about Trump's economic policies. White House economic advisor Kevin Hassett proclaimed the inflation figure to be ‘an absolute blockbuster report.’ He described the GDP figure as ‘a great Christmas present for the American people.’… ‘America is winning again,’ crowed House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) after the GDP report. He called it ‘the direct result of congressional Republicans and President Trump delivering policies that drive growth and expand opportunity for American families and workers.’… Um, not so fast.

“The economists whose jobs involve scrutinizing those statistics to glean what they really mean don't view them as unalloyed support for Trumponomics. Quite the contrary. Many see them as artifacts of the long government shutdown, which halted the collection of data that go into those reports, severely distorting the results. Furthermore, they expect the flaws in those reports to persist well into 2026, undermining their usefulness as true economic indicators… ‘You’ve got to take it with a grain of salt,’ said Diane Swonk, chief economist at KPMG US, of the inflation report. ‘It's confusing and it doesn’t quite square with prices that we’ve observed.’” Michael Hiltzik, writing for the December 25th Los Angeles Times.

Sure, the stock markets and GDP growth are good for those with asset-based incomes, a very small percentage of Americans, but what we have is a K-based economy (that red and green chart above, which resembles the letter “K”)… a massive accelerating split in both income and net wealth between the very rich (green) and the rest of us (red). And as Trump cancels alternative energy projects, as massive effluents (and a few earthquakes) are the results of a “drill baby drill” failing policy, just as demand for electricity is skyrocketing, the cost of living will only get worse… just like all the recent jobs reports.

I’m Peter Dekom, and Trump’s efforts to distract Americans with all kinds of new issues are insufficient to convince all but the most stubborn of us that he is not one of this nation’s most failed presidents… but as he nods off at governmental meetings, perhaps he’s dreaming about how to fix his mistakes.

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

 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Today, Politicians Swear By It

 

Today, Politicians Swear By It

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

Campaign speech from Donald John Trump, June 16, 2015

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Farm Here to Eternity

 

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

Farm Here to Eternity

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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