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.

After Claiming Greenland, Assessing Illegal Tariffs against Our Allies & Unilaterally Starting a War…

After Claiming Greenland, Assessing Illegal Tariffs against Our Allies & Unilaterally Starting a War…

Why are we surprised to see Europe and the rest of the world distancing themselves from all things American?

Donald Trump seeks to punish the UK – by rejecting their claim to the Falkland Islands (which Argentina still claims) – and Spain – by threatening to push them out of NATO – because neither will join the United States in its most illegal war against Iran, even going so far as to deny US attack aircraft flyover rights or use of our own local airbases in that war. Inasmuch as 80% of the oil that passed through the bottleneck Strait of Hormuz was destined for Asia, we have now pushed allies like India, the Philippines and Japan to seek alternative access for desperately needed oil and gas from Russia… which uses those newfound profits to escalate their annexation efforts in Ukraine. Hormuz has never been closed in modern history. That is our (Trump’s?) legacy.

Trump, with the help of Major Pete Hegseth’s Dept of Defense/War, has decimated our military’s senior command by firing almost 30 top-ranked generals and admirals. Inexperienced substitutes, fearing firing themselves, are running the most powerful military on Earth, claiming victory while unable to explain why a bombed out Iran still maintains (according to US military intelligence) most of its sophisticated missiles, its stash of enriched uranium, an extraordinary cache of cheap but very effective inventory of drones, fast-boats with mine-laying capacity and a seeming ability to outlast the United States in blocking off the Strait of Hormuz. And the Houthis remain Iran’s back-up. Sorry, Pete, God does not seem to be on our side.

With the WAR generating the most negative domestic polls of any presidential military action in half a century, a post-Vietnam law also puts a 60-day clock on the use of military force without congressional authorization. Will enough Republicans join Democrats in rejecting that authorization, along with budgetary demands to add half a trillion dollars to supplement our military in this perilous time? Or will Republicans vote to support Trump to maintain the President’s base (and control of primaries?)… perhaps, sealing their fate in the midterms? Which explains why Trump has mounted such a strong campaign to contain possible votes against the GOP candidates by exploring ways to exclude them from the ballot box.

Even leaders of Europe’s conservative or rightwing parties – from Italy’s Giorgia Meloni, Germany’s AfD, France’s Marie Le Pen, etc. – are distancing themselves from Trump. Virtually all of Europe are making long-term plans to live in a world where they no longer depend on the United States, defensively or economically. And since it is the only military and economic power that rivals the United States, China has become the go-to replacement. These European deals with China, clearly workarounds against the US, are long-term… destined to haunt global relations for decades.

With Netanyahu’s goading, an effort that failed to enlist all recent US presidents to join Israel in a direct war against Iran, until Trump succumbed to that plea with disastrous consequences. There is no question that the United States and Israel have very different objectives vis-à-vis Iran, but Trump’s lockstep link to all things Israel – a position that no longer reflects US mainstream thought, particularly among younger voters – has led him and our policymakers to interpret any opposition to Israel as “antisemitism.” That term is used to attack political opponents, universities and their vital medical research programs. However, it is no longer a majority American thought.

Hamed Aleaziz and Nicholas Nehamas, writing for the April 25th NY Times, also note: “In guidance to immigration officers, the administration describes participating in pro-Palestinian protests and criticizing Israel as ‘overwhelmingly negative’ factors, which can result in being denied or losing green card status”… and even disqualifying otherwise unblemished applicants from citizenship. Free speech has been evicted from the United States.

As if all of the above were not horrible enough, contrary to Trump’s erroneous statements, Iran has lurched significantly toward the most recalcitrant hardliners in Tehran. A badly disfigured Mojtaba Khamenei, the replacement for his slain father, is the new Ayatollah… who owes his elevation to this top spot entirely to the super-hardline Islamic Revolutionary Guards. Reports of dissension in Iran’s leadership has yet to lead to any softening of Tehran’s position in on-off negotiations with the US.

With great justification, Iran’s leadership is profoundly distrustful of Trump, and any thoughts that his pledges have meaning are in perilous jeopardy. In 2018, he pulled the US out of an otherwise effective UN- sponsored nuclear enrichment containment accord with Iran (and several major US allies). Trump began his latest WAR in the middle of negotiations with Iran, seemingly as Netanyahu’s puppet. Even if you hate your opponent in peace negotiations, if you do not trust that they will stand by their word, achieving peace is exceptionally difficult.

Trump’s belief that he can use the blockade of Iran’s ports and seizure of rogue ships filled with Iranian oil is based on the rather disproven assumption that our military force can outlast Iran’s resistance to key proposals that Trump demands. Iran’s drones have defined control of the Strait of Hormuz, and clearly Tehran does not see the increased suffering of its people as a sufficiently powerful such that Iran will bend to Trump’s demands.

We at least need to incentivize Iran to return to the negotiating table in earnest, based on reality and not Trump’s flawed assumptions. Perhaps a US offer to entertain ending the blockade of Iranian ports in exchange for Iran’s reopening the Strait of Hormuz might be a start, but Iran’s wariness of a US President, showing obvious signs of diminished capacity, remains a solid barrier to the trust needed to end this war-crime-ridden war.

I’m Peter Dekom, and that Trump and his most senior advisors have so seriously misread the obvious realities in global reactions and Iran’s strength to resist may not resonate with Trump’s MAGA faithful, but they have deeply weakened the United States at every level in the eyes of most of the world.

Trump Administration’s Weakest Skillsets: Governance & Diplomacy

Trump Administration’s Weakest Skillsets: Governance & Diplomacy

Take, for example, how shutting down the Forrest Service just might cost billions

As Trump’s Iran WAR spirals out of control, as Trump’s influence with even “allied” nations slips into “ignore the idiot” level, Trump is still the President of the United States and capable of wreaking inestimable additional damage to our nation even as his popularity seems to have made him the lamest of the lame ducks. Trump unfortunately does not read, has no cultural sensitivity, tends to shoot from the hip, often listens to the last person he spoke with and prefers conspiracy theories to facts. With arrogant certainty, Trump and his mouthpiece JD Vance made some very public statements to the Hungarian people in support of PM Victor Orban (above) whose party was on the verge of a national election. But Trump’s stature in the world had fallen so dramatically everywhere that Orban, after 16 years as an illiberal elected autocrat (and literally the “model” for US conservative governance), and his party, lost in an unprecedented landslide. As Tom Boggioni, writing for the April 14th Raw Story tells us:

“According to Politico's Nahal Toosi, Trump faces a wall of resistance from longtime U.S. allies who are actively forming new alliances and sidelining America as a diplomatic partner. In recent days, multiple global players have openly defied the president, exposing the severe limits of American influence… The core problem is philosophical. ‘Trump and his aides often appear to operate as if most other people on the planet are 'non-player characters' in a video game,’ and they believe that America can use ‘threats, economic muscle and military action to bend other capitals to its will,’ Toosi observed.

“But foreign policy doesn't work that way and the Politico analyst suggested the current administration is ‘not adjusting well’ to a changed world… Trump shows no signs of learning from this reality. Richard Haass, former president of the Council on Foreign Relations, observed: ‘If there were an appreciation that bullying was no longer a likely to succeed tactic you'd see a move away from it, but there's no real sign that Trump is doing so…The problem is structural. ‘He is surrounded by 'yes' people,’ one senior European diplomat fumed.’” The outside world no longer couches their criticisms of the President in polite terms, unlike GOP leaders, marching like lemmings to midterm disaster, who are struggling even with the most obvious descriptors of Trump’s litany of failures. As the utter failure of Trump’s War is pushing the world toward recession with prices soaring by the day, so too are his recent domestic policies which survive only because his international disasters have proven to be major distractions.

Indeed, so much of Trump’s foreign and domestic policy moves have ended in flames, that it most appropriate to look at recent inane policies imposed by an incompetent, totally dollars-and-cents transactional, President, incapable of dealing in human values, relegated to “money talks” and not much else: our fire-vulnerable national forests. As reported by FastCompany’s Kristin Toussaint (April 9th), “Last week, the U.S. Forest Service announced that it will be closing three-quarters of its research facilities as part of a reorganization. Now, experts are worried not only about the number of scientists who might be leaving the agency, but also about how the disruption could affect the gathering and dissemination of crucial wildfire and climate change data.

“The restructuring comes as parts of the U.S. face what is expected to be a catastrophic wildfire season. The most recent wildland fire outlook shows that wildfire activity is already “well above average,” with more than 16,000 wildfires reported this year… Under the reorganization plan, the Forest Service will close 57 of 77 research facilities, as well as move its headquarters from Washington, D.C. to Salt Lake City, Utah. … It will also close all nine of its regional offices; some states will then get their own offices, but others will be consolidated…

“Julian Reyes, chief of staff at the Union of Concerned Scientists and previously a federal government civil servant who worked directly with Forest Service R&D scientists on climate research, says the move doesn’t make any sense, given the wildfire season we’re heading into… “The Forest Service will essentially no longer be the world’s leading wildfire research agency,” he adds [Reyes]. ‘They will be hamstrung forever, because they won’t have the right people, the right research capability at the right research stations, and so we’ll always be feeling these effects, probably for multiple generations. That’s what’s really sad about this.’”

And as the rest of the world retreats from coal, a fossil fuel that is never “clean,” Trump clings to his notion that climate change is a hoax: “Before Donald Trump returned to the White House, the Biden administration and many electric utilities were building a future dominated by renewable energy. They aimed to replace coal, slashing greenhouse gases and reducing air pollution that kills more than a thousand people annually.

“Dozens of coal plants — emitting as much planet-warming pollution as 27 million cars — were expected to be retired during Trump’s second term. Now there may not be any more coal plants closing until after Trump leaves office, according to officials and the energy analysis company Enverus… The United States is undergoing a dramatic shift in energy policy as Trump wields the government’s sweeping powers to benefit coal and suppress cleaner alternatives. It could lead to more expensive electricity and dirtier air and set back efforts to curb climate change, according to an Associated Press review of government data and interviews with experts.

“Trump officials are using emergency powers to prevent five coal plants from closing. That’s raising ratepayer bills: Keeping one Michigan plant open for about seven months cost $135 million. The administration also is using millions of dollars of taxpayer money to make repairs and extend the lives of other coal plants, while weakening protections against air pollution and, most recently, toxic coal ash… Interior Secretary Doug Burgum has said the goal for coal plants ‘is 100% stay open, no more retirements, no more shutting down.’.. The actions far exceed Trump’s coal advocacy in his first term, when he relaxed some environmental regulations to give it a short-lived boost.” Trump does not mind killing people, even Americans, in an effort to convince his followers that he is never wrong… when in fact, he is seldom correct.

I’m Peter Dekom, and I think the national antipathy against all things Trump may have reached the point, even as he desperately tries to rig the midterms, that MAGA politicians face an unstoppable landslide against them… but it will take decades to undo the damage this failed human being has wreaked on the United States.