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.

Why is China’s Advancing Commercialized Tech Advancing So Much Faster than the US?

                                                             2024-2025 use of renewables for power generation

Why is China’s Advancing Commercialized Tech Advancing So Much Faster than the US?

Is Donald Trump’s vision of the world holding us back?

The battle for superior military technology and AI sophistication seems to dominate the headlines these days. Yet a militarily devastated Iran has successfully held the United States at bay, noting that it is Iran (and only Iran) that controls the Strait of Hormuz no matter what the US military deploys. But Donald Trump’s anachronistic view of modernity – especially in the sphere of electrical power generation – places the United States at a commercial disadvantage, just when the electrical demand of large warehouses of AI servers is ramping up to unsustainable levels.

While humanity’s rising demand for electricity requires the Earth to continue to depend in serious part on fossil fuels, not anticipating future realities is insane. If you like the heat waves, floods and unpredictable weather patterns we have just experienced, this false mantra of “drill baby, drill” will ensure continued climate pain everywhere. Even the entire WAR with Iran, particularly the de facto oil embargo by a seriously squeezed Strait of Hormuz, is strong evidence why the Earth needs alternative energy like air. We are fighting unnecessary WARs over oil?!

In the above chart, the biggest loser is the United States, as the Trump administration has just committed to pay a French power company operating in the US to stop deploying Trump’s hated “windmills” (wind turbines to the rest of us) to generate electricity:

“The White House has agreed to pay TotalEnergies $1 billion to shelve East Coast wind farm projects that it condemned as ‘costly,’ with the French energy giant's investment set to be diverted into U.S. LNG production instead… The U.S.' Department of the Interior (DOI) announced on Monday [3/23] what it said was ‘a landmark agreement’ with TotalEnergies for the company ‘to redirect capital from expensive, unreliable offshore wind leases toward affordable, reliable natural gas projects that will provide secure energy for hardworking Americans.’" CNBC, March 25th. Those “windmills” were remarkably efficient.

Meanwhile, China’s car and solar battery developments have created vehicle range of well over 650 miles with charging capacity measured in minutes. As Trump’s miserably failed WAR against Iran continues to raise the price at the pump here to over $4/gallon average, the inventory of EVs built by US carmakers sit in scrapyards, and we are unable to sell Detroit’s new gasoline/diesel replacements against China’s total domination of the international car market, where their EV vehicles account for 30% of all international car sales today. Trump is killing the construction of modern car charging stations as fast as he can. Writing for the April 1st FastCompany.com, Chris Stokel-Walker tells us why China is able to design and place into commercial/consumer service truly ingenious technology so much faster than we can:

“The U.S. and China are racing to define the future of technology, with very different ideas about how fast it should arrive and how tightly it should be controlled… The urgency is no longer abstract. In recent weeks, China approved the world’s first commercial brain-computer interface medical device and unveiled a five-ton class electric vertical takeoff and landing aircraft that has already completed a public flight. At the same time, U.S. agencies are scrambling to speed up approvals in areas like aviation and biotech, even as layoffs and political pressure threaten to thin out oversight.

“In both Washington and Beijing, senior officials are no longer hedging: This is, they openly say, a race for technological supremacy. Last year, Michael Kratsios, the science advisor to the president, called China the U.S.’s ‘most formidable technological and scientific competitor.’ More recently, the White House’s Office of Science and Technology Policy has similarly described a global race for tech supremacy.

“Beijing sees the same contest. During a February visit to an information technology innovation park, Xi Jinping said self-reliance and strength in science and technology are ‘key’ to building China into a modern socialist power. The country, he added, must ‘seize the commanding heights in sci-tech competition and future development.’

“The competition is already playing out across multiple fronts. The U.S. and China continue trading the lead in AI, with successive model releases displacing one another. But the real divide is emerging in how each country approaches risk. One system is willing to move faster and sort out consequences later. The other moves more cautiously, with heavier guardrails that can slow deployment… That difference carries real stakes. It shapes which technologies reach the public first, how safely they are introduced, and who ultimately sets the global standards that other countries follow.

“‘Most Americans do not realize that by multiple different metrics, China already exceeds the United States in a number of different fields, in terms of science and technology, artificial intelligence, quantum internet and biomanufacturing,’ says Margaret Kosal, a professor in technology strategy at the Georgia Institute of Technology.” So, it’s not as if China does not have guardrails, but Xi’s directives are more pragmatic, less encumbered by political patronage that we have (surprising, huh?), and implemented (and adjusted) with amazing speed. The problem, of course, is that it is China that is setting the global standards for the commercial use of AI and hi-tech consumer products and not the United States. Donald Trump, who has just fired both DHS head, Kristi Noem, and his Attorney General, Pam Bondi, is the master of political infighting and competition-killing instability. Running a country successfully? Not so much!!!

I’m Peter Dekom, no fan of Xi Jinping (a brutal autocrat), but putting up his leadership moving China into the future against Donald Trump’s distorted vision continues to be a blessing, a gift if you will, from the United States to its archrival, China.

Doin’ What Comes De-Naturally – Or The "Big Rig Voter Scam"

   

Doin’ What Comes De-Naturally – Or the “Big Rig Voter Scam”

The Biggest Voter Fraud in US History, Badly Disguised as a Quest for Election Integrity

"It's just off the charts. No other president has done anything like this." 

 James Pfiffner, a presidential expert at George Mason University, on Trump family grift and enrichment thru the Trump Presidency.

"I don't think I'm exaggerating. I would say if you added all the previous corruption of all [past presidents]…Trump, individually, surpasses them all.”

Barabra Perry, co-chair of the presidential oral history program at the University of Virginia's Miller Center.

The Republican congressional unwavering “whatever you want, Mr President, even if it screws our Base” support of TACO Trump’s agenda ensures that the GOP will most probably lose control of Congress (perhaps even both houses) at the midterms. Trump’s Big Beautiful Bill truly was an extraordinary billionaire giveaway, a deficit buster to boot, as have been the “good for business” (but bad for virtually all individual American) preferences, waivers of the minimal regulations remaining, the slash and burn of medical and nutritional programs, and the removal of federal enforcement and tax collection officers to the absolute delight of the spoiled rich. The raw and obvious “quid pro quo” of “donate to Trump’s pet projects and ye shall receive blessings and largesse” from the Trump administration are painfully obvious in Trump’s “no taxpayer dollars needed” for unnecessary gold-fetish-driven monuments and buildings, like the completely garish and tasteless White House Trump ballroom.

Add to this egotistical waste, the grift of Trump relatives openly making millions/billions from their connection to the White House. Jared Kushner (son-in-law) as the US negotiator all over the Middle East, using his position of power to solicit $5B in investment funds from regional powers (over the $2B he already raised). Or the awarding of 200,000 shares to Eric Trump in Foundation Future, a robotics firm that somehow generated a $24M deal with the Pentagon where robots they will be used to inspect and transport weapons in Ukraine. Young Trump said he wanted to help the US remain competitive with China. Grift rules. A mega-jet from Qatar, Trump hotels and resorts springing up all over. Crypto-billions. Real estate billions. Investment fund billions.

It is this same Donald John Trump who wants to take the “integrity” high ground in his quest to discover fraud in American elections?! It is Trump’s obsession with his 2020 loss to Joe Biden, despite losing 60 lawsuits in which fraud was dismissed as unproven, and his facing a virtual certainty of a GOP midterm loss of control over at least the House of Representatives (and now even the Senate), that makes Trump more obsessed in ensuring that he will not face any Democratic majority in any of these legislative bodies with subpoena or congressional stopping power… or even the ability of the House to impeach him. Federal officials, from US Attorneys to enforcement agencies are now acutely aware that not only must they prosecute Trump’s opponents but that must force states to disgorge any election information that Trump requires to “eliminate fraud” from the approaching midterms. As has happened with a “bad warrant” FBI seizure of election ballots in Georgia.

Fearing losing his job, FBI Director Kash Patel (under fire from many sides), has pledged to investigate the 2020 loss and assured the President that arrests will be made. In March, Trump issued executive orders to the US Postal Service – only to send ballots to citizens on the state’s approved mail-in ballot list, with ballots to have secured envelopes with barcodes for tracking – and one that would require newly appointed Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin, aided by the Social Security Administration, to create a list of verified U.S. citizens who are eligible to vote. Trump administration officials are now demanding that each state provide it voting rolls so it can remove what it believes are questionable registrations. States are resisting!

GovFacts.com summarizes the constitutional requirements surrounding elections, which Trump seeks to restructure via illegal executive orders: “Article I, Section 4, Clause 1 gives states the primary authority to regulate federal elections. That includes everything: voter registration systems, polling place locations, ballot design, vote counting procedures, certification processes.

“Congress gets a role too—but only through legislation. The same constitutional provision states that ‘the Congress may at any time by Law make or alter such Regulations.’ Congress can pass bills that establish federal requirements for elections. The president can then sign those bills into law. But the president can’t simply issue an executive order and expect it to override state election procedures. That’s not how the constitutional hierarchy works… Presidential elections operate under Article II, Section 1—each state appoints presidential electors in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct.’ States choose how to run their presidential elections. The federal executive doesn’t.”

As if Trump’s clearly illegal effort to control who can vote weren’t bad enough, he is now seeking not only to reverse the 14th Amendment’s birthright citizenship but also to denaturalize American citizens – read: too many non-white people were allowed citizenship in a Democratic Party effort to “replace” white majority rule – with test cases in anticipation of denaturalization efforts over thousands of innocent new American citizens:

“The Justice Department confirmed Thursday [4/23] it has moved ahead with multiple referrals to strip citizenship from those who have naturalized, assigning cases to U.S. attorney offices across the country… It’s an unusual push for several reasons. Denaturalization of foreign-born citizens is rare and usually only done in cases when someone committed fraud in pursuit of immigrating to the U.S., or if they committed certain disqualifying crimes.

“The process is also usually carried out by attorneys specializing in immigration, rather than by line prosecutors… ‘The Department of Justice is laser-focused on rooting out criminal aliens defrauding the naturalization process. Under the leadership of President Trump and Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche, the Department is pursuing the highest volume of denaturalization referrals in history, thanks to close partnerships,’ with immigration agencies, Matthew Tragesser, DOJ’s deputy director for communications, said in a statement.” Rebecca Beitsch writing for the April 23rd The Hill.

I’m Peter Dekom, and Trump is so used to getting his way – even able to wage war – with a pliable “look the other way” Republican controlled Congress and a Supreme Court with rightwing appointees even granting Trump a hitherto unknown immunity from criminal prosecution for “official acts,” that Trump now believes his election executive orders can repeal constitutional election mandates, transferring election control to him personally.

Slapping Civil Rights Champions in the Face

Slapping Civil Rights Champions in the Face

“The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude— The Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.” 

Fifteenth Amendment to the US Constitution

“(a) No voting qualification or prerequisite to voting or standard, practice, or procedure shall be imposed or applied by any State or political subdivision in a manner which results in a denial or abridgement of the right of any citizen of the United States to vote on account of race or color, or in contravention of the guarantees set forth [below.]”

from SEC. 2. (52 U.S.C. 10301 Voting Rights Act of 1965, as amended)

Look at the map on the right above. Those red areas were counties and states which were the bastions of continued Jim Crow voting discrimination well into the 1950s and 60s, notwithstanding the admonition of the Fifteenth Amendment quoted above. The Supreme Court back then ruled against school segregation (Brown vs Board of Education, 1954), with powerful racist undercurrents still defining voting and other civil rights, all struggling to maintain separation of the races and heavily focused (via poll taxes, strict voter ID requirements, grandfather provisions and general intimidation of would-be Black voters) on keeping candidates and voters lily white. People of all races died or were falsely accused of crimes or just plain beaten while attempting to right that wrong. Civil rights volunteers just disappeared.

In 1965, Congress decided to act. The Voting Rights Act (VRA), amended several times since then, was intended to put teeth into the lax enforcement of the Fifteenth Amendment with a strong focus on those red jurisdictions above where voting discrimination was particularly rampant. Section 5 (enforced under Section 4(b) of the Act), named those jurisdictions, placing them under direct federal supervision over elections rules. Still, racism found its way into voting practices, a reality that Martin Luther King, Jr dedicated his life to change. But several of those named states (mostly in the South) resented not being able to restrict voting rights again. One Alabama county (Shelby), sensing a conservative change in the make-up of the Supreme Court 40 plus years later, thought it possible this panel just might find a way to neutralize or invalidate the statute, or at least release the named defendant states from federal election control. Surprise, Shelby Country sued the Department of Justice (naming Eric Holder, AG under Obama)… and won.

On June 25, 2013, the Court determined by a 5 to 4 vote that Section 4(b) of the VRA was unconstitutional because the coverage formula was based on data over 40 years old, making it no longer responsive to current needs and therefore an impermissible burden on the constitutional principles of federalism and equal sovereignty of the states. The Court did not strike down Section 5, but without Section 4(b), no jurisdiction would be subject to Section 5 preclearance unless Congress enacted a new coverage formula, which, given the rising polarization of the nation, was unlikely.

Interestingly enough and giving false hope to civil rights activists, the Court did not negate Section 2 of the VRA quoted above, but the message, that the Court found election-related judicial review was not likely to amount to much, was loud and clear. Indeed, most of the states released from federal election supervision almost immediately set about passing new replacement voting restrictions, aimed at keeping Blacks and other minorities of color from having much in the way of voting power. The vestiges of people’s belief that perhaps that Section 2 would actually be enough to protect minority voting rights died, with great justification.

On April 29th, the Supreme Court decimated Section 2, a statutory provision that was designed to prevent racial discrimination in elections, by banning references to race in voting laws designed to eliminate racial bias. Huh? Once you knew that Justice Samual Alito was charged with writing the majority opinion, the result from this highly biased Associate Justice was obvious. As David G. Savage and Ana Ceballos, writing for the April 30th Los Angeles Times, summarize: “In a 6-3 decision in Louisiana vs. Callais, the court ruled that creating these majority-minority districts may amount to racial discrimination that violates the 14th Amendment.

“When weighing what the Voting Rights Act requires, ‘we start with the general rule that the Constitution almost never permits the federal government or a state to discriminate on the basis of race,’ Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. wrote for the court… Alito said states may draw election districts for partisan advantage but may not use race as a basis for redistricting… The ruling in a Louisiana case appears to clear the way for Republican-led states across the South to redraw their election maps and eliminate voting districts that favor Black or Latino candidates for Congress, state legislatures and county boards [noting that a majority of Black voters support Democrats].

“UCLA law professor Rick Hasen said, ‘It is hard to overstate what an earthquake this will be for American politics,’ adding that the decision makes the Voting Rights Act a ‘much weaker, and potentially toothless law.’…Hasen said it’s unclear how the decision will affect the November election because in many states early voting has already started and primaries have already taken place… But the ruling’s long-term consequences for minority representation in Congress, state legislatures and local government are almost ‘certainly’ going to be felt in 2028, Hasen said.

”Republican leaders in states across the South have already signaled they intend to move quickly to redraw congressional maps in the wake of the ruling… Alabama Atty. Gen. Steve Marshall said the state will ‘act as quickly as possible’ to ensure its congressional maps ‘reflect the will of the people, not a racial quota system the Constitution forbids.’ Marshall called the decision a recognition of how much the South has changed since the civil rights era… ‘The court rightly acknowledged that the South has made extraordinary progress, and that laws designed for a different era do not reflect the present reality,’ he said in a statement…

“The three liberals dissented. The consequences of the ruling ‘are likely to be far-reaching and grave,’ said Justice Elena Kagan, adding that it will allow ‘racial vote dilution in its most classic form.’… She said the decision means ‘a state can, without legal consequence, systematically dilute minority citizens’ voting power. Of course, the majority does not announce today’s holding that way. Its opinion is understated, even antiseptic.” Simply put: Jim Crow has returned with a vengeance. A Black voter in Alabama under the proper application of Section of the Voting Rights Act will find his or her vote going forward to be meaningless.

I’m Peter Dekom, and the Supreme Court has added one more nail to the coffin where American democracy lies ready for a full burial.