Who in the Above Gallery Has Caused the Most Political & Economic Damage to the United States?

   

Who in the Above Gallery Has Caused the Most Political & Economic Damage to the United States?

PETER ON THE WRITERS’ HANGOUT PODCAST!

Donald Trump was complaining about the deluge of nations begging him (they “kissed” his posterior) to negotiate a new tariff agreement with his administration. Heavy tariffs on big players – like Canada, EU and China – were quickly rebuffed and met with retaliatory tariffs and other trade restrictions. But after the US stock markets collapsed, and the deficit-financing treasury bonds were selling like a herpes infection, Trump “paused” most of the tariffs (except that 10% minimum tariff, which would have been our highest in recent memory, and an amped up tariff on China – excluding certain electronics) for 90 days. So given all those nations begging to be the first to work out that new tariff relationship with Trump, as of mid-April, how many were there? Oh!

None? In the above photographs, the only one who has not wreaked havoc with the US’ global political stature and our economy is that Bozo on the left (radical left?). It was interesting how looming and threatening Donald Trump’s message to all dissenters in his administration – you’ll be fired and might be prosecuted if you try and defy my orders – has managed to submerge legal ethics for most higher-ranking lawyers in the Trump administration. Let’s see, if the subject matter were foreign affairs, there were no systems in place, no guardrails or check-and-balances, to challenge Trump’s complete control over the relevant policies. The Constitutional checks were also nullified by “emergency” or “in case of invasion” statutes that were often centuries old. Did Richard Nixon’s dream “if the president does it, by definition it cannot be illegal” mantra rise from the dead ready to suck the life out of the country he betrayed?

AG Pam Bondi insisted the Supreme Court could not reach into El Salvador to retrieve a wrongfully (by the US) deported inmate incarcerated in a Salvadoran concentration camp/prison, even though the Trump administration was paying for his imprisonment. Trump and his coterie of groveling sycophants all but stuck their collective tongue out at the relevant trial court… AND A UNANIMOUS RULING FROM THE UNITED STATES SUPREME COURT. Salvador President “Oopsie” Bukele, a guest in the White House, stated he was not obligated to “smuggle” the inmate in question back to the US… but then NO ONE in the Trump administration even requested that Bukele repatriate that inmate. Adding insult to injury, thumbing his nose at the US Constitution (with Bondi and Rubio cheering him on), Trump stated he would be open to sending even US citizens, who were members of violent gangs, to the same Salvadoran hellhole. Not exactly legal.

Trump’s cringing acolytes expressed admiration for Bukele’s iron fisted arrest of tens of thousands of Salvadoran gang members, manacles, heads shaved, bent over and forced to sit jammed next to each other all day and sleep on concrete or wooden slabs. No trials. No hearings. No way out. No finite sentences. Funny, Marco Rubio used to rail at a vastly less repressive Cuba, from which his parents had escaped. As a member of Congress, he fiercely joined bipartisan efforts to decry regimes even less repressive than El Salvador.

“Marco Rubio has long been a fierce critic of dictatorial leaders who have stifled speech in their countries and crushed opposition. As a senator, [in 2019,] he spearheaded legislation and condemned ‘the ongoing repression of dissent’ in his parents’ native Cuba and repeatedly called for ‘expression not repression’ in countries like Venezuela.

“But now as secretary of state, he’s at the center of the government’s recent actions to deny visa holders entry into the U.S. or arrest and try to deport people, including a green card holder married to a U.S. citizen. Critics of the administration’s measures and those involved in the cases have said they were targeted because of their speech, their support for Palestinians or their criticism of Trump administration policies.’” Suzanne Gamboa, Carmen Sesin and Alex Tabet for the March 21st NY Times. Or simply if letting them rot without a trial, even when protected from deportation by court order, if they seemed bad (even without a shred of proof)… in Salvadoran hell.

Indeed, Trump lawyers played fast and loose with absurd explanations before federal trial courts, obviously lying or obfuscating the truth. Bondi was probably snickering to herself, since if there were to be any finding of contempt against any of her lawyers that could result in jail time, federal prisons and even the Marshals who escorted those sent to jail for contempt were under her jurisdiction. Even as brown-nosing members of Congress called for the impeachment of federal judges doing their jobs, even if their rulings justifiably were solidly against Trump’s insane policies, the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court made short work of such efforts, stating plainly that impeachment did not apply; only appeals could reverse such decisions.

Legislation still pressed through the MAGA House to deprive federal judges of issuing injunctions against administration actions, but the very notion of an equal and independent judiciary – a constitutional basic – would seem to negate that effort… if it could even pass the Senate. While there is a solid 1/3 of the electorate that would follow Trump into the raging fires of MAGA hell, if he asked, signs of Trump’s inevitable fall from grace are rising fast. The level of his failures are staggering.

Trump smugly attacked that elitest university, Harvard, the school his MAGA minions hated the most… in a brazen attempt to control every aspect of that school, from admissions to curriculum to DEI policies. He promptly cut $2.2 billion in research funding and ordered the IRS to challenge their tax-exempt status. Harvard, more than a century older than the United States itself, simply said no… soon joined by a chorus of other universities who pledged to join in supporting the resistance. Donations from loyal Harvard friends and alumni poured it… but Harvard hardly needed the money to crush this arrogant upstart bully attempting to replace the Constitution with his blind, unfounded, anti-democratic edicts.

I’m Peter Dekom, but it scares me still that the GOP is beginning to realize that are very likely to lose their majority in Congress unless… unless… Trump can figure out a way to rig the midterms or declare some sort of emergency to delay or cancel them altogether!