Crowning King Corruption

 86 (get rid of?) President No 47? 

New Trump-Centered Passport

                   

Crowning King Corruption

As [British King Charles] delivered remarks to Congress, the official White House X account posted a photo from the monarch’s visit to the White House earlier today. The image shows Trump and Charles laughing, with the caption “TWO KINGS.” 

 MS Now, April 28th.

In China, more than half a century before the birth of Christ, the productive center of the country, the richest farmland generated profound wealth for the Zhou Dukes who carved up the territory. It was the time of Confucius. Three centuries later, power was consolidated into the first Qin Dynasty, led by Qin Shi Huang, the first emperor of China; it was the era where the legions of Terracotta Soldiers were sculpted to accompany him into the afterlife. No one was allowed to make eye-contact with any of these dukes or, perish the thought, make a statement that contradicted any duke’s perception. The penalty was instant death. It was the time that indirect speech, avoidance of photo realistic art (impressionism with ambiguous symbolism was the rule), and “plausible deniability” became part of Chinese culture. A survivalist approach to explain why a statement could not possibly be a contradiction a of a leader’s perception.

How does Chinese this plausible deniability work? Well, if you must say anything about a Zhou duke’s “my way is the only way” statement, you might at least couch your position by saying, “there are a thousand stars in the sky,” so you could retort defensively, “I was only talking about stars.” That might work, and the duke wouldn’t have to label you a “low IQ” individual… or chop off your head. Donald Trump is perhaps the most self-centered leader on the planet, cares little or nothing for any suffering he may have caused, and while he has not yet executed any of the masses of Americans who disagree, he has very ineffectively ordered his Department of Justice (and “Retribution”?) to seek criminal indictments of his opponents to put them in prison for a very long time.

Ignoring the Constitution, US Attorney-Trump-toadies in various US Attorney offices have pursued indictments for various serious crimes against Trump’s outspoken opponents, almost always resulting in grand jury refusals to indict or a federal judge dismissing any indictments that were issued as either violating constitutionally protected actions or that the purported violative speech is just too flimsy to sustain a criminal cause of action. Take for example the recent federal indictment of Trump nemesis, former FBI Director, James Comey, who posted the above seashell photo on his Instagram account. As absurd as it sounds, the Trump administration decried the photo as a threat to assassinate the President, with the DOJ’s securing an unsustainable grand jury indictment on that basis.

Not only is Donald Trump, currently one of least popular presidents in US history, evincing symptoms of severe mental and physical decline, but he seems to be expanding his parallel universe – where the world worships, exalts and treats him like the most important leader on Earth – into reconfiguring his litany of serious policy errors into triumphs worthy of deep admiration. Trump’s center of the universe self-perception has been unabashedly depicted on his Truth Social platform, as a pope, a full-dress king, Jesus Christ or being tightly embraced by Jesus Christ. Add to this pattern of self-aggrandizement the notion that Donald Trump, directly or through his family, can operate with virtual impunity to make billions and billions of dollars

It’s not as if the United States has never witnessed financial corruption by its president before. As illustrated by The Atlantic’s recently republished a July 10, 2025 article by Casey Michel entitled America Has Never Seen Corruption Like This tells us: “The White House has seen its share of shady deals. Ulysses S. Grant’s brother-in-law used his family ties to engineer an insider-trading scheme that tanked the gold market. Warren Harding’s secretary of the interior secretly leased land to oil barons, who paid a fortune for his troubles. To bankroll Richard Nixon’s reelection, corporate executives sneaked suitcases full of cash into the capital.

“But Americans have never witnessed anything like the corruption that President Donald Trump and his inner circle have perpetrated in recent months. Its brazenness, volume, and variety defy historical comparison, even in a country with a centuries-long history of grift—including, notably, Trump’s first four years in office. Indeed, his second term makes the financial scandals of his first—foreign regimes staying at Trump’s hotel in Washington, D.C.; the (aborted) plan to host the G7 at Trump’s hotel in Florida—seem quaint… Trump 2.0 is just getting started, yet it already represents the high-water mark of American kleptocracy. There are good reasons to think it will get much worse.

“Virtually every week, the Trump family seems to find a new way to profit from the presidency. The Trump Organization has brokered a growing catalog of real-estate projects with autocratic regimes, including a Trump tower in Saudi Arabia, a Trump hotel in Oman, and a Trump golf club in Vietnam. ‘We’re the hottest brand in the world right now,’ Eric Trump recently proclaimed. In May, Qatar gave the White House a $400 million jet—a gift that looked a lot like a bribe but that Trump had no qualms accepting.

“And that’s just the foreign front. Domestically, Trump has used flimsy complaints to go after media organizations, resulting in settlements that resemble shakedowns. Last year, he accused 60 Minutes of deceptively editing an interview with his Democratic presidential opponent, Kamala Harris. Legal experts saw the claim as weak. Rather than fighting it in court, however, Paramount agreed to pay $16 million, which will subsidize Trump’s future presidential library and cover his legal fees. Following a similarly dubious lawsuit, ABC sent $15 million to Trump’s library fund and issued a ‘statement of regret.’

“Beyond the court, the president has peddled Trump perfumes, Trump sneakers, and Trump phones, shamelessly using the prestige of the presidency to boost his family’s income. And then there’s crypto: the $TRUMP meme coin, the pay-to-play dinners with investors, the paused prosecution of a crypto kingpin who had purchased $30 million in Trump-backed tokens.

“‘The law is totally on my side,’ Trump said after his election in 2016, when he was asked about mixing his financial affairs with his new office. ‘The president can’t have a conflict of interest.’ That statement is now alarmingly close to the truth. Thanks to last year’s Supreme Court ruling, Trump has presumptive immunity from criminal prosecution for any ‘official act.’ He has appointed an attorney general, Pam Bondi [even she wasn’t extreme enough for Trump], who appears willing to do his bidding no matter the cost to the Department of Justice. He has gutted independent bodies that went after white-collar criminal networks, task forces that investigated kleptocracy, public prosecutors that chased public corruption, and regulations that targeted transnational money laundering.

“The list goes on. Trump’s Treasury Department effectively terminated America’s new shell-company registry. His DOJ dissolved task forces that seized stolen assets. The administration froze the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, the bedrock of America’s antibribery regime. In sum, Trump has dismantled a network of agencies, laws, and norms that thwarted all kinds of kleptocracy, including the kind that enriches a sitting president.

“Foreign agents are watching as America’s anti-corruption regime crumbles. They see an extraordinary window of opportunity, and they know they’ll have to act quickly to take full advantage. Succoring Trump and his family has already proved one of the fastest ways to guarantee favorable policy. Are U.S. sanctions hurting your economy? Consider building a Trump resort. Want to stay in America’s good graces? Invest in Trump-backed crypto.

“All of this grifting is likely to accelerate. Consider the Qatari jet. The gift prompted plenty of hand-wringing in the United States, but also in the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia, which saw their regional foe gain leverage over them by charming Trump. Don’t think of the jet as the culmination of the president’s greed; think of it as the new bar for bids to come. Any Middle Eastern dictator who wants to surpass Qatar in America’s estimation now knows his price.” And billionaires seeking continued special treatment in government approvals and contracts know that when Trump asks for a donation for a pet project (say, a garish White House ballroom), stepping up with a big dollar number is simply the price of admission.

I’m Peter Dekom, and aside from my not wanting an international pariah’s photograph in my passport, Donald Trump has become a global blend of autocrat and senior American grifter, who should be considered a serious threat, our con-artist-in-chief and an embarrassment to all Americans.

The Hoax that’s Eating America

 

The Hoax that’s Eating America

The Utter Failure of “Drill baby, Drill”

We’re fighting an economy destroying WAR in Iran, which clearly does not have the nuclear capacity to decimate American cities if you have reviewed our own national intelligence reports, over old-world OIL?! Seriously?! As Donald Trump’s arrogant inner luddite continues to put a major drag on America’s competitive advantage, China seems an ingrate for not sending Mr Trump a formal letter of expression, a profound debt of gratitude for all the wonderful things he is doing for the Peoples’ Republic. I am sure that aside from tearing apart any federal support for alternative energy, Trump is also suggesting that withdrawing from NATO is on the horizon. I can hear Xi Jinping’s heart beating fast all the way to my home. Trump’s WAR is just excellent gravy!

China didn’t have to do much to respond to Trump’s WAR, which resulted in a major global disaster as Iran shut down the Strait of Hormuz to a trickle in response (kicking oil and gas prices to record highs everywhere). They have Russian oil if they need it and have shifted their economy to emphasize alternative energy. According to the February 5th Carbon Brief, “Solar power, electric vehicles (EVs) and other clean-energy technologies drove more than a third of the growth in China’s economy in 2025 – and more than 90% of the rise in investment… Clean-energy sectors contributed a record 15.4tn yuan ($2.1tn) in 2025, some 11.4% of China’s gross domestic product (GDP) – comparable to the economies of Brazil or Canada.”

The United States’ automotive sector is not a significant global player in alternative power; China remains the world’s electric car manufacturing center, accounting for more than 70% of global production in 2024, even higher last year. China would not have had the outstanding annualized growth it has achieved without alternative energy sources. For less affluent nations, the ability to dump oil for green energy is a lifesaver. And China’s EV and hybrid vehicles, very competitively priced from basic models to luxury vehicles, are rapidly embracing its new range-busting batteries big time. Instead, we’re destroying our economy to fight a losing oil WAR?

“The CEO of JPMorgan Chase has warned that escalating ‘geopolitical tensions’ could pose significant challenges to businesses and consumers in the U.S…. In his annual letter to shareholders, published Monday [4/6], Jamie Dimon said that the American economy ‘continues to be resilient,’ but that these mounting threats could spill over into trade and energy markets while impacting the country’s wider outlook.” Newsweek, April 6th. Nice understatement, Jamie, with plenty of room for an “I told you so” moment looming.

Xi must be chuckling as a profoundly hated screaming and swearing little orange dictator is now swimming in shark-infested waters, totally alone (except for the SOB who led Trump into this quagmire, Bibi Netanyahu), and facing staggering and escalating costs based on a WAR which Trump alone declared. Every announcement of wild success in the Iran theater touting “obliteration” success is met with the harsh reality that Iran can still shoot down US fighters and bombers and retains unyielding control over the Strait. Trump has been relegated to a making a vituperative threat to unleash hellfire on major civilian targets in Iran, from local bridges to their power grid, all in stark violation of international law, under the Geneva Conventions and other international law. And there is no one to pardon him from these international crimes.

It just may be a come-to-Jesus moment for Republicans, facing midterms with dwindling prospects, who stand in support of massive new military budget requests ($1.5 T defense budget with an immediate $200 B for the WAR) while cutting Medicaid, Medicare, SNAP and even Social Security, already reeling from cuts… all to accommodate increasingly unpopular tax reductions that benefit the mega-rich beyond all logic… covering up Trump’s monstrous continuing litany of mega-policy-errors that are his and his alone.

For those states ignoring Trump’s attack on alternative energy, the rewards speak for themselves. Adele Peters, writing for the April 3rd FastCompany.com, notes how anti-Trump California is still championing “hoax” energy projects to their clear advantage. “A few days ago, the electric grid in California hit a new milestone: At 7pm on March 29, batteries provided 12.3 gigawatts of power—roughly as much as six Hoover Dams, or around 43% of the total demand on the grid.

“Nearly all of that battery storage was built in the last five years. ‘Until 2020 or 2021, battery storage was still quite expensive, but we’ve seen huge price drops over the last few years,’ says Nicolas Fulghum, senior energy and climate data analyst at Ember, a global energy think tank. When it’s paired with solar power, it can ‘bring some of that excess generation in the middle of the day to where it’s really needed, which is during the peak demand in the evening and morning,’ he says.

“The cost of batteries has dropped 99% over the last three decades. Over the last few years alone, the cost fell by about a third. The cost of solar panels has also fallen by more than 90%. By 2024, new solar projects were an average of 41% cheaper than fossil fuel alternatives.” And still Trump fights for a global perspective that does not exist. Still many of his followers refuse to believe the facts, as the Trump administration demands more WAR money, and our least effective Secretary of Defense/WAR is firing every top military general or admiral unwilling to lead this nation in an obviously losing effort, embracing war crimes along the way, to placate a clearly demented policy, a military and diplomatic road to nowhere.

I’m Peter Dekom, and Trump’s self-inflicted march to self-destruction seems to me to be a harsh explanation of nature’s “lemming law.”

Trump’s Need to Contain Research… and Truth

 

Trump’s Need to Contain Research… and Truth

Empirical Research Creates Truth Toxic to Trump’s Fundamental Reliance on Conspiracy Theories

There’s more to Donald Trump’s obsession to cut federal scientific and medical research, even statistical demographic analyses. Counting on a rising populist antipathy to elitist educational institutions, from which Trump is a graduate, Trump has been catering to his MAGA base’s everyman populism, seeking to blame others for their economic malaise and underscore the “credibility” of popular conspiracy theories as viable alternatives to scientific or empirical facts. Trump has been obsessed with his 2020 election loss, claiming the January 6th Capitol attackers were all “patriots” seeking to determine that Trump was the true victor in that presidential race… the ultimate conspiracy theory after 60 losses as Trump and his supporters sought to overturn the election by filing those unsuccessful lawsuits. The current resurgence of investigating that election will not change the underlying facts!

Trump has been willing to twist the bona fide challenges to top universities by alleging “antisemitism” – including any pro-Palestinian support and any criticisms of Israel that do not include anti-religious sentiments. He has directed the DOJ to attack “elite universities” and, with backing from HHS head RFK, Jr (a major conspiracy theorist), cancel federal funding for their unrelated medical and scientific research, which programs have been the backbone of so many major achievements and cures for complex disease patterns. Elon Musk, whose principal successes have been based on science and engineering, embraced his chainsaw DOGE mission with science federal funding crippling cuts… and in the end saved taxpayers almost nothing while decimating careers of those federal employees who lost their jobs.

With the Epstein scandal combined with the skyrocketing consumer costs generated by Trump’s illegal (as determined by the US Supreme Court) tariffs and his failing efforts from his private war against Iran, which has sent oil and gas prices soaring, you might think that as his popularity sinks to new polling depths, he just might moderate his other war… against science. But having wrongfully declared that climate change is still a “hoax,” Trump seems to continue his “double down” philosophy to crush anyone who disagrees with him. Internationally, despite Trump’s claim to the contrary, the United States is more than the “odd man out”; his “drill, baby, drill” has become an international joke… as China is running away with a most profitable effort to reign supreme in the world of building and supporting alternative energy technologies, EVs and needed infrastructure. American companies are not even in the competitive running.

In all of this, Trump’s “whatever corporate America wants” (deregulation) combines with his climate change denial and his general attack on scientific research to produce a rather dramatic dismantling of the Environment Protection Agency under the aegis of former Republican New York congressman, Lee Zeldin, who has embraced his instruction to take down the agency with particular zeal. Writing for the April 27th New York Times, Lisa Friedman describes the de facto closing of an agency that has (had?) protected consumers against everything from carcinogenic weed killers and toxic effluents dumped into public waterways to greenhouse gas emissions that have produced a litany of major “natural disasters” costing lives, livelihoods and hundreds of billions of dollars of hard losses rather directly related to global warming:

“For more than a half-century, a prestigious scientific arm of the federal government did groundbreaking research aimed at saving American lives. It studied fertility, asthma, wildfires, drinking water, climate change and myriad other health threats… In just one year, it has been almost completely dismantled.

“One scientist, a doctor and expert in lung health, has recently been reassigned to a finance office. Another, an epidemiologist, has been told she has a new job issuing permits to handle hazardous waste. A toxicologist researching so-called forever chemicals on the East Coast has been asked to move to Dallas and hasn’t been told whether the research project will continue.

“They are among more than 1,500 biologists, chemists and other experts at the Environmental Protection Agency’s Office of Research and Development who have been laid off, reassigned or pressured to retire. Today, only 124 researchers remain, and this month [April] they must decide whether to remain employed they will abandon their work and move to different parts of the agency, or the country.

“Those who stay will no longer serve in an independent unit designed to be free from political interference. Instead, they will be overseen by Trump appointees or in a new unit directly under the administrator, Lee Zeldin. An internal memo in one office reviewed by The New York Times says its future research must ‘align with agency and administration priorities.’…

“Dismantling the research arm will significantly damage the agency and weaken the government’s ability to protect public health, according to more than two dozen current and former E.P.A. officials interviewed for this article. Some spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of retaliation.

“The science office operated the world’s only laboratory specializing in controlled human-exposure studies to determine the health effects of vehicle exhaust, wildfire smoke, ozone and other pollutants. That laboratory has been closed… Scientists at the E.P.A. had created a way to search for fluorinated chemicals in water supplies, allowing them to detect a toxic man-made substance known as GenX in North Carolina’s Cape Fear River Basin. Many of those researchers have been reassigned.

“And during the Biden administration, the office dived into the health consequences of climate change and discovered, among other things, that extreme heat could significantly worsen dementia. The Trump administration’s version of the E.P.A. no longer has researchers dedicated to climate science.” Corporate America does not want to install updated electrostatic precipitators to further reduce air pollution, stop selling weed killers banned in most of the rest of the world, stop using cheap coal (noting there is no such thing as “clean” coal) and fossil fuels to generate electrical power and most US-made vehicles. The rest of the world seems to find US cars, driven by petroleum products, to be obsolete using old world technology that is fading out fast. We are poised to become the one of last remaining supporters of yesterday's tech.

I’m Peter Dekom, and I wonder how many Americans will die or be seriously, medically impacted by this Trumpian purge of the EPA.

A Very Lame Duck with Very Temporary Control Over a MAGA Dominated Congress

 

A Very Lame Duck with Very Temporary Control Over a MAGA Dominated Congress

If there had been any doubt prior to Donald Trump’s 19 minute April 1st speech on the Iran WAR, the resulting market crash, the soaring of oil prices, the continued refusal of our Western allies to join in fighting Trump’s WAR, post speech poll numbers (worse than Biden’s post-debate crash) confirmed what many surmised: Except for MAGA Republicans, representing a minority of voters, the response by the majority of voters confirmed that Donald Trump has been relegated to a quacking lame duck for the rest of his term. There is no off-ramp for a positive spin to the very WAR he promised would never happen. The resulting inflation won’t quickly fade. The nation is tired of paying for Trump’s never-ending litany of very expensive mistakes and his appointment of sub-par, incompetent lacky-loyalists to senior administration posts. America is alone now.

That Donald Trump and Pete Hegseth were living in an alternative reality was underscored, their WAR statements were at best exaggerations but mostly out-and-out lies, when a purported defenseless Iran managed to down two US aircraft in short order: an F-15E and an A-10 Warthog, leaving one man in dire need of rescue… somewhere in Iran. And even Trump has simply deleted his “excursion” descriptor of the conflict, now using “WAR” routinely. The decades of the United States’ facing “asymmetrical” warfare seemed to have been erased from the government’s memory. “Symmetrical” warfare is where two roughly equal militaries square off. Think WWII. “Asymmetrical” warfare, most of what the US faced after WWII, is where a vastly smaller and less well-armed adversary takes on much larger, better armed opponent. In the case of US conflicts, those smaller militaries – often irregulars or seemingly “defeated” organized armies – usually kept us at bay for decades. Like the seemingly “endless” wars in Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan.

Trump has an iron grip on his MAGA elected congressional constituency. That may work in primary battles, but now having lost most of the independents, with Hispanic and “young man” cadres of voters leaving the Trump camp, unless Trump can foist a truly rigged midterm election (still possible) on us, the actual vote tally seems to predict a big GOP loss in general elections.

It’s no secret that Major Pete has little respect for senior officers with decades of detailed leadership training and experience. The ignorant fool always knows better: “The United States is in the middle of a major war, but that didn’t stop Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth on Thursday [4/2] from firing General Randy George, America’s most senior Army officer. George was the Army’s chief of staff, and he was cashiered along with another four-star general, David Hodne, and Major General William Green Jr., the top Army chaplain, in what has been a rolling purge by Hegseth of senior officers—particularly those close to the secretary of the Army, Dan Driscoll.

“Why were these men fired while U.S. forces are fighting overseas? The Defense Department has given no official reason for their dismissals, but likely they are the latest victims of Hegseth’s vindictive struggles with the Army, which he feels treated him poorly—the service ‘spit me out,’ he said in his 2024 book—as he struggles in a job for which he remains singularly unqualified.” Tom Nichols, writing for the April 2nd The Atlantic.

Further, the extraordinary interference of Secretary Pete in the promotions of two African-American and two women to flag rank only served to confirm Hegseth’s bigoted and ultra-violent commitment to a white Christian nationalist military with disdain for the rules of engagement and the Constitution… but with unquestioning fealty to lame duck Trump, reinforcing Pete’s distorted view that Americans were now a bigger enemy than malevolent foreign adversaries:

““The memo I’m signing today directs installation commanders to allow requests [from military personnel] for personal protection to carry a privately owned firearm with the presumption that it is necessary… Our warfighters are no less entitled to exercise their God-given right to keep and bear arms than any other American… Not all enemies are foreign, nor are they all outside our border.” Secretary of Defense/WAR, Pete Hegseth, April 2nd.

As for Trump, treating the White House and national monuments as his own private property was hardly enough. The political hacks he has appointed to the DOJ would give him complete control over documents containing our highest level of vital national security information: ““MEMORANDUM OPINION FOR THE COUNSEL TO THE PRESIDENT [April 2nd] You have asked whether the Presidential Records Act of 1978 (‘PRA’ or ‘Act’) is constitutional. We conclude that it is not. The PRA is unconstitutional for two independent but interlocking reasons: It exceeds Congress’s enumerated and implied powers, and it aggrandizes the Legislative Branch at the expense of the constitutional independence and autonomy of the Executive.”

Gary Grumbach and Ryan J. Reilly, writing for NBC News, April 2nd, add this perspective: “The Justice Department has issued a legal opinion arguing that President Donald Trump does not have to turn over his presidential records to the National Archives at the end of his administration…. The president ‘need not further comply with its dictates.’…

“‘If the Trump administration chooses to follow the opinion from the office, which offers legal advice to the executive branch but does not set law, he could face outside legal challenges should he violate the Presidential Records Act in the future… The determination is a signal that the president will not turn over his documents to the archives. Trump was accused violating the Presidential Records Act by refusing to turn over documents he kept after leaving office following his first term…. According to federal prosecutors, Trump willfully retained national defense documents at his private home in Mar-a-Lago, obstructed justice and concealed materials, including a classified military map reportedly shown to unauthorized individuals. The case was dismissed by Judge Aileen Cannon in 2024 before he won re-election.”

Simply put, this Trump lawyer sycophant is telling the President that he no longer has to follow a Watergate-era law barring him from holding on to presidential records when he leaves office. Right… it’s now his personal property, just like the Kennedy Center and the White House. As Trump asks for massive new budgetary allocations for his WAR, offering cuts to Medicaid, Medicare, SNAP and even Social Security instead, it is clear that support for Trump is unraveling for the GOP and Trump at WARp speed.

I’m Peter Dekom, and if you are wondering what a desperate, failing autocrat looks like.

Trump’s House of Iranian Nuclear Cards that He Dealt to Himself

Trump’s House of Iranian Nuclear Cards that He Dealt to Himself

In the fall of 2015, Iran finalized the UN endorsed “Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action” (JCPOA) with the United States, Germany, Britain, France, Russia and China. It was a flawed but sufficiently effective treaty to contain Iran’s nuclear program, a plan that had the potential of building a nuclear arsenal. It took years to negotiate, and then-President Barack Obama, who campaigned on resolving the Iranian nuclear threat, called the issue the "most consequential foreign policy debate that our country has had since the invasion of Iraq."

Under the JCPOA, Iran reduced its large stockpile of low-enriched uranium to no more than 660 pounds from roughly 12.5 tons — a 98 percent reduction, actually sending this larger remaining stockpile to Russia. Iran also began to disassemble and store more than 13,000 centrifuges — it was allowed to have only 5,060 spinning — and began to convert the underground Fordo nuclear enrichment site to a research-and-development installation. Iran initiated removal and disablement of the core of its heavy water reactor at Arak so that it could not produce plutonium, an alternative pathway to a bomb. The Accord also provided for inspections and monitoring by the International Atomic Energy Agency.

Despite assurances from all of our major intelligence agencies that this flawed plan was in fact working, that Iran’s ability to manufacture a function nuclear bomb has indeed been stopped for at least the 15-year term of the agreement, a very arrogant President Trump, claiming he would do much better, withdrew the United States from the JCPOA on May 8, 2018, saying it was the worst deal ever. But Iran immediately responded with an enrichment spree that haunts the negotiations to this day. Tehran wasted no time instantly ramping up their efforts to restore their program of nuclear enrichment, building up new stockpiles of enriched uranium, which was soon just shy of achieving nuclear-weapons-grade fissionable material. The speed and amount of the build-up came as quite a surprise to US weapons experts. Had Trump opened a Pandora’s Box he could not close?

Iran was soon much stronger, also developing ballistic missile capacity that could, someday, be used to carry nukes that were capable of reaching Europe. Then the US-Israeli “obliteration” campaign of bombing and missile strikes began. In response, Iran has brought the oil-dependent world to its knees by cutting off the 20% of global oil and gas that had relied on open passage through the Strait of Hormuz, the only way oil could be exported out of the Persian Gulf and then to oil and gas buyers in Europe and Asia. Trump arrogantly assured the world that he would open the Strait and guarantee that Iran would never have a nuke. His unilaterally declared war on Iran left the United States isolated in its efforts, with the exception of Israel, which seemed to be in a never-ending conflict with Iran.

Writing for the April 26th New York Times, William J. Broad and David E. Sanger, tell us that the bomb-buried “970 pounds of potential bomb fuel represent only a small fraction of the problem… Today, international inspectors say, Iran has a total of 11 tons of uranium, at various enrichment levels. With further purification, that is enough to build up to 100 nuclear weapons — more than the estimated size of Israel’s arsenal… Virtually all of that cache accumulated in the years after Mr. Trump abandoned the Obama-era deal…

“Now, matching or exceeding that diplomatic accomplishment is one of the most complex challenges facing Mr. Trump and his two lead negotiators, his son-in-law Jared Kushner and his special envoy, Steve Witkoff, whose planned travel to Pakistan for another session of negotiations was canceled at the last minute by Mr. Trump. Central to the negotiations is the American demand that Iran halt further enrichment and that it hand over the fuel stockpile it has built up over the past eight years; Iran is resisting on both fronts.

“Mr. Trump is acutely aware that whatever he can negotiate with the Iranians will be compared with what Mr. Obama achieved more a decade ago. While the two countries are still exchanging proposals, and could well come up empty-handed, Mr. Trump is already judging his own, yet-to-be-negotiated agreement as superior.

“‘The DEAL that we are making with Iran will be FAR BETTER,’ Mr. Trump wrote on his social media site [in late April]. The Obama-era deal ‘was a guaranteed Road to a Nuclear Weapon, which will not, and cannot, happen with the deal we’re working on.’… Based on Mr. Trump’s often-shifting objectives for the conflict with Iran, Mr. Kushner and Mr. Witkoff face a daunting list of negotiation topics, many of which the Obama team failed to address. They have to find a way to limit Iran’s ability to rebuild its arsenal of missiles. (The 2015 deal never addressed Iran’s missile capability, and Tehran ignored a United Nations resolution imposing limits.)

“They need to find a way to fulfill Mr. Trump’s mandate to protect anti-regime protesters, whom Mr. Trump promised to help in January when they took to the streets. In fact, those protests were among the triggers for the American military buildup that ultimately led to the Feb. 28 attack… And they must negotiate a [permanent] reopening of the Strait of Hormuz, which the Iranians shut down after the American-Israeli attacks, a move Mr. Trump was clearly unprepared for. Now Iran has discovered that a few inexpensive mines and threats to ships have given it huge leverage over the global economy, pressure it can dial up or down in ways that nuclear weapons cannot.

“But it is the fate of the atomic program that lies at the negotiations’ heart. As in the 2015 talks, the Iranians declare they have a ‘right’ to enrich under the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, one they refuse to give up. But that still leaves room for ‘suspension’ of all nuclear efforts for some number of years. (Vice President JD Vance demanded 20 years when he met his Pakistani interlocutors two weeks ago, only to have Mr. Trump declare a few days later that the right period was ‘unlimited.’)… William J. Burns, the former C.I.A. chief who played a lead role in the Obama-era negotiations, said in The New York Times on Friday [4/24] that a good deal would require ‘tight nuclear inspections, an extended moratorium on the enrichment of uranium and the export or dilution of Tehran’s existing stockpile of enriched uranium in exchange for tangible sanctions relief.’”

But Iran does not seem anxious to make concessions, certain they can outlast the US, and is not particularly ready to resume full negotiations with the US. To make that point clear to Mr Trump, Tehran has even resumed executing the dissents and protestors Trump vowed to protect.

I’m Peter Dekom, and perhaps, sadly, Donald Trump is hoping that perhaps media focus on the recent failed assassination attempt, plus maybe resurrection of coverage of the Epstein Scandal, just might be sufficient distraction from his Iran War debacle… or maybe not.

Rigging Illusory Iran Peace Progress for Fun and PROFIT

Rigging Illusory Iran Peace Progress for Fun and PROFIT

“If they don’t agree, the bombing starts.” 

Trump on his expectations of a one-page settlement agreement of the Iran War

I have been consistent in stating that two statistics, often cited by Donald Trump as proof of his success in his foreign and domestic policies, that have little or nothing to do with the financial well-being of average Americans: Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and the stock markets. I’ll add to that reality the expectation that if Iran and the US sign a one-page memo ending their war, the war will end. Forget about the 2015 UN-sponsored Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), the multiparty agreement that successfully contained Iran’s nuclear enrichment program, a complex “book” of an agreement that took teams of experts, on both sides, two years of exhausting negotiations to finalize. Trump killed that functioning agreement by withdrawing the US in May of 2018. I will note that the Strait of Hormuz had been wide open until Trump’s war.

The problem with the US GDP – a monetary measure of the total annual market value of all of the final goods and services which are produced and rendered within the US – that it is wildly impacted when the richest in the land (especially major corporate interests) are making money hand-over-fist… as the rest of the nation stagnates or struggles. Oil prices rise, military hardware is being ordered in excessive droves, and the GDP soars. The stock markets? Artificial intelligence currently accounts for approximately 80% of the recent rise … a very vulnerable one-industry bulwark of the entire stock market. Not to mention how prices rise and fall on Trump-issued news.

A vector of government grift and corruption, that underlies the Trump family wealth building and the Trump favoritism of his mega-wealthy business cronies slorping at the insider trough, seems to have poured into the who makes money in the commodity futures and general stock markets. Insider trading is supposed to be illegal. In theory, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC, which regulates the public equities market) and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC, which regulates agricultural, mineral and oil markets) are charged with ensuring that the public playing field remains flat and level to all traders, making acting on limited insider information illegal. Martha Stewart’s federal conviction sentence for insider trading is a reminder of how overriding federal regulation can (should) be. A clear look at how Trump insiders are profiting from inside information discussed below.

Meanwhile, Trump continues to make a mess of his war on Iran, posturing and presenting inane statements of success. If you believe a one-page document (which requires massive missing detail) will end this war… or if Trump even has a plan to end his unilateral declaration of war against Iran… in which Iran learned they had the power of a nuclear weapon simply by closing the Strait of Hormuz, bringing the world into energy desperation… there’s a bridge in Brooklyn you should see. Let’s see how Trump’s recent plan – to use the US Navy to escort oil tankers through the Strait (“Project Freedom”) – panned out. “The president announced the pause on Tuesday [5/4] evening on Truth Social, claiming it would last for ‘a short period of time’ while the U.S. pursued a ‘Complete and Final Agreement’ with Iran. The move came just a day after ‘Project Freedom’ began on Monday [5/3], following Trump’s Sunday [5/2] announcement that the U.S. Navy would help ‘guide” ships of ‘neutral and innocent bystanders’ safely through the Strait of Hormuz.

“‘Based on the request of Pakistan and other Countries, the tremendous Military Success that we have had during the Campaign against the Country of Iran and, additionally, the fact that Great Progress has been made toward a Complete and Final Agreement with Representatives of Iran, we have mutually agreed that, while the Blockade will remain in full force and effect, Project Freedom (The Movement of Ships through the Strait of Hormuz) will be paused for a short period of time to see whether or not the Agreement can be finalized and signed,’ the president wrote.

“But two U.S. officials told NBC News that the president’s reversal was actually triggered by Saudi Arabia, after the country’s leadership was angered by Trump’s surprise Sunday [5/2] announcement of the initiative. The country retaliated by telling the U.S. it would no longer allow U.S. military aircraft to use the Prince Sultan Airbase or fly through Saudi Arabian airspace while conducting ‘Project Freedom.’” Mediate.com, May 7th. Iran has contested US claims of control.

“‘To what remains of Iran’s forces: If you attack American troops or innocent commercial shipping, you will face overwhelming and devastating American firepower,’ [Secretary of Defense/War, Major Pete] Hegseth said. ‘The president has been very clear about this.’… Iranian parliamentary speaker and top negotiator Mohammed Ghalibaf [responded] in a statement on X on Tuesday that a ‘new equation’ was being ‘solidified’ in the strait, adding that the maritime traffic was jeopardized by the U.S. and its allies ‘through the violation of the ceasefire and the imposition of a blockade.’… Of course, their evil will diminish,’ he wrote. ‘We know full well that the continuation of the status quo is intolerable for America, while we have not even begun yet.’

“On Tuesday [5/4] evening local time, the United Arab Emirates’ defense ministry said in a statement on X that the country’s defensive systems ‘are actively engaging with missiles and [drone] threats’ and that ‘sounds heard across the country are the result of ongoing engaging operations.’.. On Monday [5/3], the UAE said it engaged a total of 12 ballistic missiles, three cruise missiles and four drones launched from Iran.” Mediate. Oops. And the fact that the information about this Trump must have leaked into the Trump corporate grifter/insider network, that somehow the markets went crazy before the actual announcement:

“Oil prices plunge after mysterious $920 million crude short hits market before US-Iran 14-point deal report — did traders know the news early? The crude oil market is no stranger to sudden shocks. But what happened in the early hours of Wednesday, May 6, 2026, was something different. Something that traders, analysts, and market-watchers are still picking apart. A massive crude oil short — nearly $920 million worth — was placed in near-total silence, at 3:40 a.m. ET, with no major news on the wires to justify it. Seventy minutes later, Axios published a bombshell: the United States and Iran were close to a 14-point memorandum of understanding to end their 67-day war. Oil prices crumbled. And whoever placed that crude oil short made an estimated $125 million in a matter of hours.” Economic Times, May 7th

And if you believe that the price at the pump would drop to “normal” if there is a declaration of peace, take a look at Michael Hiltzik’s May 7th contribution to the LA Times in which he explains in detail: “Here’s the name for an economic phenomenon that consumers are going to be hearing a lot more in the coming weeks and months…: It’s the rocket-and-feathers hypothesis, which concerns why gasoline prices rise so quickly (i.e., like a rocket) when oil prices surge and drift downward oh so slowly (like feathers) when crude prices come back to earth…. The academic bookshelf groans with the weight of studies of the phenomenon, but the seminal analysis of the topic remains a 1997 paper by economist Severin Borenstein of UC Berkeley and his colleagues... The phenomenon is still ‘alive and well,’ Borenstein told me Wednesday [5/6], adding that ‘much of this is a retail pricing phenomenon,’ meaning that much of the explanation can be found at your corner gas station.” You may just feel like taking a swig from a bottle of FBI Director Kash Patel’s private stash of Kentucky bourbon, pictured above!

I’m Peter Dekom, and it appears that virtually nothing that Donald Trump or Pete Hegseth has said about the Iran War has been true, but somehow Trump’s cronies are raking in big bucks at the administration’s exceptionally large missteps… with insider information that could only come from…

Loyalty, Fealty and the Destruction of the Constitution and our Entire Form of Governance

Loyalty, Fealty and the Destruction of the Constitution and our Entire Form of Governance

The Department of Justice is no longer the last resort federal agency created to protect Americans, ensuring equal protection under the law, with the US Constitution no longer the guiding light for all laws, all lawyers and all federal agencies. After discharging seasoned DOJ lawyers, attorneys once seeking one of the most prestigious legal jobs in the nation, the shell of the former legal agency has decimated its standards for employment, substituting the once sacrosanct allegiance to the US Constitution as the highest legal authority in the nation with an allegiance to the authority of the President of the United States.

The very notion of a retribution “president” seeking criminally to prosecute his political opposition, willing to excoriate federal judges (even his appointees) openly who do not implement his clear intention, exposing them to vigilantes quite willing to do them and their families harm, is profoundly anti-American and deeply unconstitutional. The President is rather upset that the state bar associations routinely disbar lawyers who are unwilling to honor their bar-admittance pledge to uphold the Constitution above all else. For example, Rudy Guilani was disbarred from several jurisdictions for his flagrant violations of the Constitution. Trump wants a federal rule that prevents such disbarment against federal lawyers. Simply, he continues to believe that government lawyers must obey even his most obvious illegal whims, without fear of losing their licenses to practice law.

Ethical US Attorneys are now fired when they refuse to (or cannot) push the envelope against Trump opponents, efforts that almost always run afoul of constitutional protections. Trump holds his DOJ responsible when they cannot secure grand jury indictments or are routinely tossed out of court for failure to present a viable case. Federal prosecutors used to joke that they could indict the phone book if they wanted, but obviously, there are limits. It is equally clear that between an unsustainable, budget-busting tax cut primarily benefitting the mega-wealthy (under the misnamed “Big Beautiful Bill”), his unilateral declaration of WAR on Iran (costing between $1 and $2 billion/day) and his most obvious antipathy to programs that benefit ordinary citizens, Trump makes it clear that the United States is a plutocracy, at best. US Attorneys must follow orders, and benefit programs for the rest of us must end.

In a recent White House Easter luncheon speech made before his Iran-WAR primetime address, President Trump floated the idea of ending national funding for Medicare, Medicaid and daycare centers and instead leaving it up to the states. Instead, he asked Congress for a whopping $1.5 trillion military budget (which would include his recent $200 billion ask to pay for his WAR): "We can balance the budget. We can have a surplus if you can stop that. And that does not include Medicare, Medicaid—that's even bigger… ‘We can't take care of daycare. You’ve got to let a state take care of daycare. And they should pay for it, too. They should pay. They'll have to raise their taxes, but they should pay for it. And we could lower our taxes a little bit to them to make up for it. It's not possible for us to take care of daycare, Medicaid, Medicare—all these individual things. They can do it on a state basis. You can't do it on a federal [level]. We have to take care of one thing: military protection. We have to guard the country.” Against what? Iran? Trump told us we annihilated their entire navy, air force and IRGC ability to wage war, but they just shot down an F-15 and still totally control the Strait of Hormuz. I guess no one ever told Trump that swatting at a wasp’s nest is never a good idea, and if there is a new regime in Tehran, it is much more hardline than what preceded it.

Further, those government lawyers unable to circumvent the Constitution or even merely congressional inquiry, however impossible that may be, are going to be removed, even the Attorney General of the United States. “President Donald Trump announced Thursday [4/2] that he was ousting Pam Bondi as attorney general, saying her chief deputy, Todd Blanche, will temporarily step into the role… In a social media post about the move, Trump called Bondi ‘a Great American Patriot’ and loyal friend. He praised her tenure leading the Justice Department and said she would be moving to an unspecified ‘important new job in the private sector.’…

“The decision abruptly ends Bondi’s tumultuous tenure in which she transformed the Justice Department into a tool for avenging the president’s grievances but could not escape his persistent frustration with her handling of files related to convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and struggles to prosecute the president’s perceived foes… The move makes Bondi the second Cabinet secretary Trump has ousted in the span of weeks following his decision last month to remove Kristi L. Noem as homeland security secretary.

“Trump is eyeing Lee Zeldin, administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, as a possible replacement for Bondi, according to a person familiar with the matter, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive conversations… A Trump loyalist who had defended him during his first impeachment and later backed his claims that the 2020 presidential election was stolen, Bondi presented the type of TV-ready persona that the president has appeared drawn to while filling out the Cabinet for his second term.” Jeremy Roebuck, Emily Davies and Perry Stein, The Washington Post, as republished in the Journal of the American Bar Association (of which I am a member), April 2nd.

“Attorney General Pam Bondi had a pretty good idea her days were numbered… President Trump had complained too freely, too frequently, to too many people about her inability to prosecute the people he hates. She was falling short of Mr. Trump’s unyielding, unrealistic demands for retribution against his enemies. She had made mistake upon mistake in her handling of the Epstein files. Her critics were in the president’s ear.” Glenn Thrush and Tyler Pager for the April 3rd NY Times. It is only Trump’s iron grip on the officials, elected or seeking election as Republican candidates, that has transformed Congress into a “whatever Trump wants” legislative body, quite willing to ignore their constitutional mandate. Trump thought his hegemony extended to the US Supreme Court, but his arrogance is wearing thin even in the seemingly pro-Trump body.

The GOP/MAGA base is beginning to show serious fractures, and they seem to have lost support of our nation’s independents. For Trump’s monarchy to continue, he must be assured that voters who oppose him (now a clear majority) be marginalized and their votes limited any way Trump can disenfranchise them.

I’m Peter Dekom, and this rogue and probably demented presidential arrogance must be fully contained if we are to protect our prosperity and American way of life.

Even Besides Iran, Trump’s Other Policies Continue to Amplify Affordability Problems

                  

Map per the Business Broker Network

Besides Iran, Trump’s Other Policies Continue to Amplify Affordability Problems

Facts are contradicting Donald Trump at every turn. As he and Major and DOD/W Secretary Pete Hegseth constantly state that the US is winning the Iran War and our efforts have gained increased global respect, Iran still controls the Strait of Hormuz, the enriched uranium is still in Iran, our own military intelligence tells us that the bulk of Iran’s sophisticated missiles are intact, there remains an ample supply of cheap Iranian drones, and an IRGC hardliner (who openly mocked Trump) is now a senior member of Iran’s negotiating team (which does not seem particularly interested in pressing for further negotiations). As for respect: “German Chancellor Friedrich Merz on Monday [4/27] said Iran's leadership is in the process of ‘humiliating’ the United States in the ongoing conflict.

“Merz said Washington appeared to lack a clear strategy and questioned what kind of exit the US might pursue… ‘At the moment, I do not see what strategic exit the Americans will choose, especially since the Iranians are clearly negotiating very skillfully — or very skillfully not negotiating,’ he said… Merz added that ‘an entire nation [the US] is being humiliated by the Iranian leadership, particularly by the so-called Revolutionary Guards.’" MSN News, April 27th. Most of the rest of the world seems to agree with Merz as even the most casual review of the international press will easily confirm.

Clearly, the big picture Trump policy failures get most of the headlines – from illegal tariffs that slammed consumer prices, the Iran War that really amped up consumer prices globally, the Big Beautiful Bill that provided an unnecessary tax cut for the rich while decimating healthcare for millions to pay for it, a pro-business deregulation tsunami that leaves ordinary Americans high and dry and exposed to both financial and environmental toxins and his immigration brutality that cost billions to run and has hollowed out the workforce of innocent and productive undocumented workers that were a backbone of low-wage workers that populated agricultural and construction arenas, small businesses (particularly hospitality and food services) and, critically child and elder care. A deeper dive into the numbers illustrates rising the day-to-day economic misery that continues to plague most Americans.

For example, there are interesting housing/childcare correlations with couples seeking a starter home, particularly to accommodate growing families especially where there are better public schools. But when you add the absurdly escalating costs of childcare to the already over-the-top increases in housing (rental and purchase), life for so many American couples and single parents has turned into a horror show. With everything costing more, the squeeze on all but the highest income Americans, has created a Trump-accelerating nightmare. Writing for April 27th Realtor.com, Allaire Conte explains how government childcare statistics haven’t remotely kept up with reality:

“The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services defines childcare as affordable if it costs 7% or less of a family's income. Yet, in every single state, the typical family far exceeds that threshold, qualifying them as ‘cost-burdened’ by this essential service… The timing couldn’t be worse as 1 in 3 homeowners and 1 in 2 renters are currently considered cost-burdened by housing—putting the two biggest and most essential costs of a family budget into direct competition.

“‘Families with young kids are facing this double whammy,’ explains Yulia Panfil, director of the Future of Land and Housing Program at New America, a think tank. ‘If they don't pay for child care, then they can't work, and if they can't work, then they can't pay rent. So it's this vicious cycle.’… And it's a dire assessment of the reality families face today. As a shortage of 4.03 million homes collides with a shortage of 4.2 million childcare slots, advocates argue these crises are now inextricably intertwined.

“The clearest connection between housing and childcare costs is found in the demographic most at risk of losing their homes… Minors face the highest risk of eviction in the U.S., according to research from the Eviction Lab. They account for roughly 40% of all individuals threatened with displacement annually. Furthermore, households with children represent over half (52%) of all eviction filings.

“‘Nearly 3 million kids are on the receiving end of an eviction notice each year, which is just shocking,’ says Panfil. ‘For so many families, their two largest household budget items are rent and childcare. And in cities like [Washington] DC, where I live, the cost of childcare actually is higher than the cost of rent for many, and that's per child.’ … That data is a stark illustration of the impossible trade-off the most cost-burdened families face: Pay for childcare so you can work, but then fall short on rent; or pay the rent, but lose your ability to work because you can't afford the childcare…

“Elise Gould, a senior economist at the [Economic Policy Institute], began noticing a troubling shift in the data a decade ago… ‘All of a sudden, childcare became more expensive than housing in a number of counties across the country,’ she says. ‘It really surprised us.’.. And while [government] figures represent typical families on the median income, the squeeze is far more acute for minimum-wage workers… In New Hampshire and Wisconsin, childcare costs alone would consume 115% and 112% of a worker’s total earnings, respectively… In a cruel twist, Gould notes that childcare workers are often the most acutely burdened by the crisis they help manage.”

This is Trump’s America, as he seeks to put his name on an increasing number of iconic American buildings, builds gilded garish monuments to his “glory” from a new and unneeded White House ballroom to an ugly, oversized celebratory arch dwarfing our capital’s monuments to Presidents Washington, Jefferson and Lincoln… just as life for most Americans has ended upward mobility in favor of a paycheck-to-paycheck life for most of us.

I’m Peter Dekom, and this constant increase in our cost of living combined with reductions in government benefits, that seem to be never-ending, are unsustainable amplifiers of a toxic widening income/wealth gap where the only beneficiaries are the top 5% of the wealthiest Americans.