Autocrat 101 - Transitioning the Military into a National Police Force

 

Autocrat 101 - Transitioning the Military into a National Police Force

“It’s still simmering a little bit… But not very much.”

Donald Trump, June 9th, to reporters at the White House

“This is a provocation, not just an escalation… This is intended to sow more fear, more anger, and to further divide.” 

 CA Gov. Gavin Newsom an interview with The NY Times

The Pentagon is reviewing a Department of Homeland Security request to deploy more than 20,000 additional National Guard troops to aid the Trump administration's widening crackdown on illegal immigration around the United States, according to officials and documents. USA Today, June 10th

I live in Los Angeles. Sending in 2000 federalized California National Guardsmen and 700 active-duty Marines, without request from the Governor and with zero coordination with local police, to contain maybe a couple of hundred protestors scattered around Los Angeles (e.g., Paramount, Compton, downtown LA) – LA City alone has 3.8 million people with a significant police force that has said it could easily handle this situation… and did – is a bit like tenting your house because the stray cat in your back yard has fleas. Watching National Guardsmen sitting around doing nothing was hard to understand. But they have lots of nice military vehicles to take care of. Yet Trump told the press on July 10th that but for those troops (looking for something to do), Los Angeles would be “burning to the ground.” Hard to prove what didn’t happen, huh?

Donald Trump, and his gangsta ICE shot-caller, Tom Homan, have also issued direct threats to arrest California Governor Gavin Newsom and LA Mayor Karen Bass if they do anything that, in the opinion of Trump appointees, is viewed as interfering with ICE or these completely unnecessary troops. The National Guard, useful to the Governor in times of emergency, has some training in domestic crowd control; the Marines have no such training! We still do not have a good explanation as to why those troops were/are necessary.

But California, particularly Los Angeles and San Francisco, is the quintessential blue opponent to everything Trump stands for, even though there are large areas of Republican control. If Trump can bring these bluies to their knees, the rest of the nation would, in his opinion, follow. As much as the June 14th Trump birthday “autocrats street destroying” massive military parade is supposed to be a celebration (pictures above) – incidentally celebrating the 250th anniversary of the US Army (one day older than our Declaration of Independence) – we know it is a show of force to blue America that “you vil follow orders!” Hundreds (thousands?) of massive No Kings protests, all over the United States, beg to differ, political assassinations in Minnesota notwithstanding.

Some analogize the current protests to the roiling anti-Vietnam War protests of the 1960s that brought down Democratic President Lyndon Johnson. Johnson hated those protests, mostly because he came to the realization that we would not win that conflict; they were right. But those angry, mostly younger Americans (many facing the draft), were protesting US involvement in a foreign war. BIG DIFFERENCE to what is happening today: now protestors are fighting for their constitutional rights in their own country! And it’s not just the opinion of pitiful few. It is a massive and growing movement against an autocratic, blame-driven autocrat with clear evidence of mental and physical deterioration, the architect of economic instability and soaring prices.

Trump has reveled in appointing exceptionally unqualified cabinet leaders, most of whom have the following characteristics: they have a strong media presence taking very controversial positions (whoever thought Fox News would become a government recruiting service?), they are woefully ignorant (or just don’t care) about stuff like the Constitution and federal statutes or court rulings, they place Donald Trump’s orders above all other authorities, they really abhor democracy, they are science and fact averse, they will never contradict the boss and any person anywhere who disagrees even slightly is the “enemy of the people.” Appended to today’s blog are a couple of quotes from US military, current and retired, on their views on being used as cops.

That these Trump appointees are so obviously unqualified appears intentional. First, they vil follow orders. Second, their statements and actions so infuriate such a large segment of the public that they provoke protests everywhere. Protests are just what Trump wants; it gives him the ability to use all kinds of ambiguous, exceptionally old federal laws, to declare some kind of emergency or invasion and thus use the entire US military as his unleashed private police. Kind of like his using the DOJ as his private lawyers. The MAGA clan is rolling like a pig wallowing happily in mud at the destruction of the “deep state” (where was that?), the elevation of their treasured conspiracy theories above the federal experts anchored in facts, and the attack on hallowed institutions of hated elites (job creation, scientific research and medical cures notwithstanding).

A strong example of this idiocy is the recent RFK, Jr’s firing of all 17 of the CDC’s panel of medical superstar advisors on vaccine policy, something he pledged not to do, in his confirmation hearing, to Dr Bill Cassidy, the Republican Senator from Louisiana. Doctors across the land, insurance companies setting coverage and state healthcare agencies have long looked at this advisory board for guidance on vaccine use. RFK, Jr fabricated that this advisory board was rife with conflicts of interest. But this pisses off just the blue folks that Trump loves to provoke.

Protests justify Trump, under his vision of the law, at every turn. “The founders wanted to prevent the president from using federal troops against ‘we the people’ because of the way the Red Coats used warrants to do whatever they wanted in people’s homes. But National Guard troops are local citizens; they live in their communities. So they’re allowed to help with police work — until they’re federalized. Which is what Trump did last weekend. Then they became indistinguishable from active-duty military. All they can do is defend federal workers like ICE agents, and federal buildings like an ICE detention center.

“So the California National Guard and the Marines can’t contain the protests?... Not unless the president invokes the Insurrection Act! That law lets troops police our streets to suppress insurrections and help execute federal law in the face of rebellion… Trump said yesterday that the protesters were ‘insurrectionists.’ What counts as a rebellion?... It’s very vague — the law doesn’t say. It could be people trying to stop ICE agents from doing their job. I don’t think courts are going to want to argue about what constitutes a rebellion. The founders gave the president discretion here, so if Trump does invoke the Insurrection Act, [he has a case].” The Morning newsfeed, June 9th, from the New York Times. According to the June 10th Newsweek, “The Pentagon said Tuesday [6/10] that it expects its 60-day deployment of the California National Guard and U.S. Marines to Los Angeles to cost at least $134 million, primarily covering travel, lodging, and meal expenses, according to Bryn Woollacott MacDonnell, the acting chief financial officer at the Department of Defense.” The Guardsmen just hanging out is a profound waste of taxpayer money!!!

Will courts limit Trump’s obvious gradual and normalized use of the US military as his personal police force, intended to scare everyone? Is there enough to justifying exemption from the 144-year-old Posse Comitatus Act bars federal troops from participating in civilian law enforcement except when expressly authorized by law? California is suing the Trump administration to find out. 

I’m Peter Dekom, and I am watching Trump’s overkill use of military force here in Los Angeles as a front row witness to one of many Trump-government’s extreme efforts to end democracy and the rule of law under the Constitution.

American Governance, Trump Style

 

American Governance, Trump Style

Ignorance (Feigned and Real), Blame, Surrounded Only by Loyalists, Fabricate, Deny, Double-Down

“I run the country and the world,” 

President Trump to reporters for the Atlantic in April, by way of explaining how his current presidency differs from his first.

“We both agree on this war and how terrible this war is going on, and we are both looking for ways to stop it very soon. And I told the president … he is the key person in the world who can really do that now by putting pressure on Russia.” 

 German Chancellor Friedrich Merz after White House meeting on June 5th.

“Sometimes you see two young children fighting like crazy. They hate each other, and they’re fighting in a park, and you try and pull them apart. They don’t want to be pulled… Sometimes you’re better off letting them fight for a while and then pulling them apart. And I gave that analogy to Putin yesterday. I said, ‘President, maybe you have to keep fighting and suffering a lot’ because both sides are suffering, before you pull them apart before they’re able to be pulled apart.” Trump to reporters while hosting German Chancellor Friedrich Merz in the Oval Office.

It’s never comfortable to reach the conclusion that the President of the United States is most likely seriously mentally ill. Certainly, that’s what his cousin (he grew up with her) believes… Mary Trump, a psychologist with a PhD. Trump lives in a world that exists only in his own mind, the product of being abandoned by his mother and raised into ruthless “pragmatism” by an autocratic father, according to Dr. Trump. It is reinforced by making sure no one who disagrees with him is anywhere near him, going out of his way to disable, punish and destroy those who oppose him any way he can. We can no long trust statements and policies from his coterie of subpar cabinet appointments, much less those uttered by the President himself.

The above quotes say a great deal about that “other world.” We know that children fighting in a school yard bears no resemblance to a struggle for existence by a nation invaded by another country covetous of its land, a war that has taken well over a million lives. In reality, Trump’s and his former “co-president’s” exchanging vituperative social media posts seems more to resemble those pre-adolescents exchanging “schoolyard” barbs… but very much unlike a massive exchange of crushing drone and missile attacks that just keep killing.

Remember when, during Campaign 2.0, Trump said he was unfamiliar with and had not read the 900-page Project 2025 (I believe he never actually read it, but …), yet as soon as he took office, step-by-step, his executive orders marched single file down the Project 2025 agenda. LA Times columnist, Jackie Calmes summarized Trump’s foreign policy, immediately implemented by his sycophantic Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, like this: ”The ‘Trump Doctrine’ revealed… The president’s foreign policy is ‘Me, Myself and I’ — strictly transactional and motivated less by national interest than what’s in it, personally and politically, for him.” Today, after decades of unscrupulous business deals, the only part of Trump’s “me first mind” that operates on seeming autopilot is his unsatiable quest for money – by grift or influence pedaling – and power.

There seems to be a particularly cruel and blithefully incentive streak that seems to illustrate how Trump’s retinue seems particularly to enjoy the pain and suffering they can inflict on others. For those in his MAGA constituency, who harbor admiration for a strongman with no moral or legal guidelines – a perception of masculinity – Trump’s behavior is just what they wanted: to take down and destroy what MAGA millions have defined as their elitist oppressors, a conveniently fabricated woke, liberal, child-predatory “deep state.”

This MAGA constituency press for religious doctrine to replace the kind of “elitist” intellectual rigor that is too complex to understand. They outsource their opinions to their perceived savior. But that empowered leader’s policies and legislative/executive order agenda are focused to separate the United States into the rich ruling class, to whom society is beholden, and the “rest of America,” increasingly expendable as their income falls, that no longer matters. Under Trump, all the definitions of success are money-based metrics (even though he is quite willing to manipulate those numbers if they do not jibe with his “reality”), government as a business with a P&L statement, instead of the measure of health, welfare and enrichment of the people as a whole. Contrary to popular belief, the United States is not a brand, it is a nation of people.

Jackie Calmes continues: ”Aside from his vague ‘America First’ (white) nationalist sloganeering, Trump speaks and acts in ways that reflect little appreciation for the national interest or democratic ideals. He’s all about himself and his interests — increasingly, that literally means his business interests…

“Which is why, contrary to past presidents for decades, Trump twice now has made his first foreign trip as president not to allies in Europe or North America who share America’s values, but to autocratic Saudi Arabia. There, and in the smaller, oil-rich Middle Eastern monarchies he also visited last month, Trump is plainly comfortable, amid the opulence and the shared language of deal-making. In fact, Trump explicitly told reporters soon after his inauguration that he’d likely travel first to Saudi Arabia — if it agreed in advance to spend about $500 billion in the United States. Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman gamely offered $600 billion over four years.

“Ultimately, Trump came home from Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates boasting of bagging $5 trillion — that’s trillion, with a T — or maybe $7 trillion, he said, along with a Qatari royal jet for his own use. What details there were suggested that the trade deals for which the president was taking credit — no surprise here — included some commitments dating to the Biden administration.

“In any case, Americans shouldn’t necessarily count on the promised investments: Saudi Arabia’s MBS similarly vowed to spend up to $600 billion in the United States back in 2017, when Trump first took office. Yet a study by the Arab Gulf States Initiative concluded that over Trump’s first term, U.S. exports to Saudi Arabia totaled $92 billion — below the $110 billion in exports during the preceding four years under President Obama.

“But here’s what you can count on: As the Wall Street Journal has reported, the Trump family business is signing more deals internationally than ever before, mostly in the Middle East but also in India and eastern Europe, for 12 projects including residential high-rises, luxe hotels and golf courses. Beyond real estate, there’s the Trumps’ $2-billion cryptocurrency deal with the United Arab Emirates state fund. America First?... ‘We’re the hottest brand in the world right now,’ son Eric Trump, who runs the Trump Organization, told the Journal. That’s good, I guess, because the American brand under Trump has hit the skids.

“The other noxious sign of Trump’s personalization of foreign policy: his constant references to foreign leaders in terms of his own relations with them. Trump’s problem is that his supposed friends — the Saudis’ MBS, Netanyahu, Vladimir Putin, Xi Jinping — have ideological and national interests that, unlike for Trump, transcend their personal feelings and stakes.” A US president is supposed to be the caretaker of the nation in its entirety, sacrificing for the betterment of the country he/she has been entrusted to lead under his sacred oath of office. An oath that has been rendered meaningless by Donald Trump. 

I’m Peter Dekom, and as GOP candidates panic as their constituents lose medical benefits as costs around them skyrocket – don’t worry MAGAns; the Dems lack a coherent platform or unifying leadership – they understand full well that if the provisions of that Big Beautiful Bill pass even remotely as drafted, the people who voted for them will be “the biggest losers.”

 

Gaslight, a 1944 Movie or Donald Trump’s Legacy?

[According to Prevention.com,] It’s a sign that someone is gaslighting you if they are:

• Constantly minimizing or invalidating your feelings
• Avoiding taking responsibility for their actions
• Lying
• Regularly recalling events differently than you
• Using words like paranoid, overreactive, dramatic, overly sensitive, or crazy
• Experiencing self-doubt
• Acting reactively or intensely where it’s unwarranted

"The mob violence is being stomped out. The criminals responsible will be swiftly brought to justice, and the Trump administration's operations to arrest illegal aliens are continuing unabated." 

Karoline Leavitt, White House Press Secretary

Fox News Correspondent, Gillian Turner on June 12th speaking with Donald Trump:

TURNER: Mr. President, if this turns into another summer of unrest, what are you prepared to do, sir?

TRUMP: About what?

TURNER: If this turns– well, the protests have spread now to 16 cities across the U.S. If this turns–

TRUMP: Well, that’s what you’re saying. Do I believe you? I don’t think so.

TURNER: Well, I got that from the Fox News brain room.

TRUMP: I can tell you, what we have, what we have a situation in Los Angeles that was caused by gross incompetence. They didn’t have the police to handle it.

"Our great Farmers and people in the Hotel and Leisure business have been stating that our very aggressive policy on immigration is taking very good, long time workers away from them, with those jobs being almost impossible to replace…This is not good. We must protect our Farmers, but get the CRIMINALS OUT OF THE USA. Changes are coming!"

Trump on Truth Social, June 12th

As the anti-ICE protestors first gathered near Los Angeles’ downtown, where government buildings are focused, the “usual suspects,” a small coterie of vandals and arsonists, did what they always do, sometimes after a local sports team wins a national championship. They tag buildings and burn a few cars. The deserve the prison time they will probably get after they are tried and convicted (yes, “due process”), but they are at best fewer than 1% mixed in with those deeply offended at Trump’s immigration policies against a city, formerly a part of Mexico, that is 35% Hispanic with a culture that permeates Southern California.

My cousin, living in Virginia, sent me a panicked email asking if my wife and I were OK as LA was burning and erupting in riots. “Huh?” I asked. “Riots? Here? Major fires? Not happening here!” I responded. Trump assured the nation that but for his illegal (a federal judge’s determination) call-up and deployment of California National Guard, Los Angeles would have burned to the ground. My lawyer and accounting friends, with offices downtown, told me that there was some traffic disruption, but they did not feel threatened and that they could access their office buildings without fear of being incinerated by local “terrorists and paid activists.”

In a city (without counting the little cities around us) of 3.8 million people, that our police and sheriffs were purportedly unable to contain the “violence perpetrated” – by a thousand or slightly more Angelenos standing up for their heritage … and the immigrants that form a labor backbone of this city – is absurd. But gaslighting requires lies… assisted by some clever editing that makes little moments HUGE. Oh, and the only picture above that depicts truth is that of Kilmar Abrego Garcia’s real hand (the one in the blue plaid shirt), now back in US from that Salvadoran prison.

Even as Trump was beginning to realize that there soon would be no food on grocery store shelves if the undocumented farmworkers were pulled from the fields, Immigration Tsar Tom Homan and White House Senior Advisor Stephen “Rasputin” Miller, cheered on by Trump’s now-personal lawyer AG Pamela Bondi, were pledging to deport all “15 million illegal aliens” in the United States (probably more like 11 million) without regard to their innocence of value to the country. Meanwhile, combat-trained Marines made their way to “violence torn” Los Angeles, an illegal use of the military under the Posse Comitatus Act.

For our military sworn to uphold the Constitution, Trump’s recent visit to one of the Army’s premiere training facilities and home to a number of operational divisions shattered any pretense of military neutrality. “Instead, what unfolded Tuesday [6/9] at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, bore little resemblance to the customary visit from a president and defense secretary. There, President Donald Trump unleashed a speech laced with partisan invective, goading jeers from a crowd of soldiers positioned behind his podium -- blurring the long-standing and sacrosanct line between the military and partisan politics.

“As Trump viciously attacked his perceived political foes, he whipped up boos from the gathered troops directed at California leaders, including Gov. Gavin Newsom -- amid the president's controversial move to deploy the National Guard and Marines against protesters in Los Angeles -- as well as former President Joe Biden and the press. The soldiers roared with laughter and applauded Trump's diatribe in a shocking and rare public display of troops taking part in naked political partisanship…

“For this story, Military.com reached out to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth's office as well as the Army and the 82nd Airborne Division directly with a series of questions that ranged from the optics of the event to social media posts showing the sale of Trump campaign merchandise on the base, to the apparent violation of Pentagon policies on political activity in uniform.

“Internal 82nd Airborne Division communications reviewed by Military.com reveal a tightly orchestrated effort to curate the optics of Trump's recent visit, including handpicking soldiers for the audience based on political leanings and physical appearance… One unit-level message bluntly saying: ‘No fat soldiers.’… ‘If soldiers have political views that are in opposition to the current administration and they don't want to be in the audience then they need to speak with their leadership and get swapped out,’ another note to troops said.” Military.com, June 12th.

Trump is a showman with a dangerous agenda. He takes credit for fixing the damage “only he can fix.” That HE caused! That tariff/trade negotiation with China, for example, a struggle of Herculean proportions according to Trump, seems to be nothing more than a return to the same tariff structure that existed before Trump’s “liberation day.” The UK deal has yet to be fleshed out. Still, the Republicans in Congress are struggling with that Big Beautiful Bill that reduces taxes mostly for the richest in the nation, but that seriously increases our deficit and requires cutting Medicaid, Medicare and maybe even Social Security.

And all that without referencing a certain expensive birthday parade with enough personnel and military hardware to invade and conquer most countries on Earth. Army’s 250th? No, the main theme is Trump, Trump and more Trump. “No Kings” protests all over the country showed a vastly more accurate reflection of who we are. I used to read that democracy was a fragile experiment here in the United States… one that requires constant support and protection. I used to believe that view was a tad pessimistic and unlikely. I do not feel that way anymore.

I’m Peter Dekom, and I am watching the unraveling of everything I hold dear in this country by an angry, destructive minority and a lackadaisical majority that still believes that it can’t happen here as it is in fact happening here.

Three Parallel, Non-Intersecting Universes – MAGA, Progressive & The Rest

Three Parallel, Non-Intersecting Universes – MAGA, Progressive & The Rest

But Is There a Fourth Universe with Total Power over Them All?

Most of the United States is mired in “the rest,” just wanting to live life, survive and even prosper and not deal with massive changes and extreme views. Money and technology have changed our expectations, and as we have all surmised for a long time, money not only talks, it screams. What money wants, it seems to get; it is clearly dividing the nation into the mega-wealthy (i.e., the “rich get richer”) and the rest of us. Oh, and by the way, the rich own the technology, own most of the truly valuable land and control financing like only mega-billion-dollar institutions can.

They use their money to dominate the housing marketplace like no other, with ads like “I want to buy your house,” they can write checks without applying for mortgages like the rest of us must, access streamlined repair structures and flip into a lucrative rental market. Over the past three decades, small local developers have been largely supplanted by publicly traded national builders, who can offer below-market mortgages to attract buyers to their cookie-cutter properties. Guess who benefits most from an over-valued residential marketplace? Some existing homeowners for sure, until they want to move and upgrade. Scarcity, a paucity of affordable housing, drives up prices! And those mega-homebuilders love that. They can access volume purchases and are the most likely to find workarounds against Trump’s inane tariffs. Their ability to slide into the upscale rental market also allows them to sidestep that there are an estimated 500,000 fewer homebuyers than available homes for sale. Raising tariffs on steel and aluminum increases that housing scarcity pricing.

If you look at the three obvious constituencies above, none of the three is truly able to navigate an affordable lifestyle remotely mirroring that of earlier generations… because there is a fourth power grouping that has slowly redesigned the United States to serve their interests at the expense of the lower-middle class and the working class and below. Donald Trump – the first president in US history to generate billions of dollars for himself and his family while in office – is their designated autocrat. The “Big Beautiful Bill” benefits the rich and punishes almost everyone else… but is the slow is an extension, continuous legacy following the 2010 Supreme Court ruling in Citizens United v FEC, which took the cap off of rich-SuperPACs using massive cash to fund their causes. Most of that new money funded causes that gave vastly more political control to conservative wealth.

We have elected a House majority that has been completely co-opted by wealthy interests. Donald Trump’s power over the GOP – operating under a fearful threat of losing Trump’s base perceived as a necessary component of being reelected – makes too many elected members of Congress act against the best interests of those who elected them. Writing for the June 4th The Hill, Mark Mellman provides this realistic perspective: “It may be hard to imagine, but Republicans are exploding the budget deficit and the national debt while slashing health care and education, all to give more tax breaks to billionaires like Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos.

“The facts are clear… The non-partisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimated that the House GOP bill would result in ‘an increase in the federal deficit of $3.8 trillion.’... House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) pooh-poohs the CBO, failing to recognize that the agency’s director, a veteran of Republican administrations, was appointed jointly by Democratic and Republican leaders. With typical partisan hypocrisy, the Speaker was happy to rely heavily on CBO when they declared Democratic budgets would add to the deficit, but demurs when the shoe is on the other foot… However, CBO is hardly alone. While there are differences on the exact number, every nonpartisan analysis agrees on the underlying fact that the Republican bill will increase the deficit.

“The Tax Foundation says the GOP bill will raise the deficit by $2.6 trillion, while the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget argues the bill ‘would add $2.5 trillion to primary deficits over the coming decade, adding $3.1 trillion to the debt including interest. If its temporary provisions are extended without offsets, we estimate it would add $5.1 trillion to the debt including interest.’ The Penn Wharton Budget Model estimates ‘the House-passed reconciliation bill increases primary deficits by $2.8 trillion over 10 years.’”

While the stock market, rising and falling on tariff news, is the most obvious financial indicator… it does not reflect the national “red alert” danger metrics in the debt markets, the true measure of economic stability. As US treasuries have recently been downgraded, as credit-default-swaps (the hedge against debt failure) are showing that the United States is now riskier than most major European purveyors of bonds, as the talk of ending the dollar’s hegemony as the leading reserve currency (by which most commodities are valued) is increasing exponentially, as US interest rates are rising fast and as the international markets are beginning to devalue US assets (including the dollar itself), our attempt to appease the rich, who still try and convince us that any tax cut will drive job creation (yet they do not believe in the equally plausible Easter Bunny). The interest on our deficit bonds has never been higher.

Look at the above graphics. Do you feel well-served by that class of billionaires? Do you really want to give that class of billionaires and near-billionaires a tax cut if it makes everything cost more, deprives millions of healthcare and ensures that housing unaffordability becomes a permanently embedded feature of the United States? Look at all the issues the billionaire Trump is championing, the more outrageous the greater the focus in the news… and ask yourself if he really cares about most of that… Or, as important as most of those issues may be, are they really a distraction to create legislation to allow the piggy billionaires greater access to slorp at the trough of YOUR MONEY?

I’m Peter Dekom, and when the masters of subterfuge with unlimited access to corrupt politicians (with fewer laws containing them) and an ability to rile up their opposing press, are brilliantly hiding how they are remaking America to serve them… and no one else… do you care?

Is Trump’s Legacy Destined to be a Police State & a Decimated Economy?

 

Is Trump’s Legacy Destined to be a Police State & a Decimated Economy?

The View from Los Angeles

“The violent mob assaults on ICE and Federal Law Enforcement are designed to prevent the removal of Criminal Illegal Aliens from our soil. A dangerous invasion facilitated by criminal cartels (aka Foreign Terrorist Organizations) and a huge NATIONAL SECURITY RISK. Under President Trump, violence and destruction against federal agents and federal facilities will NOT be tolerated.” 

Major Pete Hegseth, now Secretary of the Department of Defense, June 7th.

I’ve lived in Los Angeles virtually my entire adult life. My son was born here. My granddaughter (who just turned one) was born here. I attended UCLA Law School and have worked in the entertainment industry since I graduated. Raised till I was almost 13 in Washington, D.C., living for 4 years in Beirut, Lebanon as a US Foreign Service brat and with 4 more years in New Haven, Connecticut, I knew what “apizza” was, but I couldn’t tell a taco from an enchilada. A scholarship kid with white Protestant European roots.

When I drove across the country and entered Los Angeles County, I could not pronounce Cahuenga, Tujunga or even Sepulveda. 35% of this city is Hispanic, and that includes my wife. The food, the culture is saturated with Mexican wonderment. I never met a “lazy Mexican,” only a kind people with deep family traditions. And even before the United States was born, the above map tells you what we were in 1700. Sure, there are parts of LA where gangs predominate. Latino, Asian, Anglo and Black. But they do not prevent LA from being a great city with its own mixed culture. New York, Miami, New Orleans, Houston, Chicago have gangs too, but they do not define those cities.

Funny how those who are not in states with major Hispanic populations forget that most of the Southwest was part of Mexico, with what us now US territory lost in war or by purchase. Few Americans know that my beloved Santa Fe, New Mexico (even the license plates have “U.S.A.” on them) was once the capital of the entire regional area of Spanish “Mexican” holdings, vast and once populated mostly by indigenous peoples. So, when a rich white boy from New Yawk, arrogant, ignorant and blithefully uneducated (apparently blowing the opportunity by ignoring his classes in Philadelphia’s Wharton (part of the University of Pennsylvania, an Ivy) sees crushing an angry Los Angeles, with undocumented workers forming a significant economic and cultural backbone of a city that was once part of their legacy homeland, maybe you can see why we (white, Back, Asian and Hispanic) push back.

Our cops are good enough. You reach your ugly racist hand to subjugate our city to your misshapen concept of the meaning of the US Constitution, we push back… harder when your autocratic intentions lurk behind the military vehicles, angry threats and rhetoric that defy who we are. Your puppet cabinet loyalists, perverted to do your bidding, demand our fealty and uniformity you seek to impose. Never! No! Leave us alone! Mexicans are not invading California; but misinformed Trump-ordered troops are. They rely on the Enemy Aliens Act of 1789 which allows the federal government to remove those involved in “any invasion or predatory incursion shall be perpetrated, attempted, or threatened against the territory of the United States, by any foreign nation or government..." What’s the foreign nation, Donald? Mexicans, becoming essential workers in our land, invading what was once Mexico? Foreign Terrorist Organizations? Seriously? Nobody likes those cartels, here or anywhere else. But they are NOT invading the United States.

Clinton era cabinet member, Robert Reich, writing in the Guardian (UK) on June 9th, describes the autocratic pattern of coopting the police to ensure opposition is neutralized if not crushed:

History shows that once an authoritarian ruler establishes the infrastructure of a police state, that same infrastructure can be turned on anyone.

Trump and his regime are rapidly creating such an infrastructure, in five steps:

(1) declaring an emergency on the basis of a so-called “rebellion”, “insurrection”, or “invasion”;

(2) using that “emergency” to justify bringing in federal agents with a monopoly on the use of force (Ice, the FBI, DEA, and the national guard) against civilians inside the country;

(3) allowing those militarized agents to make dragnet abductions and warrantless arrests, and detain people without due process;

(4) creating additional prison space and detention camps for those detained, and

(5) eventually, as the situation escalates, declaring martial law.

We are not at martial law yet, thankfully. But once in place, the infrastructure of a police state can build on itself.

Those who are given authority over aspects of it – the internal militia, dragnets, detention camps, and martial law – seek other opportunities to invoke their authority.

As civilian control gives way to military control, the nation splits into those who are most vulnerable to it and those who support it. The dictatorship entrenches itself by fomenting fear and anger on both sides.

Right now, our major bulwarks against Trump’s police state are the federal courts and broad-based peaceful protests – such as the one that many of us will engage in this coming Saturday 14 June, on the No Kings Day of Action.

Trump has provoked angry and occasionally violent anti-ICE protests here in Los Angeles, under LAPD control, to grow angrier and more violent by sending federal troops here. Hard to believe he does not intend to spark a civil war. Where were the federal troops on January 6, 2021, when armed insurrectionists took over the US Capitol and began attacking the police? Yes, Donald, those violent criminals you pardoned! They are openly organizing again to support you! 

I’m Peter Dekom, and Trump has already set our once successful economy on a destructive path, seeks to rob from the poor to give to the rich, has alienated most of our traditional allies, and now seeks to decimate anyone who may oppose him and crush our culture here… rob us of our soul… and our liberty. Written On June 9th after a violent weekend in Los Angeles.

ICE, ICE Baby

   

ICE, ICE Baby

With a little unneeded help from the federally called up CA National Guard

"There is nothing President Trump would like more than a violent confrontation with protestors to justify the unjustifiable - invocation of the Insurrection Act or some form of martial law." 

Sen. Adam Smith (D/CA) after Trump called up 2000 Cal National Guard troops and sent them, uninvited by the Governor, to Los Angeles to contain local protests.

"I think the president did exactly what he needed to do… You know, one of our core principles is maintaining peace through strength…We do that on foreign affairs and domestic affairs as well. I don't think that's heavy-handed…’ And to the ABC's Jonathan Karl, asking if DOD Pete Hegseth’s offer literally to send in the Marines was heavy-handed: "We have to be prepared to do what is necessary, and I think the notice that that might happen might have the deterring effect," 

House Speaker Mike Johnson (R/LA) on ABC News, June 8th.

"We didn’t have a problem until Trump got involved… This is a serious breach of state sovereignty — inflaming tensions while pulling resources from where they’re actually needed." 

Cal Gov Gavin Newsom online, June 8th.

"What we're seeing in Los Angeles is chaos that is provoked by the administration…When you raid Home Depot and workplaces, when you tear parents and children apart, and when you run armored caravans through our streets, you cause fear and you cause panic." 

Los Angeles Mayor, Karen Bass, News Conference, June 8th.

The last time the federal government called up National Guard troops for local civil unrest without a request from the relevant state governor was during the 1968 Selma civil rights march against George Wallace, Alabama’s segregationist governor hell-bent on containing those marchers by any means possible. President Lyndon Johnson intended to protect the marchers, not attack them. Donald Trump’s self-invited call up of Northern California Guardsmen on June 7th was definitely not to protect the Los Angeles protestors, gathered in downtown Los Angeles and the Paramount and Compton neighborhoods. Local police seemed to have the situation in hand after ICE mass raids, for example targeting Home Depot. But Donald Trump is legendary for provoking, creating problems that only he “can fix”… and using extreme measures, catering to his white Christian nationalist followers.

Chris Truex, writing for the June 7th, The Hill describes the patterns of ICE mass and targeted immigration raids: “The cases you hear about are only the tip of the iceberg. Federal officers are fanning out across the country, conducting raids, traffic stops, even scooping people up at courthouses when they appear for immigration hearings and carting them away in leg irons and shackles — harsh treatment that you seldom see even when felons are arrested.

“This heavy-handedness and cruelty isn’t a glitch — it’s intentional, as Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security Kristi Noem and Tom Homan, President Trump’s border czar [pictured center above], attempt to frighten immigrants into leaving the country. Even legal residents and American citizens are getting caught up in the crackdown.

“And the worst part is, while things like barging into a congressman’s office and detaining his staffers aren’t legal, there is nothing anyone can do about it. If Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents force their way into your house without a warrant, slap you around and detain your family at gunpoint while conducting an illegal search, you have no way of getting your constitutional claims into federal court. As a practical matter, these agents are above the law and cannot be held accountable for violating your constitutional rights.” Courts have been loath in the last few years holding police officers liable for much of anything. It took a video of a police officer literally choking an arrestee to death (George Floyd in May of 2020) to garner a conviction against the relevant officers. The pattern of supporting police, no matter what, is back with a vengeance.

Truex continues: “The current system of ‘what happens in ICE, stays in ICE’ is the opposite of [accountability]… Unchecked by the courts, ICE’s behavior will only get worse over the next three and a half years. Even the most well-meaning bureaucracies are subject to mission creep, so you can expect Noem’s troops to expand their activities well beyond detaining immigrants. The Homeland Security officers who invaded Nadler’s office were hunting for protesters, and Homan has already threatened state officials and even members of Congress with arrest for “interfering” with ICE.

“When it comes to constitutional rights, no man is an island. The threats, performative cruelty and denials of basic due process are not attacks on immigrants. They are attacks on the rule of law itself.” Democrats ask why ICE agents do not have body cams and often wear masks? The answer was “because they can” and do not want to be later held accountable for their actions. On June 6th, House Speaker Mike Johnson told Fox News that Democrats pushing for ICE agents to unmask themselves are the same "people who mandated mask wearing for years in America" during the coronavirus pandemic. He added: “From the people who mandated mask wearing for years in America. It's absurd. They need to back off of ICE and respect our agents and stop protesting against them… They're trying to uphold the rule of law, and they don't want to be targeted by Democrat activists. So I'm in favor of whatever protocol." Rule of Trump, really.

Stupid analogy anyway. As LA Times Columnist, Michael Hiltzik, points out in his June 5th article on masking pandemic era children, then challenged by MAGA parents as wasteful and unnecessary: “A newly published study from data scientists at Michigan State University knocks one pillar out from under this claim. It finds that the abrupt removal in 2022 of mandates that children wear masks in school contributed to an estimated 21,800 COVID deaths that year — a shocking 9% of the total COVID deaths in the U.S. that year.”

We are a period of constitutional crisis with a rogue president, all in for the grift he can manage, craving total autocratic power. He has aligned key total loyalist appointments, notably in DOJ, HSI and DOD, to take his orders as the highest authority in the land. Say the word, and as this test case in Los Angeles with the California Guard illustrates, Trump can foment a civil war and deploy our military to give him complete control, first under martial law and later… the way “elected” autocrats always take power. 

I’m Peter Dekom, and those MAGA enablers, sycophants in Congress who know better and a blasé general public that believe it “can’t happen here,” it is happening, just as Trump intended!!!!

Silence of the Lambs – Free Market or Flee the Market

  

Trump’s New CEO Donor-Sycophants at his Inauguration

Silence of the Lambs – Free Market or Flee the Market

We haven’t seen presidential incompetence like this for a century – the era where new tariffs fostered the Great Depression – or presidential corruption like our current grift-driven reality… ever! But with a GOP majority in the House almost always doing what the President orders, and the GOP Senate majority in pretty much the same mindset, the remaining branch of government, the “snail to the table” judiciary may be the only guardrail left against Trump’s autocratic incompetence. His on-again, off-again TACO tariffs and his Big Beautiful budget/tax bill – seemingly geared for a Cold War era of conflicts with an arrogant assumption that no amount of US deficit debt either will happen… or if it does… that it matters – are throbbing catastrophes that have just begun and are ramping up even greater economic destruction.

Whether you are a senior college administrator, particularly at major universities, a Fortune 500 CEO or a mainstream media maven, your relationship with the Trump administration is driven by FEAR. All roads lead to Donald Trump. CEOs used to scream like stuck pigs at economic policies they did not like. While a few brave souls tread lightly with debt analysis Trump just might not understand, for the most part there is a contribution-hurling, media controlling quivering mass of CEOs… most of whom are now corporate lambs. Silent lambs.

As currently configured, with no firm pushback yet from the US Supreme Court and clearly not Congress, Trump is the man in charge. Alone. By himself. Surrounded by the worst cabinet this nation has seen in centuries, perhaps ever. Notwithstanding that some of these “distractions” are truly serious issues, Donald Trump is the master of pushing outrageous behavior, that his MAGA constituency loves, as distractions to his two clear prioritized vectors: first, his immigration policy, which is being used as a convenient wedge to marginalize the Constitution itself – see my recent Expectations – Biting Off More than You Can Chew? blog, and second, the topic for today, Trump’s misdirected economic priorities, which benefit him, win or lose.

I’ve written a great deal about Trump’s misunderstanding of what tariffs really are, how they really work and how prioritized global tariffs, not in response to specific and limited tariffs imposed against us, have very little in the way of a likely positive outcome… and further, how threatening to use tariffs against specific US companies (Trump has already singled out Mattel and Apple) puts way too much power in the hands of one man… whose use of power is seldom for the benefit for most of us… usually just Trump individually and those rich cronies who bow down low to him.

Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt, announced to the world business leaders are “begging to meet with this president and begging to come to the White House.” Do they want dispensation and exceptions to tariffs that could destroy their bottom lines or more direct government favoritism toward their corporations? As Shari Redstone, Paramount’s controlling shareholder is finding out as she seeks FCC and SEC approval, for her sale to David Ellison’s Skydance… facing a Trump lawsuit against Paramount subsidiary, CBS, for a purported distortion in that network’s minor 60 Minutes editing of a piece about Kamala Harris. A juicy settlement with Trump, all assume, would make the medicine go down smoothly… although Dems call that potential settlement with a direct payment to Trump, for a case that would most probably die in the courts, a bribe.

Trump has given the business world chronic and roiling instability. Business hates the uncertainty; CEOs cannot make serious business decisions without that certainty, most particularly in the supply chain reality of the 21st century. As Fareed Zacharia notes in this article for the June 8th Washington Post: “And what do business leaders say? Nothing. There are important exceptions: Ken Griffin, Larry Fink, Jamie Dimon and, of course, now Elon Musk.

“In the past, business leaders have routinely railed against higher taxes on businesses. Yet today, encountering a raft of new taxes in the form of tariffs, they have mostly stayed quiet. Many CEOs will not even dare mention that their prices will have to rise because of the new taxes on their imported goods. The new 50 percent tax on steel tariffs, for example, will benefit the steel industry. But studies have shown that for every job saved in that industry, there are 75 jobs endangered in industries that use imported steel in their products (such as cars and construction). Have you heard those CEOs complain? I have not.

“Consider the hypocrisy surrounding the budget bill. CEOs have long talked about the dangers of budget deficits. And yet, faced with a bill that will almost certainly result in $5 trillion added to the national debt over 10 years, most have taken a pass on objecting. (Officials at the Congressional Budget

“Business leaders must deal with America the way they used to deal with Third World dictatorships: Appease the supreme leader.

“Office estimate it adds ‘only’ $2.4 trillion to the debt because they have to work with the accounting gimmickry of the House Republicans, who deliberately end some tax cuts in year four so that they add less to the 10-year debt projections.) If you look at the numbers seriously, it is obvious that the only way to pare down the deficit is to make cuts in the largest programs such as Medicare and defense, and allow many of the Trump tax cuts of 2017 to expire. Instead, this bill does basically nothing to rein in Medicare spending, increases spending on defense and expands tax cuts substantially.” Continuing a tax cut for the richest in the land, at the expense of those at the bottom of the economic ladder, is fiscal insanity.

As we saw on June 1st, an assault of 117 Ukrainian drones took out about one-third of Russia’s missile-launching fleet of jet aircraft (which are no longer being manufactured, just upgraded) scattered across four airfields deep inside Russia. Each drone, costing hundreds of dollars, was devastating. The attack cost Russia an estimated 40 aircraft at an unofficial aggregate loss of over $7 billion. What’s the lesson for the American Department of Defense?

The asymmetrical warfare deployed by a lesser state against a militarily stronger state – one defined by pockets of clandestine rebel warriors, hit and run tactics, used successfully against French troops in Algeria and Vietnam and against US forces in Afghanistan and also Vietnam – is now replaced with very inexpensive land, sea and air drones capable of inflicting massive damage on sophisticated major power militaries. So, we’re building $15 billion aircraft carriers (built to last up to a century), requiring a further $100+ billion for the aircraft and support vessels… when an explosion of thousand-dollar drones just might take out the big boat itself.

And as for Medicare, we could bring down the cost of healthcare in this country, as other nations have discovered, with universal coverage. And this is no more “creeping socialism” than public schools. But big bucks talk, control, get what they want… until their dollars elect an autocrat who can ruin their lives with the stroke of a pen. And right now, when the GOP House is given Trump instructions, when major corporations are warned and when colleges and universities dare to challenge the Gospel According to Saint Trump, most are entwined in an intolerable slow judicial process with too many Trump appointees… and most jump amid the abject terror of opposing King Trump. 

I’m Peter Dekom, and even if this means my possible incarceration or loss of my law practice, I cannot mirror the fear of those overcompensated CEOs groveling at the feet of the greatest threat this nation has ever faced: autocratic rule by an utter incompetent.

Harvard, Oh Harvard, Wherefore Art Thou? What is Thy Veritas?

             Harvard Graduation. May 2025

Harvard, Oh Harvard, Wherefore Art Thou? What is Thy Veritas?

"As someone teaching [at] a Harvard Law School, I can certainly tell you that, around the law school and the surrounding areas, the idea that there is rampant anti-Semitism at Harvard is just hopeless, I mean it is just not the situation… As in any place in the world, there will be examples of antisemitism, no question at all, but the idea that it is rampant and all over the place is complete nonsense." 

 Phillipe Sands, a lawyer, author and visiting professor at Harvard Law School.

“I tend to think that we should seize the institutions of the left and turn them against the left. We need like a de-Baathification programme, a de-woke-ification programme.” 

 Future VP, JD Vance in Vanity Fair, 2022.

“Their goal is to intimidate and break down institutions of higher learning in America because that is where most of the resistance to their authoritarian tendencies is going to come from… They figure, if we can bankrupt Harvard, if we can embarrass Harvard, if we can put Harvard in a position of weakness or at least get them to bend the knee, then all the other institutions in America will follow. That’s why they’re doing this.” 

Jason Johnson, a political scientist at Morgan State University in Baltimore, Maryland,

“Mr. Trump should understand the trade-offs. One of the reasons that U.S. higher education is the gold standard is the presence of international students. A disproportionately high number of doctorates at American universities are awarded to foreign students—especially in the more demanding fields of science, mathematics and engineering. ‘International students accounted for more than 40 percent of the roughly 500,000 doctoral degrees awarded by U.S. universities between 2000 and 2019,’ according to the Center for Security and Emerging Technology.” 

Jason Mr. Riley, 6/2 WSJ, a 2018 Bradley Prize recipient, is the author of four books: “Let Them In: The Case for Open Borders” (2008); “Please Stop Helping Us: How Liberals Make It Harder for Blacks to Succeed” (2014); “False Black Power?” (2017); and “Maverick: A Biography of Thomas Sowell” (2021).

Since the Israeli massive response against all of Gaza since the brutality of the October 7, 2023, attacks on innocent Israeli citizens (taking well over 100 hostages) – Israeli forces have killed around 54 thousand Gazans – reality has spawned a vicious response in the United States. Those of Jewish faith represent 2.4% of the US population, yet there has been a threefold increase against Jewish synagogues, associations, charities, support groups and Jews in general, representing 70% of the hate crime perpetrated in the United States since October 7th. A schism has pitted supporters of Gazans (not Hamas) vs those who remain committed totally to Israel.

Zionism (based on loyalty to Israel) and Judaism (the religious faith) have often been conflated by supporters of both sides and the Trump administration. The administration calls any support for Gaza and against Israeli policies “antisemitism,” which is a dangerous and indiscriminate conflation… and is often seen as a call to arms to his followers against anyone who protests against Israel… and which has drawn an opposing reaction – the destruction of US Jewish targets noted above. Tensions have escalated, often expressed on college campuses where divergent causes are often hotly disputed.

But the Trump administration has used college protests against killings in Gaza as evidence of antisemitism, a concept which has been abused and misused by Trump to crush, or attempt to crush elite universities into surrendering their curricula, their selection of faculty, the composition of their student body, admissions and administration, cutting funds, banning foreign students, etc. And here sits Harvard, ostensibly the most visible of America’s elite universities. While bigoted antisemitism is everywhere, including Harvard, it is not a particularly significant issue for that university, with a Jewish President and a significant Jewish student body and faculty constituency. For Trump, using that word, reaching for his blame attack knife, it is a way to impose his cultural mandate as the only correct thinking permitted in America.

Taking down Harvard has become Trump’s priority at all costs. Despite the loss of millions of dollars of federal research grants (so much of which is focused on curing disease), the attempt to collect personnel data on students and faculty, Harvard is fighting back against this unique MAGA attack. As Fareed Zacharia, writing for the May 30th Washington Post writes: “What is new and surprising is that these challenges, far from uniting America, have turned it on itself, with its government tearing down many of the crucial elements of its extraordinary success…

“Consider the Nature Index, perhaps the most comprehensive guide to high-quality research in the sciences. It tracks contributions to the world’s leading academic journals. Its newest rankings show what scientists already know: China is leaping ahead. Of the top 10 academic institutions in the Nature Index, nine are Chinese. But still sitting in the topmost position on that list is an American institution: Harvard. And it is this university that President Donald Trump is trying to destroy…

“America’s universities have problems, and I have written about them, urging them to abandon fashionable political causes, end the obsession with diversity and marginalization, and return to a focus on excellence. But it is worth noting that these are still by far the world’s leaders in higher education when you consider teaching, research and the academic environment more broadly. This can be seen simply in the tsunami of applications that America’s top universities get from the brightest students around the world. It would be hard to find many industries in which America is more dominant. Xi Jinping and his erstwhile rival for the Chinese presidency, Bo Xilai, disagreed about many things. But both believed that the best place in the world that their daughter and son, respectively, could go for higher education was Harvard.”

Even as courts rule against him, as Trump is voiding student visas, telling Harvard’s foreign enrollees (27.2% of all students there) that they must leave, his edict, if truly implemented, will devastate the “best and the brightest” researchers in their field, decimate the massive “full tuition” revenue to the school, but more importantly will take Harvard off the list of top universities and clearly devastate one of the primary reasons for American greatness: her domination of globally great universities. He has spread this anti-foreign student toxin across the country. But looking at the bigger picture, the role of taking down universities is an autocratic necessity by destroying the most important bastions of culture needed to support democracy.

Writing for the June 2nd NY Times, Jonathan Sumption, a former justice of the Supreme Court of Britain, author of “The Challenges of Democracy and the Rule of Law,” opines: “As an observer of democracies and a constitutional lawyer in Britain, I have watched with rising alarm as many Western nations threaten to become failed democracies.

“They may not yet be like Venezuela, Peru, Hungary, Turkey or Russia. But these countries show what can happen when a democracy dies with a whimper, not with a bang. There may not be tanks on the lawns or mobs in the streets, but slowly, they are drained of everything that once made them democratic, often with substantial public support… These countries have elections, legislatures, courts and so on. The institutional framework is still there. But they are no longer democracies because the political culture on which democracy depends has failed.

“Now the United States is in danger of being added to this list. There are tensions among its institutions, though they are still largely functioning. But the deterioration of its political culture is striking — and alarming. The country resembles other Western democracies in buckling under the weight of increasingly unrealistic expectations of the state from its electorate.”

I’m Peter Dekom, and as Donald Trump kills the goose that laid the golden egg, the best in higher education, the United States faces serious degradation at all levels… which is why I, a proud Yale graduate, fiercely support Harvard’s battle against this tyranny.