Déjà Vu All Over Again

Déjà Vu All Over Again

First and foremost, we are being relegated to a cult of autocratic personalities, each with eggshell egos, who are determining the future of the United States and most of the rest of the world based on their distorted perceptions and personal needs that have little or nothing to do with the betterment of their people. On our side of the equation is a clear autocrat, absolutely enabled by a captive Congress and a Supreme Court more anxious to placate the President than protect free and fail elections or the Constitution itself. Foreign countries have learned that the way to get favors from Donald Trump is to nominate him for the Nobel Peace Prize. Trump has been taking credit for ceasefires where he doesn’t even know the names of the individual leaders, who actually implemented the end of those local hostilities. Trump is as likely to receive that accolade as would Attila the Hun, where he alive today. Arming military forces to invade and subjugate cities run by his political opponents, blue cities like Los Angeles, Washington, DC and, next he promises, Chicago, Trump’s signature move these days… hardly the stuff a Nobel prize represents.

Vladimir Putin clearly has no serious intention to alter his longstanding belief that Ukraine must both submit to his leadership (ceding territory along the way, even lands he has not yet occupied) and devoid of any meaningful security guarantees. Even as Trump posted on a social media post on August 18th that he had spoken to Putin and set in motion arrangements for a summit at a location to be decided, “Russia’s top diplomat said Friday [8/22] there are no plans for a meeting between Russian President Vladimir Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to discuss their three-year war, days after President Trump said he had begun arrangements for them to sit down together… ‘There is no meeting planned’ between the Russian and Ukrainian leaders, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said in a taped interview for NBC’s” Meet the Press with Kristen Welker. AP, August 23rd. As European leaders met earlier to discuss how security for Ukraine might work, Moscow’s Foreign Minister, Sergey Lavrov, called this effort “a path to nowhere.”

Given how Trump quickly abandoned his most fervent anti-Putin demand for an immediate ceasefire or else there would be “serious consequences,” Putin knew instantly that without the kinds of sanctions and ramped up military aid only the US could provide, ending the war against Ukraine was no longer a priority. That solicitor of the Nobel Peace Prize sabotaged that peace effort. Further, as Trump made any criticism of Israel or any statements of support for Palestinian statehood clear evidence of an individual’s disloyalty to America, support of terrorism, his denial of visas and cancellation of student visas of anyone making such statements is predicated on his statement that constitutional protections do not apply to non-citizens. This expressly contradicts the Supreme Court’s decisions in Bridges v. Wixon (1945, regarding speech that opposed the then current administration) and Boumediene v. Bush (2008 holding that the writ of habeas corpus even applied to prisoners in US custody at the Guantanamo base in Cuba).

As Trump’s unpopularity soared, he pressed red states to resort to gerrymandered districts to give Republicans a 100-seat margin of victory in the House, knowing that the Supreme Court ruled that it could not stop partisan gerrymandering (2019, Rucho v. Common Cause). Democrats have responded with a parallel effort to gerrymander in reverse. The net impact is the potential of a fully and legally rigged 2026 midterm and a 2028 presidential election, one that cannot represent the will of the American people. But if distortions work in Trump’s favor, they have become routine. For example, “Economists expressed alarm at President Donald Trump's moves to undermine the independence of the Federal Reserve and the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

“The U.S. economy has long enjoyed a reputation as the safest place in the world to invest or build a business, which has given the country a nearly incalculable advantage, but economists compared Trump's efforts to stack the central bank with loyalists to cancer – but arguably worse, reported the New York Times… ‘It’s like throwing sand in the gears,’ said Glenn Hubbard, who led the Council of Economic Advisers under George W. Bush. ‘It just makes the economy less efficient.’” Travis Gettys in Raw Story, August 22nd, citing mostly conservative economists. Gettys also interviewed a Trump 1.0 administrator: “A former White House official sounded the alarm on a ‘secret blacklist’ compiled by President Donald Trump's team that tracks the loyalty of more than 550 companies and trade associations.

“Miles Taylor, who wrote the anonymous ‘resistance’ New York Times op-ed while serving in Trump's first administration, called out the loyalty scorecard first reported by Axios as ‘another totally unprecedented (and quasi-authoritarian) development out of the White House’ on his ‘Treason’ Substack page… ‘The goal is apparently to reward public displays of allegiance to the administration and freeze out companies deemed unsupportive of the president’s agenda,’ Taylor wrote. ‘Among other things, the ratings are said to take into account: social media posts, press releases and public endorsements, video testimonials and paid ads, attendance at White House events, and presumably any other gestures of loyalty the administration can log.’”

And even after the UN has officially declared a major famine in central Gaza, impacting half a million people, Israeli autocrat, Benjamin Netanyahu, denies the obvious as he begins his all-out assault on Gaza, with many additional Palestinian casualties expected. I will end today’s blog with an observation from The Economist’s Digital Editor, Adam Robert (August 23rd), noting how collusion between and among autocrats today, reinforces the disappearance of freedom and the rule of law: “Did Churchill ever break into applause at the sight of Stalin, or JFK give a little ovation for Khrushchev? I suspect not. So it was striking to see Donald Trump’s thrilled reaction as Vladimir Putin approached him in Alaska last week. Some online cynics joked that it was natural that the American leader clapped: it’s not every day you get to meet your hero. Too strong? Perhaps. But Mr Trump has shown an abiding affection for the Russian autocrat. As our Lexington columnist notes, the American first praised Russia’s leader on television back in 2007 and has been a steady admirer since. Lexington unpacks the real collusion between the two men.

“My hunch about their relationship: Mr Trump is drawn to anyone who exudes an aura of strength. Talk of morality, rules, duty or strategy bores him. He yearns, instead, to strike bold and quick deals with tough guys and to win prizes and adoration as a result. That makes for an unstable world.” As a rule of thumb, as Trump tends to support the purported strongman in any conflict, regardless of any immoral stance, he heaps criticism and opprobrium on the vulnerable weaker party.

I’m Peter Dekom, and as Trump is now using armed troops against regions of the United States that openly oppose him, ask yourself it this represents your view of democracy and freedom in this country.

Medicine, AI and You – Risks and Benefits

Medicine, AI and You – Risks and Benefits

Studies have shown that over-reliance on AI – increasingly blind reliance on AI solutions – produces inferior results. But the combination of AI with intelligent human interaction shows how well the process can work. But remember, AI is only as good as the algorithms and data fed into the system, plus what that system is allowed to access “out there,” if permitted to explore. Add to this complexity is since AI can be very self-directing, this leads many to the conclusion that we do not completely understand the universe we are creating. It’s more than the old, “garbage in, garbage out,” if you are not completely aware of what goes in… the risks of generative AI, particularly worrying in medical diagnosis and treatment.

But for the medical community, living without AI can generate second-rate medical practices. AI’s ability to find pathways to new treatments, vaccines and the resulting insights… able to conduct virtual experiments over thousands, even millions, of models without risking attempting such solutions in the real world first, is amazing. The ability to analyze complex data (e.g., CT Scans, MRI results, even simple x-rays) and compare the input to millions of comparable screenings where specific diseases or anomalies have been identified (both in living scans and post-mortem analyses), allows the tiniest trace of the identifying characteristic, ones that even seasoned radiologists might easily miss, to diagnose diseases at the earlier, and most treatable phase. In short, AI can save a lot of time… avoid dead-end experiments... “possible, best guess” treatments that go nowhere… and hence lives. Robotic surgery (I’ve had several) increases accuracy, reducing the size of incisions and allowing for instant diagnosis of observations along the way… and AI only makes those processes safer and more efficient.

The aggregation of data, the creation of “basic” software which can teach itself from there, the sophistication of the computing power needed to process it all, and the necessary human training on how to use this technology and maximize both accuracy and the treatment solutions are very expensive. Tech players in this universe are spending billions of dollars to make this all work. That those able to buy and/or create such technology are wildly well funded, puts our future in the hands of the billionaires and mega-corporations able to afford this escalating investment. When this is combined with the GOP agenda of defunding government-supported research… pushing our future into the hands of profit-seekers and those attempting to define and dominate the marketplace, often in defiance of antitrust laws, should worry us all. As Trump’s Big Beautiful Big Bill attests, our current governmental vectors favor the mega-rich (individuals and corporations) at the expense of everyone else. When this applies to AI and medicine, we should be suspicious.

The mergers and acquisitions in this medical AI space track the unbelievably massive valuations and dollars taking place among the biggest of the big boyz. We can note that when smaller companies create more effective interfaces, software and database aggregation, the behemoths in medical AI step in to buy them, often taking these new capabilities out of the competitive marketplace.

One of the primary writers in this space is Ian Krietzberg, who writes for Puck.com. In his July 16th contribution, he notes that not only are sophisticated researchers embracing AI but too many amateurs are engaged in self-diagnosis, a practice destined to increase as Medicaid and other programs face cutbacks, as small clinics and hospitals close and as medical costs continue to skyrocket given our current political push towards more corporate profitability:

“Nearly half of clinicians are now using A.I. for their work. Patients are turning to ChatGPT to self-diagnose mysterious ailments. And everyone from the chief innovation officer of Boston Children’s Hospital to R.F.K. Jr. is excited about the revolution unfolding in plain sight. What could go wrong? … Long before ChatGPT infiltrated classrooms and became an obsession at cocktail parties, Boston Children’s Hospital embarked on what Dr. John Brownstein, its chief innovation officer, described as an ‘A.I. journey.’ For years, Brownstein told me, the hospital had been using machine learning in data-rich environments—like radiology, pathology, or the intensive care unit—to generate ‘predictions’ about patient outcomes. Then came the generative A.I. explosion. Now, Brownstein said, his team is anticipating that A.I. is ‘going to be part of the fabric of almost all the technologies we use in the hospital.’ For many people in the A.I. field, the integration with medicine represents a potential holy grail.

“Obviously, these technologies are still error-prone, and the stakes are much higher when you’re incorporating A.I. into potentially life-or-death healthcare decisions, rather than, say, enabling Gemini in your Gmail. But physicians are finding early success with A.I. tools, and the rate of adoption is steadily ticking up: According to Elsevier’s fourth-annual ‘Clinician of the Future’ report, which was released today [7/16], 48 percent of clinicians had used A.I. for work in 2025, nearly double the 26 percent reported the year before, and more than triple the figure from the year before that. The 2,000 or so physicians who responded to the survey described their primary use cases for A.I. as identifying drug interactions, analyzing medical images, and providing a patient’s medication summary.

“This rapid adoption curve, Brownstein said, can be attributed in part to the industry’s seeming openness to this technology. At Boston Children’s, 30 percent of the hospital’s workforce has already started using A.I., although mostly via ‘low-risk’ applications, like administrative tools. The hospital was also one of the earlier adopters of (controversial) ambient listening tools, which use A.I. to auto-transcribe patient-doctor visits, and has partnered with OpenAI to advance their work on the diagnosis of rare diseases. ‘We’ve been very careful about the deployment of these tools, recognizing that some come with more risk than others,’ Brownstein said, adding that the hospital has also started using physician-facing tools, at least in part, for care guidance”—a step toward wide-scale, predictive, personalized healthcare.

“Still, plenty of doctors remain cautious. In Elsevier’s 2024 survey, 85 percent of clinicians said that A.I. could cause critical errors, and 93 percent were worried about misinformation. In this year’s survey, only 40 percent of clinicians claimed that A.I. could be trusted to assist with clinical decision-making, and only 30 percent said their institutions were providing adequate training—an issue that Brownstein acknowledged as an impediment to adoption. ‘At the end of the day, whoever’s using them has to sign off and take responsibility for whatever the output is,’ he told me. ‘It still resides with the clinician to provide that consideration. Yes, there’s a future world where a lot of patients are going to turn directly to these tools, but that’s not where we are.’”

In the end, there are a pile of medical, political and economic risks that appear to be unavoidable. Compounding this maze of issues is the raw complexity of AI, the “unknowability quotient,” and the proclivity of most Americans to outsource their opinions, when they do not understand the variables, to politicians who may be equally uninformed but are most willing to use the confusion to manipulate their constituents.

I’m Peter Dekom, and Americans do not need to dwell in the small technical details of AI to make informed decisions, but there is enough basic information to demystify the process to an understandable level.

When the International Marketplace No Longer Trusts US Government Reports & Controls

When the International Marketplace No Longer Trusts US Government Reports & Controls

Even Russia has “elections,” but nobody trusts their projected statistics

“The Federal Reserve is a uniquely structured, quasi-private entity that follows in the distinct historical tradition of the First and Second Banks of the United States." 

Unsigned Supreme Court order in Trump vs Wilcox, Supreme Court (May 2025), not allowing the President to fire members of the Fed Board

To most Americans, the machinations and operations of all those bureaucratic money thangs remains a mystery which they generally do not understand. But those “thangs” can destroy an economy and decimate our credibility in a very, very bad way. Over a century ago, the Federal Reserve was created by Congress to act as a fully independent central bank, primarily overseeing the banking industry, overseeing monetary supply and setting federal interest rates within a neutral and credible forum. The idea was to make our financial credibility able to withstand differing election results and to temper those fiscal and monetary changes that were relegated to Congress and the President. For example, the Fed cannot veto congressional budget allocations or limit deficit spending. Until Trump 2.0, the United States set the gold standard for reliable financial data and statistics for all central banks worldwide. We were really trusted.

What the Fed does that allows the government to approve federal budgets with big deficits is to provide objective and reliable data that those we are asking to lend us that deficit shortfall (through the sale of US treasury bonds) have faith in government statistics. And the Fed itself relies on accurate reporting from other federal agencies, like the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), to set its rates and regulations. What it cannot survive is when an elected official, almost always the President, attempts to mandate what the Fed decides. The ability of someone outside of the Fed to intervene and supersede the Fed’s normal neutral operation destroys the US government’s international credibility, and like any bank that does not trust a borrower’s numbers, lenders (those who buy US treasury bonds) either do not lend or, if they do, they jack up the interest rate to cover the increasing risk based on this unreliability factor.

Even as Donald Trump believes if he could force Fed rate (the interest rate the Fed charges federally insured banks, which impacts the overall debt marketplace in various and complex ways) to drop significantly, that would stimulate the economy while reducing borrowing costs, ultimately for consumers. But as Trump has fired the heads of the BLS because he did not like the recent jobs report and has attempted to discharge and preempt Fed Chair Jerome Powell because he won’t drop the fed rate by a large number, the international marketplace, which bully Trump cannot control (he cannot force foreign investor to buy our treasuries at any price he were to set), the international marketplace began quivering, rating agencies were downgrading our credit rating, and we are now forced to pay higher interest yields to make up the difference.

That's reality, which Trump has no power to change. Nations that manipulate financial controls and reported statistics – like Argentina, Iran, Sudan, Nigeria, Zimbabwe, etc. – often watch their annual inflation rates soar, sometime over 100% or more in a single year. One of the major contributors to WWII was the German reaction to hyper currency devaluation as that post-WWI loser nation struggled to pay war reparations to France and other victorious allies. The resulting instability often is reflected in violent civil unrest, where differing factions pledge unrealistic policies to reduce inflation, or outright war. It’s never pretty.

If Trump were able to fire Federal Reserve Board members, he would have the clout to dictate Fed policy and thus decimate its reputation for neutrality. Jerome Powell fought back and, at least until recently, was able to keep those international financial wolves from destroying that cherished gold standard neutrality. Trump then figured all he really needed to do is successfully fire any Fed board member, because if he could fire one, he could fire any of the for “cause.”

Trump, who has been personally held legally responsible for bank fraud, has used a very flimsy excuse of mortgage “fraud” against individuals (particularly an issue for government employees and elected officials who have lived in one jurisdiction but now are forced to work in another, in determining what is a “principal residence). He has used that premise to attack California Senator Adam Schiff and now to attempt to fire Federal Reserve board member, Lisa Cook.

That latter attempt to fire Ms Cook (she refused to go) really shook the international markets, as this report from the August 26th Fortune magazine illustrates: “Markets sold off worldwide after President Trump announced plans to fire Fed governor Lisa Cook and threatened steep tariffs on China, raising fears about Fed independence and the dollar’s role as a reserve currency. S&P futures were down this morning. However some hopes emerged as investors focused on the Fed’s institutional strength.

“There was a global selloff in the markets today [8/26] and every major index—U.S. futures, Asia and Europe—was down this morning. Two major factors drove the negativity: President Trump’s announcement last night that he will fire U.S. Federal Reserve governor Lisa Cook, thus calling into question the economic independence of the world’s most important central bank; and Trump remarking that he may impose 200% tariffs on China if Beijing restricts the U.S.’s access to supplies of rare earth minerals that are 90% controlled by China.” Christopher Rugaber, writing for the August 26th Associated Press, expands, explaining what happens when a weak Fed chair succumbs to political pressure:

“The Fed wields extensive power over the U.S. economy. By cutting the short-term interest rate it controls — which it typically does when the economy falters — the Fed can make borrowing cheaper and encourage more spending, accelerating growth and hiring. When it raises the rate — which it does to cool the economy and combat inflation — it can weaken the economy and cause job losses… Economists have long preferred independent central banks because they can more easily take unpopular steps to fight inflation, such as raise interest rates, which makes borrowing to buy a home, car or appliance more expensive.

“The importance of an independent Fed was cemented for most economists after the extended inflation spike of the 1970s and early 1980s. Former Fed Chair Arthur Burns has been widely blamed for allowing the painful inflation of that era to accelerate by succumbing to pressure from President Nixon to keep rates low heading into the 1972 election. Nixon feared higher rates would cost him the election, which he won in a landslide.

“Paul Volcker was eventually appointed chair of the Fed in 1979 by President Carter, and he pushed the Fed’s short-term rate to the stunningly high level of nearly 20%. (It is currently 4.3%). The eye-popping rates triggered a sharp recession, pushed unemployment to nearly 11% and spurred widespread protests… Yet Volcker didn’t flinch. By the mid-1980s, inflation had fallen back into the low single digits. Volcker’s willingness to inflict pain on the economy to throttle inflation is seen by most economists as a key example of the value of an independent Fed.

“Investors are watching closely… An effort to fire Powell would almost certainly cause stock prices to fall and bond yields to surge, pushing up interest rates on government debt and raising borrowing costs for mortgages, auto loans and credit card debt. The interest rate on the 10-year Treasury is a benchmark for mortgage rates.” Trump supporters believe that because Donald Trump is perceived as a successful businessman, he knows what he is doing. Perhaps he knows that his tariff program combined with his tax cuts for the rich has been the largest upward shift in wealth (at the cost of everyone else) in recent memory. But he clearly does not understand that tampering with the independence of the Fed may appear to be a path to lower US interest rates… but it a rather dramatic path to rampant inflation, for the reasons noted above, at levels consumers have not witnessed in almost a half a century.

I’m Peter Dekom, and those little mysterious goings-on in our financial world, if not properly contained, can inflict a whole lot of hurt for all but the richest in the land who have the assets (some overseas) to withstand Trump’s pending horrific mistakes… but rising unemployment, a real estate crash and hyper inflation are lurking right around the corner.

The American Police State – Heading towards Permanence?

 

     Armed soldiers in front of empty DC restaurant

The American Police State – Heading towards Permanence?

"The chance of having violent acts committed upon you in [House Speaker] Mike Johnson's Louisiana, in red state Louisiana, a red state that Donald Trump carried and every Republican has carried since Bill Clinton… are 400 times higher than in California. Let me say that again, let me underline that again: You have a 400 percent higher chance of being murdered in red state Louisiana, Mike Johnson's home state, than you do on the left coast in Gavin Newsom's California." 

 MSNBC's Joe Scarborough, citing government statistics.

One of the first lessons I learned in analyzing political statements: when politicians cite anecdotal evidence without fact-checkable statistics, prepare for a lie masquerading as spin. When truth and facts no longer matter to our nation’s leadership, democracy withers and dies. This is precisely the traditional justification for dictatorial takeovers and policies driven by the brutal and costly prosecution of critics and opponents. John Bolton, anyone? Intimidation works. And God help any federal employee of note who tells an inconvenient truth that contradicts Donald Trump, even if there is indisputable proof of the accuracy of the contradiction. Bolstered by Israeli intelligence, as Lt. General Jeffrey Kruse was summarily fired as head of the US Defense Intelligence Agency after confirming that Iranian nuclear enrichment sites were not, as Trump has maintained, totally “obliterated” by the US B2 strike in June.

In recent anecdotal statements by Donald Trump, noting the reasons for a spate of additional “my way or the highway” executive orders and city takeovers, he cited as success the lack of murders in DC since the military occupation of that city. He did not mention that locals are staying home in droves, instead citing anecdotal statements he claims to have heard from visitor/friends they have enjoyed excellent meals at local DC restaurants that were “packed.” This flies in the face of restaurant owners and reservation sites (e.g., OpenTable.com) showing that there are between 30% and 50% fewer such diners in DC across the board.

The soldiers in DC, mostly National Guardsmen from red states, are now armed… but not allowed (yet) to arrest anyone. They still do not venture into the high-crime neighborhoods, but their fear and intimidation factor is intense, profoundly undemocratic and very much counter the Posse Comitatus Act, which severely limits the use of federal military in domestic situations. As Trump announces his intention to deploy similar armed forces in “high crime” cities (all with seriously falling crime statistics, even using FBI numbers) – mentioning only blue cities like Chicago, Baltimore, Oakland and New York and completely ignoring red cities with substantially higher crime rates at every level – he seems to be enjoying the new power such deployments yield, compelling him to continue creating a new pseudo-federal statutory system by fiat (executive order). Who needs Congress, and if he cannot force Congress to follow his detailed orders, he will force reconfigure Congress itself?

All of these efforts are amplified by his demand of red states to gerrymander the nation’s congressional voting districts (Texas stepped up first) to ensure that Democrats may never again control Congress or federal elections. The Democratic counter, hemmed in by local neutral districting boards, is at best challenging. In 2019, the Supreme Court of the United States ruled 5-4 in both Rucho v. Common Cause (North Carolina) and Lamone v. Benisek (Maryland) that partisan gerrymandering claims present political questions that fall beyond the jurisdiction of the federal judiciary. So go for it!!!

Even as the United States is rapidly losing the protection of constitutional restrictions, even as lower courts are trying to protect those basic rights, ultra-conservative members of the Supreme Court want to see their draconian mandates enforced to the letter: “A growing sense of frustration with some lower courts — articulated in terms that at times sound similar to Trump’s own rhetoric — has crept into a series of opinions this summer from the Supreme Court’s conservative justices as they juggle a flood of emergency cases dealing with Trump’s second term… Lower court judges may sometimes disagree with this court’s decisions, but they are never free to defy them,” Justice Neil Gorsuch admonished in an opinion last week tied to the court’s decision to allow Trump to cancel nearly $800 million in research grants.” CNN, August 26th.

But the President has zero compunction against ignoring that Court; a new executive order signed by President Donald Trump August 25th bans the burning of the American Flag, in direct contradiction to a precent set by 1989 Supreme Court in the Texas v. Johnson deeming the action an act of "symbolic speech." He fabricated the notion that flag burning incites major riots. Trump’s total justification for sending troops into blue states is predicated on his mere unsupported statements, which resonate well with too many voters, that disproportional crime is primarily a blue state problem that he alone can fix. “Trump’s torrid rhetoric claiming that crime is out of control, which is often misleading, is a classic page from the playbook of strongman leaders. It could precipitate high tensions between the federal government and states over the limits of his constitutional and legal authority…

“The president’s threats prompted alarmed Democrats on Sunday [8/25] to warn that there would be no justification for him to dispatch troops to a city such as Chicago over local opposition… ‘We should continue to support local law enforcement and not simply allow Donald Trump to play games with the lives of the American people as part of his effort to manufacture a crisis and create a distraction because he’s deeply unpopular,’ House Democratic Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries told CNN’s Dana Bash on ‘State of the Union.’” Stephen Collinson, CNN, August 26th.

But unless the Supreme Court intervenes to ban gerrymandering and to limit the President’s use of federal troops in states that won’t vote him under false pretenses, democracy will indeed be replaced by autocracy, and there will be virtually no legal means to reverse that trend. A gerrymandered Congress supported by a rejiggered electoral college will prevent a neutral Supreme Court from ever getting appointed and confirmed to restore democracy. As I have blogged before, the United States has no constitutional basis to allow states to secede from the union, no mechanism even for a national vote to this effect. As Trump crushes our best universities, pulls research grants intended to benefit all Americans, allows a very rich elite to call the shots while cutting benefits for the rest, expect a major exodus of younger Americans to other nations as they seek democracy and equal opportunity that died in the US. And expect the US to falter and succumb to successful competition from other nations.

I’m Peter Dekom, and I am deeply saddened as I spend the rest of my life watching the country I love and adore become a brutal dictatorship based on fabricated “emergencies” and policies devoid of any meaningful factual basis.

OK Democrats, Now What?!

OK Democrats, Now What?!

One of the perpetual issues for Democrats is the “diversity” (yes, I said “diversity”) of its constituency vs the relative homogeneity of the GOP voter base. Here’s an example: There are few more woke institutions – on everything from human rights, diversity and climate change – than the Roman Catholic Church. It is the primary church for the much-maligned “invading horde” (as White House Senior Advisor Stephen Miller would say) of undocumented workers from Latin America. The last two Popes have underscored support for these workers and for the above basics. Democratic basics. But when it comes to abortion, the Church is as Republican as it gets.

And the “Rainbow” coalition, the “Big Tent” of Democratic values, you have everything from “socialists” and anti-big business stalwarts favoring government regulation, LGBTQ advocates and anti-Zionist coalitions to those focusing on women’s rights, protection for minorities, pro-union/worker rights, tax-the-rich-and-close-the-loopholes voters and true free speech believers. Republicans – on an accelerating course of self-destruction as evidenced by the slash-and-burn of basic medical and nutritional benefits to fund deficit-blasting tax cuts that clearly favor the mega-rich (the obvious results of that Big Beautiful Bill) and the price-busting economic reality of the GOP tariff/trade policy – are basically tiered into two groups: fiscal conservatives and MAGA idealogues/conspiracy theorists.

Reaching two major cohorts is easier than reaching a rainbow of diversity. Fox News and a panoply of supporting social media/podcasts are reasonably consistent in their overall message. The populist right has a clear advantage in its narrowcast of messaging choices. Notwithstanding the lambasting of MSNBC and fairly neutral mainstream media, the Dems are communications laggards, virtual Luddites. But nascent candidates are beginning to wake up. As reported by Elaine Godfrey in The Atlantic (July 24th):

“[Former Chicago Mayor Ari] Emanuel was the most visible in the media this week [penultimate week in July], but he’s not the only would-be candidate we’re hearing from. This morning, former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg went on the podcast The Breakfast Club; he also made a surprise cameo on a Barstool Sports podcast last week to present a jokey ‘Lib of the Year’ award to the internet personality Jersey Jerry, who was wearing a MAGA hat. In an elegant Vogue spread, an old-school and somewhat stiff way to communicate one’s political ambitions, Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear bragged about having once been on MrBeast’s show. ‘We’ve got to do the YouTube shows,’ he said, telling the reporter that, unlike Harris, he would have gone on The Joe Rogan Experience. Buttigieg and Representative Ro Khanna of California have both appeared on the comedy podcast Flagrant, co-hosted by Andew Schulz. California Governor Gavin Newsom invited the conservative activist Charlie Kirk to be a guest on the first episode of his podcast.”

A decent start as Trump’s cult following is beginning to view their Golden Calf as covering up for the QAnon/MAGA base’s most villainous deep state criminals: pedophiles. Trump believes that either this debacle will blow over or… the “liberal alternative” will remain an anathema to GOP and indie voters. Trump’s approval level among his core constituents is wobbling but still holding. However, there is evidence that Americans are losing faith in the country. They see an economy stacked against them to bolster Trump’s mega-donors… and matters are getting worse. For many younger Americans, particularly in childbirth years, there is increasing doubt that their country is and will remain an autocracy where opposition to the incumbent is severely punished.

The clearest evidence? Americans are choosing to delay (“see what happens”) or opt out of having children. “The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released the statistic for the total fertility rate with updated birth data for 2024…In the early 1960s, the U.S. total fertility rate was around 3.5, but plummeted to 1.7 by 1976 after the Baby Boom ended. It gradually rose to 2.1 in 2007 before falling again, aside from a 2014 uptick. The rate in 2023 was 1.621, and inched down in 2024 to 1.599, according to the CDC’s National Center for Health Statistics.

“Birth rates are generally declining for women in most age groups — and that doesn’t seem likely to change in the near future, said Karen Guzzo, director of the Carolina Population Center at the University of North Carolina… People are marrying later and also worried about their ability to have the money, health insurance and other resources needed to raise children in a stable environment… ‘Worry is not a good moment to have kids,’ and that’s why birth rates in most age groups are not improving, she said.” Mike Stobbe, writing for the July 25th Associated Press.

How do Dems broaden their reach and move more to the middle? Elaine Godfrey continues: “Most party strategists I’ve spoken with this year believe that Democrats need to appear on more nontraditional and ideologically diverse outlets to reach new voters and make more people—even those who don’t agree with the Democrats on everything—feel welcome inside the party tent. Donald Trump’s successful turns on Rogan’s podcast and on shows hosted by the comedians Theo Von and Schulz contributed to his victory last November.

“Democratic hopefuls everywhere are swearing more and attempting to adopt a little more swagger. In his interview with Weiss, Emanuel, who once sent a dead fish to a political enemy, leaned back in his chair, looking unbothered; Buttigieg chopped it up with the bros on Flagrant for more than two hours. Notably, some female potential candidates aren’t yet in the mix—where’s Gretchen Whitmer these days? [Lanae Erickson, a senior vice president at the center-left think tank Third Way] didn’t know, but she told me that it’s clear that the party’s decline in support from men ‘has really lit a fire under Democratic dudes.’” The numbers bear this out: Trump carried men by roughly 12 points in November, including 57 percent of men under 30.

But men are now the minority in most undergraduate programs, law schools and increasingly under-performers to women in the same classes. Will this continue? Does this impact birthrates? And will we ever get to the place where fighting for individual rights and protecting vulnerable minorities, a battle with serious consequences for the relevant champions, is not considered “woke,” whatever that has come to mean. The 2028 presidential race has begun!

I’m Peter Dekom, and in the olden days, knights’ fighting to protect ordinary people was considered both noble and evidence of physical and moral strength.

MAGA & the Billionaires: Each Hate Science for Different Reasons

MAGA & the Billionaires: Each Hate Science for Different Reasons

“I will remember my covenant between me and you and all living creatures of every kind. Never again will the waters become a flood to deståroy all life.” 

The Bible. Genesis 9: 15

"It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God." 

 The Bible. Luke 18:25

“I will satisfy the priests with abundance, and my people will be filled with my bounty,’ declares the LORD.” 

 The Bible. Jeremiah 31:14

I remember hearing a deeply devote evangelical, in a television interview, answering the question, “What does ‘love thy neighbor’ mean?” The answer was to love her immediate neighbors in her immediate neighborhood. A very slightly better educated, avowed Roman Catholic, JD Vance, articulated his understanding of the Catholic concept of ordo amoris. Mr. Vance argued that the Trump administration is following “the Christian view” of our responsibilities based on his reading of Thomas Aquinas’s “order of love.” The vice president’s words: “We should love our family first, then our neighbors, then love our community, then our country, and only then consider the interests of the rest of the world.” Unfortunately for Mr. Vance, another “menu Christian,” the Pope rejected that view of Mr. Vance’s purported faith.

Still other evangelicals believe that the above biblical quotes meant that God would never again introduce a globally destroying event – hence negating the notion of “global climate change” – and that God was providing mankind with the ultimate bounty of endless resources. For those following these dictates with these particularly egregious interpretations, they were free to exploit, pollute and that the natural disasters we witness almost constantly could not possibly happen given all of God’s “pledges.”

As technology and science became increasingly complex, a large coterie of Americans preferred the assurances of their manipulative leaders that what “radical leftists” described as the result of manmade greenhouses gasses, the cause of “climate change,” were nothing more than normal seasonal weather patterns with 500-year events sprinkled as perfectly “normal, natural” occurrences. That virtually all climatologists disagreed with this prognosis was simply a sign that they were Godless men.

As Donald Trump gathered his cabinet and subcabinet appointees, there were almost zero qualified individuals, with experience and bona fide educational credentials, who were willing to substitute popular mythology, distorted biblical interpretations and conspiracy theories (often of mysterious origin with a viral aftermath) for scientific and medical facts. That the individuals with the greatest credibility were graduates of exceptional universities was turned against them as “out-of-touch elitists.” Attacks on those very institutions by the President was more than enough proof that their research and graduates were simply not to be trusted.

But why billionaires often poo-poo these experts is even more interesting. One the one hand, they do not want any responsibility for their abuse of the environment and the limitations that might be placed on their corporations, polluting private jets, destruction of the environment to build their mansions… but that their taxes were being used to fund such restrictions. However, there is another, particularly ugly rational: only certain people in society are entitled to the best. The rest don’t even deserve medical attention.

As Kirk Swearingen, writing for the July 19th Salon, explains: “A measles outbreak sparked by anti-vaccine conspiracy theorists now extends beyond Texas to 34 states. Republicans are doing all they can to shut down funding for medical research.

“Why does MAGA hate science? Shall we count the ways?... Because scientific advances don’t discriminate between the ‘worthy’ and those considered unworthy, and because some in the billionaire class think they deserve to live much longer than you do… As they prep their fancy-shmancy bunkers or delude themselves that they can one day head off to Mars to escape their wanton destruction of the Earth, the billionaire bros know they can avail themselves and their children of lifesaving vaccinations and other health care services [even abortion!] that they are putting out of reach for many of us.

“But it’s not just the small — and small-minded, and small-hearted — wealthy libertarian or right-wing elite. Working people who choose to wear MAGA red caps hate science for their own reasons: It tells them things about disease and environmental destruction and, say, women’s reproductive health that they cannot bear to face. Scientific findings often do not jibe with their religious beliefs. If you believe the Earth is 6,000 years old and were never taught how to distinguish between faith and knowledge, you’re naturally going to have a testy relationship with science”.

But Trump’s ignorant appointees, particularly HHS Secretary Robert Kennedy, Jr disowned by own family, have taken to dispute science with no special credentials to do so. As Cassidy Morrison writes, for the July 17th Daily Mail, RFK, Jr. continues to challenge vaccinations (as the measles breakout spreads fast), and still believes that somehow autism is generated by dangerous vaccinations: “A major 20-year study of over one million children found no association between aluminum in vaccines and conditions like autism and ADHD.

“Findings in the sweeping investigation provide a rebuttal to oft-debunked claims about the use of aluminum salts in vaccines, which bolster the body’s immune response, and purported ties to asthma, autoimmune diseases, and autism… Danish researchers looked at 50 potential health effects in children taking a vaccine containing aluminum salts, including 36 immune system disorders like diabetes and celiac disease, nine allergy-related conditions, such as asthma and eczema, and five neurodevelopmental disorders, including autism and ADHD… They found no increased risk of autism, ADHD, asthma, or autoimmune disorders from the small amounts of aluminum in vaccines.

“In fact, vaccinated children showed slightly lower rates of neurodevelopmental conditions – a seven percent lower autism risk and a 10 percent lower ADHD risk – with no connection to allergic or immune problems… Aluminum adjuvants are safely used in several common childhood vaccines, including those protecting against diphtheria-tetanus-pertussis (DTaP/Tdap), hepatitis A and B, Haemophilus influenzae type b (Hib), and pneumococcal disease…

“During a June 2024 appearance on Joe Rogan’s popular podcast, Kennedy falsely labeled aluminum as ‘extremely neurotoxic,’ mirroring the debunked rhetoric of the anti-vaccine group Children’s Health Defense, which ties aluminum adjuvants to autism, contradicting decades of rigorous studies confirming vaccine safety.” Remember, rich Americans can always get vaccinations, even if they have to take their private jets to a nation that does not have any relevant restrictions. That they can pay “whatever it takes” to get medical care that should not be provided to the vast “unworthy” horde of less fortunate Americans.

Medical research funding and support for Medicaid, Medicare and SNAP are paying to sustain that unworthy horde. “The long-term negative effects of Trump’s attack on science, which are also part of the full-spectrum MAGA assault on education and the nonpartisan civil service, will likely be even worse. Students will be increasingly reluctant to pursue careers in science. Only a months ago, STEM courses in high school and college were viewed as critical to the future of American ingenuity and enterprise, a big part of what actually made America great…

“Many MAGA supporters don’t want to share ‘their’ America with brown people who may or may not be citizens; too many of them welcome the persecution and deportation of longtime U.S. residents who put in long hours at child care centers, hotels and restaurants, construction and landscaping companies, hospitals and nursing homes, and in agricultural fields, doing the thankless and often grueling work of picking and delivering the crops that feed the nation.” Swearingen. Makes you go all warm and fuzzy inside, right?

I’m Peter Dekom, and this profoundly “us vs them” notion of entitlement at the expense of others flies in the faith of our nation’s most basic tenets… and most of the New Testament.

Welcome to Job Hypocrisy – The New American Way

Welcome to Job Hypocrisy – The New American Way

There is little doubt that the Republican Party may mouth being pro-worker, but virtually all federal efforts in this regard fall into the category of tariffs and trade agreements. The former pro-NLRB is now simply an instrument of corporate America, with anti-union rulings rising fast. OSHA worker safety rules are being scaled back as well. Congress made minimum wage a law under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), and that rate was last set in 1991: $7.25/hour. GOP resistance to raising that absurdly low number has prevented any increase since. There are no lower rates set in any state. The effective minimum wage has increased in 30 states and D.C. since January 2014… but the fed rate remains as it was set in 1991.

As the US Supreme Court appears to bow deeply to Donald Trump’s desire to usurp civil service protections and congressionally approved budgetary levels as well as the creation and administration of federal agencies, allowing him to fire and eliminate most federal agencies, tens of thousands of federal workers have or are about to lose their jobs. So what?! Really?

As artificial intelligence is exploding in the workplace, the average American worker has every reason to be concerned. In late July, President Trump prioritized the growth of AI without much in the way of addressing worker concerns. The expected unemployment realities have most recently witnessed upticks in the normal economic parameters that preceded a rise in those numbers.

Part of this reality is represented in the battle between Fed Chair Jerome Powell and President Trump over interest rates. The international financial world, already questioning the obvious impact of Trump’s Big Beautiful Bill – massively increasing the federal deficit, soon to cut millions from medical and nutritional benefits while effectively rewarding the richest in the land with very substantial tax cuts – are prepared to further downgrade the dollar the instant they believe that the President controls interest rates and that the fed is no longer a neutral stabilizing check on monetary and fiscal policy. But this anti-labor ideology is trickling into our culture as well.

What is equally interesting is how major employers are changing their relationships with their own employees. Diversity, equality and inclusion policies are dying faster Russian soldiers on the battlefield. Efforts to make the workplace more comfortable, from snacks to more comfortable work surrounds, are fading fast, as remote work is ending for most workers. And even worker benefits that everyone agrees are a boon to productivity, still very much a ubiquitous American policy like paid vacations, hover in the “if you use them, you are a second-rate employee” line. Take what you may need to de-stress and then stress about why you are not getting promoted.

In a May study based out of universities in Hong Kong and Spain – The detachment paradox: Employers recognize the benefits of detachment for employee well-being and performance, yet penalize it in employee evaluations in Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes – the impact of this inconsistency is analyzed. Workers harm their own careers by failing to take advantage of clear work rules that purportedly encourage vacation time. Instead, these “heading for burnout” employees enhance their likelihood of promotion by skipping vacation time.

“Americans work a lot, often at the expense of their own well-being (Griffith, 2019, Wong et al., 2019). US adults work an average of 47 h per week—almost a full workday longer than what typically qualifies as full-time (Gallup, 2014). As a result, approximately 25% of work-related tasks occur outside of regular working hours, and 46% of Americans had unused paid vacation days at the end of 2023 (Pew Research Center, 2023; U.S. Travel Association, 2019). When the COVID-19 pandemic further blurred the line between work and private life by transforming the homes of 71% of Americans into offices (Pew Research Center, 2020, Staglin, 2020), it led to a 25% increase in self-reported burnout—with a lack of separation between work and private life stated as the primary stressor (Spataro, 2020).

“Job-related burnout is not only detrimental to employee well-being but it also hurts productivity (Oswald et al., 2015) and results in organization-carried healthcare costs estimated to be between $125–$190 billion per year (Zimmer & Schnall, 2020). Indeed, work-related stress accounts for eight percent of national healthcare spending in the United States (Blanding, 2015). It is not surprising then that conversations around work–life balance are currently at an all-time high: Mental health advocates, academics, and even managers are starting to condemn the glorification of overwork and are encouraging workers to take breaks and to ‘protect and prioritize [their] mental wellbeing’ (Caron, 2019) on platforms like Twitter and in the popular press (Grant, 2021, Markman, 2021, Price, 2021, Whillans, 2020).”

Writing for the July 14th FastCompany.com, Jared Lindzon explains this hypocritical reality: “Workers who take small steps to enforce work-life balance—like setting an out-of-office message on weekends or not answering emails on vacation—are often considered less committed and promotable, even when they’re encouraged to take those actions…. Managers perceived the employee who enforced some relatively minor work-life boundaries as more focused, less stressed out, and less likely to experience burnout. However, they also perceived that employee as less dedicated to work.

“‘The same people who said that [the workers] are going to be more productive also said that they were going to be less promotable,’ says coauthor [of the above study] Eva Buechel, an assistant professor of marketing at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology. ‘So even the people who say this is really important and even encourage work-life balance penalize them [for detaching].’” European mandates for long work breaks, often five summer weeks, literally shut down all but the leisure time and hospitality sectors during this period. Indeed, August is a sacred vacation month in most of Europe.

Even in Japan, the overworked employee is often “worked to death.” Karoshi, which can be translated into ‘overwork death’, is a Japanese term relating to occupation-related sudden death... The most common medical causes of karoshi deaths are heart attacks and strokes due to stress and malnourishment or fasting. Mental stress from the workplace can also cause workers to commit suicide in a phenomenon known as karōjisatsu.” Wikipedia. That the average American worker puts in 150 hours in more a year than the average Japanese worker should scare us all.

I’m Peter Dekom, and in a highly polarized country where upward mobility has left the building, where AI is replacing all sorts of jobs at an accelerating pace, exactly what does it mean to be a hard-working, average American… and what do we have to show for it?

The Sheet Idiocy of Investing in Fossil Fuel

The Sheet Idiocy of Investing in Fossil Fuel

As China embraces the global automotive marketplace, amping up their manufacturing sector to the point where for every vehicle US automakers sell overseas, China sells four! Their BYD brand provides a wide array of affordable cars and trucks. China is going full bore on making sure that all over China, and for nations that want the underlying charging infrastructure, those charging stations are increasingly ubiquitous. Oh, did I mention: BYD is now the leading manufacturer and exporter of EV vehicles on Earth! Meanwhile, the economically impaired Trump administration, mired in an obsessive desire to return the United States to the halcyon days of the 1950s, politically, culturally and economically, is killing American jobs at an alarming rate. US carmakers are back to retooling for gasoline and diesel powered vehicles thanks to Trump.

As reported by Forbes (July 22nd), “General Motors posted a $3 billion second-quarter profit—down $1.1 billion primarily because of tariffs imposed by the Trump administration, the company said in its earnings call on Tuesday [7/22], a day after Stellantis (Jeep, Fiat, Chrysler) blamed steep losses on tariffs.” Simply put, not only are these tariffs job killers, but Trump undoing of the highly successful Biden-era infrastructure legislation – heavily focused on alternative energy and creating masses of new jobs eclipsing those lost in traditional energy many times over – coupled with a misstep in “drill baby, drill” plus efforts are reopening coal mines that can never be profitable, is a total failure.

The demand for fossil fuels is plunging the world over, and the United States is hardly the market-maker/oil price dictator of those global commodities. As the United States officially is fighting against alternative energy, forcing US consumers back to these moribund energy sectors, the price of fossil fuels is rising again. Investors everywhere, including the United States, are loath to invest in expanding or updating refinery capacity, putting an upward pression on prices at the pump. Vladimir Putin should be grateful, since these fuels are the backbone of the Russian economy, and despite sanctions, revenue from this sector is financing the war in Ukraine.

The fact remains, and is accelerating, that alternative energy is now a whole lot cheaper, and obviously vastly less polluting (in terms of hard pollution as well as in contributions to greenhouse gas emissions). It’s a factual reality that hard numbers prove. According to the July Newsletter from the International Renewable Energy Agency (which released the above charts): “Total installed costs for renewable power decreased by more than 10% for all technologies between 2023 and 2024, except for offshore wind, where they remained relatively stable, and bioenergy, where they increased by 16%. Nevertheless, the combination of capacity factors, market share, and financing costs led to a slight increase in the levelised cost of electricity (LCOE) for some technologies: solar PV by 0.6%, onshore wind by 3%, offshore wind by 4%, and bioenergy by 13%. Meanwhile, costs declined for CSP (-46%), geothermal (-16%), and hydropower (-2%).

“Renewables continue to prove themselves as the most cost-competitive source of new electricity generation. On an LCOE basis, 91% of newly commissioned utility-scale renewable capacity delivered power at a lower cost than the cheapest new fossil fuel-based alternative. In 2024, renewables helped avoid USD 467 billion in fossil fuel costs, reinforcing their role in enhancing energy security, economic resilience, and long-term affordability.

“As renewable capacity is expected to increase in the coming years to meet climate goals, enabling technologies such as battery storage, digitalisation, and hybrid systems are becoming increasingly vital for integrating variable renewable energy, enhancing asset performance, and improving grid responsiveness. Although challenges persist - including access to finance, permitting delays, supply chain bottlenecks, and geopolitical risks - greater alignment of policies, regulation, and investment is essential to accelerate the energy transition.

“In a special address on 22 July 2025, the UN Secretary-General António Guterres outlined a compelling and evidence-backed case for why a just transition away from fossil fuels to renewable energy is inevitable – and the vast benefits it will bring for people and economies.” But then, Trump’s Big Oil oligarchs truly do not care if American consumers pay more at the pump. They welcome that anomaly. Big Oil and Big Coal hate that they lost $467 billion to alternative energy last year.

As AI is putting massive pressure on electrical power generation, those fossil fuel cronies of the Trump administration are smacking their lips the potential of increased demand for their toxic products. Ignore the fires in California, floods in Texas, NM, New Jersey, etc… those once in 500-year-events that now happen twice a month on average. After all, the core belief of the science-averse Trump administration remains that climate change is a “hoax.” Unfortunately for MAGA Republicans, Mother Nature clings stubbornly to her immutable laws of physics.

I’m Peter Dekom, and as of this writing much of the United States is suffering from a killer heat wave, that Big Oil, Big Coal gift that just keeps on giving.

Falling Crimes Don’t Mean Much to Folks Reminded of Crime Every Day

 

Falling Crimes Don’t Mean Much to Folks Reminded of Crime Every Day

“Our capital city has been overtaken by violent gangs and bloodthirsty criminals, roving mobs of wild youth, drugged-out maniacs and homeless people.” 

Trump announcing takeover of DC policing, August 11th.

OK, Donald Trump’s DC military-as-cops play is showy, over-the-top, unnecessary and horribly autocratic. His crime statistics contradict numbers from his own FBI, but like immigration, which resonated with voters until Trump’s overkill cruel response, crime hovers above all urban voters… even if the bad numbers are going down. Immigration was off the rails though not remotely as badly as Trump screamed; but there was a hint of truth behind Trump’s policies, even as no one really believed he would really implement his failing wholesale quotas of deportees. He used the rantings of a mentally insecure bigot as his inspiration. Stephen Miller is pure evil and the loudest leadership voice in the Trump administration.

But we know security cameras are everywhere now, and gated communities have exploded in the last two decades. We live in a gun culture where absolutely anybody anywhere with determination can get a handgun or an AR-15 if they want. Bullets are now the leading killer of American children and teens. Gun-killing mental illness is countered with the dumbest NRA expression, “The only way to stop a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun,” an expression that fails to define a “good” guy or how even a “good guy’s” momentary temper can turn him into a bad guy just long enough to kill someone. Courts created the problem.

With the loss of a functioning federal judiciary, which has so far simply waived off any objections to vote rigging via gerrymandering and views free and clear gun ownership as a fundamental right… by seriously misreading the Second Amendment… people (particularly in cities) just do not feel safe anymore. A 26% reduction in DC violent crime has no meaning if you or a family member has been a victim, and even as Donald Trump’s exaggerated statement above is hardly reality, it sounds right. As David Graham, writing for The Atlantic Daily (August 11th) puts it:

“‘This is liberation day in D.C.,’ Trump said. Nothing says liberation like deploying hundreds of uniformed soldiers against the wishes of the local elected government. District residents have made clear that they would prefer greater autonomy, including congressional representation, and they have three times voted overwhelmingly against Trump. His response is not just to flex power but to treat the District of Columbia as the president’s personal fiefdom.

“Trump’s move is based on out-of-date statistics. It places two officials without municipal policing experience in positions of power over federalization and the MPD [DC police], and seems unlikely to significantly affect crime rates. What the White House hopes it might achieve, Politico reports, is ‘a quick, visually friendly PR win.’ Trump needs that after more than a month of trying and failing to change the subject from his onetime friend Jeffrey Epstein.”

But there’s the hint of truth behind this move, even if the stated “reality” is profoundly exaggerated. Look at social and traditional media, constantly carrying “breaking news” of violent crime all the time. Often, people go to their local drugstore to buy some pretty ordinary items, only to find them locked in secure cabinets under glass. You can see what you want, but you have to push a button and wait for a busy attendant to meander down to open the cabinet door and let you take the product you want. Lots of people have stopped shopping at local hardware stores, drugstores and even major big box stores because of this inconvenience. But this product lock-up makes one huge impression: you are constantly reminded of pervasive shoplifting. And if you have stopped shopping at your former go-to ordinary retailers and have shifted to online alternatives, even if you were not a direct victim of theft, you know why you did.

That Donald Trump’s budget cuts, his racist approach to public education, his lack of support for childcare, nutritional and medical basics for the lower reaches of our economy are making crime a better “job” choice than legitimate work with solid trade school training. But even our community colleges are losing federal funding, schools that provide real training for near-term jobs with solid pay and a good chance for advancement. Education is bad and still unaffordable. Today, we abandon children, elderly and other vulnerable people every day. Trump will sweep homeless people off the DC streets and ship them… elsewhere.

We live in a society that is happy to treat the inevitable end-product of societal neglect, provide Alligator Alcatraz-level “detention” and miserable and dangerous “crime schools” masquerading as jails and prisons… but try and lift young people out of dead-end generational poverty and the austerity hammer comes out to smash those programs. Trust me, DOGE did us no favors… and now everybody is angry, too many looking for shortcuts and blame, but where are we? On the verge of losing our democracy, living under cultural mandate I and many like me find abhorrent, asking what is the United States of America today?

I have never been more ashamed of my country, yet I am quite sympathetic to terrified citizens finding solace in MAGA land, even though they are betting on the wrong people to deliver the life they truly deserve, politicians who only offer false hope, fake narratives, and whose “solutions” will make their own supporters miserable. Trump has discovered how maximizing the “us vs them” blame of divisive politics keeps him and most of the GOP members in Congress in office. And Dems are hapless fools being played by a dangerous and manipulative President who has one and only one constituency: him and secondarily his family.

As floods, fires and hurricanes decimate our lands with increasing frequency, references to climate change are being deleted from federal agency websites and documents. Nature doesn’t care. The laws of physics do not care. Our global competitors don’t care. Our President, the majority in Congress and the US Supreme Court do not care. Most of all, we ourselves do not seem to care that we unraveling what was once the greatest nation on Earth. Greed has become a God, and blame our big excuse. Can Americans ever again be on the same factual page?

I’m Peter Dekom, and I do not understand how government can work when large segments of the population simply believe in a very different array of contradictory “facts’ … and vote and act accordingly.

    

A Convicted Criminal Embraces the Politics of Distraction

Witch hunt, hoax, radical left/Democrats, Woke, Emergency, Fake News, Liberation, Biden

"Its entire premise — that the Maxwell grand jury materials would bring to light meaningful new information about Epstein's and Maxwell's crimes, or the Government's investigation into them — is demonstrably false… There is no 'there' there," 

U.S. District Judge Paul Engelmayer for the Southern District of New York, August 11th ruling against release of Ghislane Maxwell’s grand jury transcripts, because those transcripts revealed almost nothing that was not already in public records.

"I've known Jeff for fifteen years. Terrific guy… He's a lot of fun to be with. It is even said that he likes beautiful women as much as I do, and many of them are on the younger side. No doubt about it -- Jeffrey enjoys his social life." 

Trump’s 2002 praise of Jeffrey Epstein in a New York magazine profile of the now-deceased financier and convicted sex offender.

“Russia, if you’re listening, I hope you’re able to find the 30,000 [Hillary Clinton] emails that are missing… I think you will probably be rewarded mightily by our press.” 

 Donald Trump on television, July 27, 2016.

The most dangerous word from the above Trump’s list of worn out trigger words, is “emergency,” since if the President invokes that term – often based on nothing more than his statement of “emergency” or manufactured and very ‘fake facts’ – he has been successful, with a very compliant Trump-reconfigured Supreme Court, to transfer powers granted to Congress under Article I of the Constitution to himself. Whether it is his purported right to determine and levy tariffs or his takeover of law enforcement for “crime-ridden” Washington, DC, a city that, according to Trump’s own FBI, was experiencing a year-to-year 26% continuing drop in violent crime (including a fall of 12% in murder rates), a drop which antedated Trump 2.0… “emergency” was the justification.

Like Trump’s declaration of April 2nd as tariff “Liberation Day,” as he announced a program to impose new, vastly higher rates (which now threaten the economy, killing jobs and increasing costs), again, at an August 11th White House press conference to announce Trump’s invocation of his “emergency powers” to “liberate” the nation’s capital of “out-of-control” rising crimes by imposing federal control of all policing activities, Trump outlined how he would deploy federal agencies with police power (adding a significant cadre of his personal ICE police force, plus federal troops if necessary) to “end crime” in DC. Claiming that he would take the restrictions off police in DC (read: ignore the Constitution), which he claimed already solidified his support from local officers, he notably skipped over his pardon of the January 6, 2021, Capitol attackers who had wounded or killed dozens of Capitol Police. Ask those officers how they feel about Trump.

It was simply a part of the entire Trump administration’s effort to help deflect the massive bipartisan interest in what was increasingly viewed as a cover-up of Trump’s lengthy relationship with deceased sex trafficker, Jeffrey Epstein. After years of touting his intention, in lockstep with the Q-Anon belief in a deep state cover-up of a purported network of Democratic Party pedophiles, Trump 1.0 and 2.0 pledged to crack that network wide open. But this year, as information about Trump’s longstanding relationship with Epstein – apparently fractured when Epstein recruited a hot underaged Mar-a-Lago spa attendant (who later committed suicide) for his Caribbean Island lair/spa facility – never produced evidence that Trump was actually sexually involved with an underaged girl, but as the above quote suggests, there is little doubt that Trump knew what was going on. Still, Trump and his henchmen and women were determined to divert the national narrative, after building his campaign on the deep state: the national brouhaha over releasing DOJ files was really a wasted effort. Using the words of the judge, cited above, Trump noted, “there was no ‘there’ there.” The interest in those Epstein files did not subside.

Never letting go of his assertion the 2020 election was rigged, Trump 2.0, with help from his DNI appointee, Tulsi Gabbard, and lots of loud noise from GOP members of Congress, attempted to mount claims of Barack Obama’s “treasonous” efforts to help rig elections, and that Hillary and Bill Clinton mounted a major false narrative that Trump was supported by a pro-Trump Russian campaign, even as the evidence released by the DOJ provided substantial evidence of that Russian election interference.

Gabbard also made wild claims about former Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton. Based on purported Russian intelligence, she accused Ms Clinton of treating "psycho-emotional problems" with "tranquilizers" during the 2016 election… Trump personal lawyer, AG Pam Bondi, and her Justice Department announced the formation of a "Strike Force" to examine the allegations with "utmost seriousness." Trump tried desperately to distract the public, but even his MAGA base was increasingly concerned that the man they elected to decimate that “deep state” of pedophiles was perhaps part of the problem. The interest in the Epstein files continued.

Trump pushed hard to transfer blame to blue states, using his immigration strong point, thinking his base would refocus. His targeted of California. His nationalized National Guard and Marine troops joined a bolstered cadre of unleashed ICE police and quickly turned to “easy” arrests: hanging out in Home Depot and other parking lots, construction sites, farms and local restaurants. California was the only state that received that weaponized Trumpian immigration effort. But the numbers were easier in red states, which produced proportionately more ICE arrests than did California.

“Part of the reason Republican-dominated states have higher arrest numbers — particularly when measured against population — is they have a longer history of working directly with ICE, and a stronger interest in collaboration. In red states from Texas to Mississippi, local law enforcement officers routinely cooperate with federal agents, either by taking on ICE duties through so-called 287(g) agreements or by identifying undocumented immigrants who are incarcerated and letting ICE into their jails and prisons.” Los Angeles Times, August 10th. ICE agents, following orders from Kristi Noem, routinely ignored a court order that prevented them from deeming skin color, Spanish speech and the nature of the venue as substitutes for “probable cause” in ICE raids. Trump is appealing to his controlled Supreme Court.

But maybe, this effort would distract the American public from the Epstein scandal. Even Ghislaine Maxwell’s transfer into a “country club” federal prison in Bryan, Texas – which violated federal prison policy of never allowed such “soft” treatment to sex offenders – after an interview with Trump’s former trial lawyer and now Deputy AG, was quickly buried with an announcement of a Trump-Putin meeting, inappropriately, in the former Russian territory of Alaska. Except that burial belief was premature, as the demand for more Epstein information in federal files only increased. Even Trump lackey, House Speaker Mike Johnson’s dismissal of the House until September, failed to stem the demand for more transparency in this mounting Trump-Epstein scandal.

I’m Peter Dekom, and why Trump’s base is surprised by a convicted felon, a man adjudicated as a sexual predator, who was so willing to embrace that pedophile-driven conspiracy theory, is now pretending he had nothing to do with that Epstein scandal and had no idea it was a happening… as his operatives continue to try to release useless old information while suppressing the relevant documentation.