Hope dies last...

 

Let it begin again

 In Congress, July 4, 1776

The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America, When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.--Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.

He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.

He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.

He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.

He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.

He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.

He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the Legislative powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.

He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.

He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary powers.

He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.

He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance.

He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.

He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power.

He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:

For Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:

For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:

For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:

For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:

For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury:

For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences:

For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies:

For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:

For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.

He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.

He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.

He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.

He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.

He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.

In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our Brittish brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.

We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States; that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.

let's not let this be our new national anthem (oops)

 

JUSTICE U.S. STYLE

                 

By Carol Rosenberg

Prosecutors portrayed the prisoners as unrepentant jihadists who bragged about their roles in the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks to federal agents during their first months in military detention at Guantánamo Bay.

Defense lawyers cast the men as so broken by violence and solitary confinement in their years in C.I.A. prisons overseas that they were groomed to involuntarily confess to U.S. agents.

Over eight days this month, the two sides offered these stark, clashing views to a military judge who is now confronted with the overarching question in the long-running capital case: Did Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, who is accused of hatching and organizing the Sept. 11 attacks, and two co-defendants voluntarily incriminate themselves to F.B.I. agents years ago, and can their statements be used against them?

The case is in its 15th year of these pretrial proceedings, and no date has been set for the trial to begin. But the judge’s decision could be a turning point almost 25 years after the attacks killed nearly 3,000 people in New York, Pennsylvania and at the Pentagon.

Read more here.

          

From Roger Fitch and our friends down under...

 The Poisoning Of America

ROGER FITCH ESQ    TUESDAY, MAY 19, 2026

Trump's corruption runs wild ... The grotesque IRS "settlement" ... Scrubbing the presidential records ... DOJ's culpability ... What happens post-Trump? ... The ICE Gestapo ... Abuse on an unprecedented scale ... Some judges are standing up ... Roger Fitch's letter from Washington

 

“He is a dangerous and corrupt gangster, and that is how we must treat him … will the prime minister advise the king to call off his state visit to Washington before it’s too late? Because I really fear for what Trump might say or do while our king is forced to stand by his side. We cannot put His Majesty in that position”  –  Ed Davey, leader of the Liberal Democrats, urging the UK PM to cancel the King’s US visit. 

 

 

The King and the British know what he is. Trump has always been vain, ignorant, vengeful, dishonest, corrupt and three-quarters-crazy; he’s now a convicted fraudster, immunised from prosecution and determined to steal as much as he can in his remaining years.

 

That means shakedowns for assets, benefits and payoffs, bribes extracted for favours, e.g, pardons on a scale approaching that of the feisty Texas governor “Ma” Ferguson a century ago.

 

Mafia tactics are employed by the government’s goons and lawyers, in service to crooked businessmen, predatory billionaires, Big Tech/Crypto opportunists, right-wing and religious zealots, social outcasts and arrivistes, white racists, misogynists, the whole disaffected, atavistic lot.

 

Before Trump, they were mostly despised minorities; glued together by Trump, they made a plurality in the last election.

≈   ≈   ≈

The Justice Department is now staffed with unscrupulous men and women, nominally “lawyers”, yet free of ethics or respect for law. They run Trump’s appalling grift shop, and seek to defend his civil suits.

 

Trump’s “litigation extortion machine” grinds on: he sued the IRS for $10 billion for civilian damages to himself, a suit with no legal basis that IRS and DOJ purport to “settle” with Trump in a $1.776 billion sweetheart deal benefitting rioters.

 

The US judge ordered briefing and a hearing in this absurd, overtly corrupt case, but Trump dropped the case, announcing a “settlement” not recognised by the court.

 

The chief of the DOJ’s Office of Legal Counsel recently opined (wrongly) that the Presidential Records Act is unconstitutional; this is useful for Trump, previously apprehended by Special Counsel Jack Smith while attempting to loot the National Archives.

 

Trump wants no Nixon Tapes, no damning evidence likely to be subpoenaed.

 

Trump is determined that no prior instance of justice under Democrats or even Republicans (e.g, state voting requirements, the twice-renewed VRA) be allowed to stand. Similarly, no crime or injustice will be punished or rectified.

 

Thousands of lawyers have left the Justice Department, now party-corrupted, with lawyers so bad, DOJ seeks regulations to insulate them from state bar investigations that might result in some (including now-sacked AG Bondi) being struck off.

 

DOJ is also suing to prevent disbarment of disreputable lawyers like the Republican hacks Jeffrey Clark and Ed Martin.

 

After MAGA, the post-imperial government will have as one of its first tasks rebuilding the once-admired US justice system. There’s a model in the post-war reconstruction of the Nazi Legal System and the Allied Control Council’s Order No 4, Reorganisation of the German Judicial System.

 

As in Denazification, reversal of Trump-Law must build on the constitutional system that existed before the lawless dictatorship was established.

 

≈   ≈   ≈

 

ICE and Immigration

 

“These are marauding, fascist thugs who enjoy terrorising people. They’re in their dream job. They raid churches. They abduct people. They abduct children. They use children to abduct other people. They shot a woman in the face. They tear-gassed a car of children…They detained a 5-year-old, used him to bait his parents, and then took them all away“ – New Republic

 

Flouting of the law by the US immigration agencies ICE and CBP has grown steadily since 2005, and DOJ has been forced to admit in court that ICE policies are illegal. Tear-gas, gratuitous violence and (expedited by immigration courts) lawless deportations continue.

 

Some fear Trump is creating a personal Gestapo, as the government builds regional Konzentrationslager.

 

The camps (mostly in the old Confederacy) have appalling conditions, such as one in El Paso in far West Texas, the site of a WWII Japanese internment camp.

 

The ACLU reported on the cruel treatment of immigration detainees at Fort Bliss, and Amnesty revealed the systemic ICE brutality and actual torture at Florida’s “Alligator Alcatraz” and state-run immigration prison “Krome”.

 

Trump’s administration is heartlessly withdrawing medical care for ICE detainees, and at the same time, hiding hospital admissions from lawyers and families, violating law and ICE guidelines. People are dying.

 

There’s special malice towards immigrant children and families. The parents of at least 12,000 American children have been arrested and threatened with deportation, some entrapped at their children’s US Marine graduations.

 

ICE hides detainees from their lawyers and detains immigrants who attend Immigration

appointments for green cards or even citizenship interviews. Every arrest/detention risks ICE agents confiscating and not returning working papers and personal identification, leaving immigrants unable to defend a deportation proceeding or respond to the next request for Ihre Papiere.

 

ICE also has a vicious practice of seizing those arrested, denying bail and moving them across the country, far from family, friends and lawyers, and the courts where they might seek habeas, to face immigration courts in states (Texas, Louisiana) within the far-right Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals.

 

Paradoxically (as births attract citizenship), ICE moves pregnant girls (some raped) to Texas to avoid providing them legal abortions.

 

Southern prisons are punishment in themselves, an inducement to self-deportation, but to where? ICE attempts to send deportees, whose deportation may not yet have received due process finality, to inappropriate, dangerous or punitive (e.g, El Salvador) places. The severely disabled are not spared.

 

Prior due process is often lacking. In Texas and Louisiana, detainees face Article II immigration judges appointed (and partisanly

purged) by the government. Detainees risk prosecution by military lawyers conscripted to try civilian immigration cases.

 

The government even claims immigration agents can presume guilt.

 

The Trump-besieged immigration judges who ruled in favour of pro-Palestinian activists Rumaysa Özturk and Mohsen Mahdawi were summarily replaced, and thereafter the students lost in the Trump-infested Board of Immigration Appeals.  Both are still awaiting habeas determinations by real, Article III judges.

 

If defendants like Özturk, Mahdawi, and the long-suffering Mahmoud Khalil succeed in appearing before a federal judge, summary deportations are often enjoined: lower federal court judges have the measure of the Trump regime and are biting back.

 

According to Politico, in 90% of cases (over 10,000 proceedings), more than 425 federal judges have ruled that ICE is holding people illegally while they await deportation.

 

In order to get continued Homeland Security funding through Congress, Trump’s ICE underlings have offered to stop detaining/deporting American citizens, and stop warrantless searches and seizures that violate the 4th Amendment.

 

It’s come to that: offers to stop some illegal acts in return for funding others.

Abu Zubaydah’s torture drawings

 

Abu Zubaydah’s torture drawings A self-portrait by Abu Zubaydah, from the exhibition, "Art from Guantánamo, by Abu Zubaydah." An exhibition in London exposes the true face of U.S. barbarism. The Torture Drawings of Abu Zubaydah, Guantánamo’s “Forever Prisoner”,  “Art from Guantánamo, by Abu Zubaydah,” which is currently on display at the London School of Economics (LSE), and a report Andy Worthington from the launch last week. As Andy Worthington states, the exhibition “shows the true face of U.S. barbarism, through a collection of drawings, by Abu Zubaydah himself, depicting his horrific torture in CIA “black sites” during the four and a half years that he was held before being transferred to Guantánamo in September 2006, where he has been held ever since— in other words, for nearly 20 years — without charge or trial. The exhibition was primarily organized by his international lawyer Helen Duffy, and, if you’re in London, or anywhere near, please do consider visiting it. Entry is free, and it runs until June 5. Read the article and see the drawings here.

Free fallin....

 At first it was a slow fall and maybe repairable. 

At least I thought so back in 2005 when I joined the ranks of attorneys fighting for the habeas corpus rights of Guantanamo detainees. But it has been a slippery slope and the downward spiral started with the dumbing down of my fellow country people. The dumbing down began in earnest in the early 1980's with Reagan and his malicious crew. Pulling money from education was a long term project but it went hand in hand first, with cable TV and the fixation with watching the tube 24 hours a day, instead of engaging in anything resembling critical thinking. 

And then following quickly on those heels was the "war on drugs" -which was really a war against people of color here in the good ole U S of A. This in turn resulted in the mass incarceration of black and brown people and the booming prison business. It wasn't quite the indefinite detention without charges that took place with Guantanamo but in some respects it was very similar. The people of color were charged and convicted but many, oh so many, were convicted falsely. Confessions tortured out of people, many of whom were the fallout of both the war on education and the war on drugs. 

And then came the internet. The distraction and the disinformation coincided with a population that was (and is) clueless. There of course was much more going on in between but in a nutshell these events helped my fellow Americans elect a two bit mentally unbalanced con man, who had already squandered millions on failed business ventures (resulting in five bankruptcies over his adult life) to become the president of my country.

And although he is inept at most things, he does know how to make himself rich and how to surround himself with loyal idiots who will not question anything that he does. No matter the harm to this country or the world. The con man is not only bankrupting this country, morally and financially, he is wreaking havoc on a fragile world. And he cares not. 

And "his people" care not.

And here we are. Free falling and taking the rest of the world with us.

The talking dog calls it a day

 It is a long post- and well worth the entire read. I couldn't decide where to start and stop but here is my abbreviated version. Go and read the whole thing.... link at the bottom

And then shit got real, really fast. In a surprise to no one except the alleged American president and his lackey the [alcoholic and quite mentally disturbed] alleged Secretary of War, Iran did not fold. Instead, Iran began attacking ship traffic in the Straits of Hormuz, through which around 20% of the world’s crude oil transits, and began firing missiles and drones at various targets throughout the Middle East, especially American military targets, and Israel. It was quickly discovered that despite the hype, the Americans and their allies had a very limited supply of extremely expensive interceptor missiles, and that Iran seemed to have an endless supply of drones (and a whole lot more missiles than anyone anticipated). And so, with a shooting war in place that every single American president (including the first iteration of this one in 2017-2021) understood would have disastrous global consequences, strategically, economically, politically, you name it, the markets responded by sending the price of a barrel of oil way up over $100/bbl (with attendant U.S. gasoline prices going from $2 something a gallon to over $4 something a gallon) and attendant stock market losses, the alleged American president watched his already anemic approval ratings hit hitherto unknown lows.

For their part, the Iranians started playing favorites, and began allowing ship traffic in the Straits of Hormuz to pass if they paid a toll (around $2 million) and were from favored countries (most notably NOT the USA or Israel). Further infuriating the alleged American president.

So… when the going gets tough… the grifters get insider trading. And thus, every Friday, just after financial markets closed, the alleged American president would announce some fanciful progress in negotiations that would result in the war being over within hours, and of course, the Iranians would then deny everything, in the interim, large trades would mysteriously be placed on various financial markets, and then, come Monday, profits would be taken, lather, rinse, repeat. Until Mr. Market stopped playing. And the Iranians stopped playing too. The Iranians also got really good at posting mocking Lego-movie videos, featuring the alleged American president and his humiliations at the hands of the Iranians (whom he kept insisting lost their navy, their air force, their air defenses…)

At which point, the alleged American president began to truly panic, and start posting shit on his proprietary social media platform that was unhinged even for him. This was his Easter Sunday posting:

Kind of weird that his first term was dominated by failed contentions of “Infrastructure Week,” when after four years, he managed to barely build sections of his Medieval border wall. But wrecking Iran’s infrastructure… definitely on the table.

And despite all of his bluster, Iran continued to fight back, forcing the U.S. to abandon most of its bases in the Middle East, its embassy in Iraq, and forcing two of its supercarriers to sail hundreds of miles away from the Persian Gulf to be out of range of Iranian drones and missiles.

And so, the alleged American president who was supposedly obsessed with nuclear weapons during his first term (largely because he is a moron) has decided to double-down on the threats of violence, by having one of his psychopathic aides (I would guess Stephen Miller) draft his latest social media posts suggesting that “a whole civilization will die tonight.” The alleged president has backed off of his threats so many times thus far that an acronym (“TACO”) has been developed to suggest he “always chickens out.” Perhaps humanity’s future is dependent on “TACO Tuesday” actually coming to pass.

I don’t know. I just know that enough American racists just loved the idea of one of their own back in power, notwithstanding that his last go-round resulted in the gross mismanagement of a healthcare crisis that resulted in over a million Americans dying and tens of millions infected with a debilitating disease, possibly for life, to decide to bring this senile moron back. But this ill-mannered imbecile who now suffers from age related dementia (including vile diet and exercise habits) has access– exclusive access– to the American nuclear codes, and has clearly threatened to use them against a nation that presented no threat to us until he unilaterally attacked it. It’s possible that enough senior members of the military haven’t been purged who will refuse to follow blatantly illegal orders; it’s also possible that they will go through with what the commander in chief tells them.

I don’t know anymore. There were and are things I’d still like to do. One of which is see the Loquacious Pup continue to prosper, as she pursues an advanced degree (unfortunately out of state so I can’t be with her now). I’m sure the same is true for most of you. We all have unfinished business. But unless something I am not anticipating steps up and thwarts the imbecile who can now kill us all in the name of his petty racist hatreds, all of our business may be finished for us in days, if not hours.

I would just like to tell the Loquacious Pup, Mrs. TD, TD Mom, TD Brother and Sister and their kids, and my late TD Dad, and all of my friends and my comrades, I love you all. I don’t know how much that means to you, but it means everything to me. If those in charge were capable of love– and there is no evidence that they are– maybe we wouldn’t be facing what might be the end of everything.

Continue the conversation

Link to the whole post.

we the people do not want a war...

 

From Roger Fitch and our friends down under (updated)

 

America’s Ozymandias

ROGER FITCH ESQ    THURSDAY, APRIL 2, 2026

 

Roger Fitch, our man in Washington, examines three elements driving the United States towards the abyss ... War ... Corruption ... And, one man's maniacal ego

“The lion’s share of blame for the wreckage this presidency is causing lies of course with Donald Trump himself; it is his whims, his prejudices, his bottomless corruption, his stupidity, and his malignant hatreds that propel it forward. But those with whom he has surrounded himself form a group unlike any we have seen before. When they prostrate themselves before him in those North Korean-style cabinet meetings, we see how pathetic they are, people with vast power yet not a shred of dignity” – Paul Waldman, Public Notice

 

“Anger defines Mr. Trump’s decade on the political stage. Anger at foreigners who come to this country and change its nature. Anger at allies who take advantage of America. Anger at Democrats who cross him. Anger at Republicans who cross him. Anger at appointees he deems insufficiently loyal. Anger at prosecutors, F.B.I. agents, judges, journalists, law firms, elite universities, cultural figures, corporate leaders, pollsters, central bankers and the Norwegian Nobel Committee” – Peter Baker, New York Times

 

“His contempt for law is … foundational. He treats courts as legitimate only when they serve him. He recasts legal accountability as persecution. He elevates loyalty over legality, impulse over judgment, grievance over governance. Mobs are not an aberration but a tool—summoned, legitimized, and, eventually, pardoned“ – Harold Litman

 

“This nation …cannot always remain at peace, and has no right to expect that it will always have wise and humane rulers, sincerely attached to the principles of the Constitution. Wicked men, ambitious of power, with hatred of liberty and contempt of law, may fill the place once occupied by Washington and Lincoln; and if this right is conceded, and the calamities of war again befall us, the dangers to human liberty are frightful to contemplate” – Ex parte Milligan (1866)

War

Donald Trump is a wicked man; Iran is a wicked war, stupid and irrational, a foreign policy blunder Trump began in 2017.

It’s also unconstitutional. Here’s the two-page letter the US provided to the UN Security Council justifying the invasion, claiming “self-defence” and “preventative war”.

There seems to have been no planning, other than the deception itself, reminiscent of the Japanese in 1941, negotiating peace in Washington while launching the Pearl Harbour attack in the Pacific.

Trump’s double-cross decoy of the Iranians, pretending to negotiate while preparing to attack, has now happened twice. The second time, it led to an unlawful war of aggression, joined by the lawless Israelis.

The US is now seen as untrustworthy, even treacherous.

Though entirely illegal, the war is reported as if Israel and the US were the good guys. In fact, Trump’s unauthorised, senseless, war-criminal attacks should be added to his list of impeachable offences.

Corruption

“[B]efore Trump, lying presidents and lying elected officials tried to make it seem they were not lying. Corrupt presidents and corrupt elected officials tried to make it seem they were not corrupt. With Trump and his banditos, there are no such games of pretend … Trump and his band of racists, profiteers, scoundrels, and flunkies seem high on their shamelessness. They defiantly flaunt their brazenness. They revel in their exploitation of power and their embrace of violence, dishonesty, intimidation, and brutality. Look what we can get away with. This has always been a favourite fix for Trump: conning suckers” – David Corn, Mother Jones

With the immunity the supreme court gave Trump, corruption is now on an industrial scale. Trump family wealth is up 70%. Everything is for sale: in six months, AG Pam Bondi dropped 23,000 criminal cases, surely suspicious.

Corporate bribery is reciprocal: taxpayer baksheesh may be paid to companies (even French ones) who implement perverse government policy incentives, e.g, replacing windmills with oilrigs.

Trump and the Republicans are providing “elite immunity” for people and companies who aren’t elite, only corruptly-privileged. Perhaps it’s natural that an administration run by a convicted criminal has, as one of its main goals, providing impunity for financial crimes perpetuated by its accomplices and supporters.

As Paul Krugman observed,

“There are people in positions of great power in the U.S. government engaged in evil conspiracies against everything that is good and decent … But there are no evil masterminds behind this. Only amoral, stupid grifters like Howard Lutnick … While MAGA-world’s fantasy villains like George Soros are brilliant and subtle, MAGA’s real villains are uncouth and dim-witted. Yet they carry out their sinister schemes in broad daylight. For all they need to flourish is utter shamelessness, along with the backing of a corrupt administration and a corrupt political party.” 

Insider trading is rampant. In the digital era, one must find out when a convenient change will occur, and that’s increasingly in the control of one erratic, indeed insane man.

Krugman believes Trump’s social media postings and counter-postings reveal organised insider trading, and in matters of national security, treason, by Trump underlings and other members of his crooked entourage.

Crime (white collar) never had a better year in the US than 2025, where one of their own (34 fraud counts) is US president, and the role of the Justice Department has changed from upholding the law to one of facilitating such criminal activity, Congress be damned.

Sadly, dropping fraud cases and pardoning convicted white-collar criminals, even those who pleaded guilty, also deprives the government and defrauded consumers of valuable court-ordered compensation.

Make America Gauche Again

The vanity-vandalism of Donald Trump would be funny if it weren’t so destructive. He’s determined to install bad taste in once elegant and sophisticated Washington, DC, and elsewhere.

The pathetic monomania of America’s Ozymandias is everywhere. Not content that Florida has agreed to rename Palm Beach’s airport, “President Donald J. Trump International Airport“, he now seeks other transportation hubs, wanting to rename both New York’s Penn Station and Washington’s regional Dulles Airport (DIA) after himself.

With trademark crassness, Trump pre-emptively sought trademark protection for “DJT” so he can usurp for himself the brand benefits (e.g, sale of tat) for any airport using his name/initials. He is already modelling merchandise from his online shop (MAGA caps) at official functions (e.g, cabinet meetings) and, shamefully, at observances for returning dead soldiers.

Beyond the ego vandalism – eg, purporting to rename Washington’s Institute for Peace and Kennedy Center after himself, there has been a flood of Louis XV-inspired kitsch in the White House itself: whorehouse décor Trump’s grandfather might have employed at his goldfields “hotels” in the 19th century.

No one expected the tasteless lower-class Trump to destroy cultural institutions or impose his edifice complex, a tacky White House ballroom (currently-blocked) and colossal Arch de Trump, on DC.

In Miami, another cash shakedown is underway, a widely-ridiculed and gold-bedecked 50-storey Presidential Library, with hotel rooms.