U.S. Stock Market Traders Easily Manipulated By Crude Grifter Trump

We hear a lot of chatter about how Trump's mad tariff war on the entire world has wiped out wealth that was stored in the stock markets.  But what I haven't noticed is media attention to how easily Trump causes sharp daily rallies in stocks with a mere feint, a head fake of a comment implying some fabulous resolution to the tariff war he's started with the rest of the world that's going to happen. (When? Don't ask.) Starting with announcing a 90 day "pause" in imposing tariffs (excluding, crucially, China), having his Treasury Secretary, Scott "The Stock Market Whisperer" Bessent play Good Cop and periodically claim that "talks" are imminent, or maybe happening, or going to happen, or "a lot" of countries have "called" (always refusing to answer the question, "How many countries have called?"), and Trump making various vague statements that stock speculators for some strange reason find reassuring, like crying babies being shushed by having a pacifier stuck in their mouths, Trump and his accomplices have shown themselves able to cause sharp stock market rallies repeatedly over the past month. The low point for U.S. stocks was on April 8th, but since then the S&P 500 is up over 8% midday today, and the Nasdaq is up 10%, over 1,500 points. So for just over two weeks stocks have basically been in an uptrend, with ever sharper up days. 

Bessent was at it again today, opining that both U.S. tariffs on China and vice versa had to come down before talks could begin. (Notice the U.S., that is Trump, hasn't actually LOWERED the tariffs to facilitate talks. I guess they want China, which has lower tariffs (125%) on U.S. goods versus the 145% imposed on China by Trump, to go first. 

Here's an example of what a bamboozler Trump is, and how utterly STUPID U.S. financial markets are- that is, the people trading stocks all day, every day, are.

Today, Trump at about 11:20 am East Coast time, spewed a spray of empty blather about how great everything is going to be, how rich America is going to be, how "happy" everyone in the WORLD is going to be. Stuff he says year after year, just shilling as this grifter con man always does. But here's the key tell, to use a poker term:

Trump: "We are going to have a fair deal with China."

Reporter manages to inject a question into the Trumpian stream of consciousness rave: "Are you talking to them actively?"

Trump: "Actively? Everything is active." And he keeps talking, but not about China or negotiations or anything at all, just his usual repetitive upbeat con man blather. Notice how he evaded the question. The tell is that he dodged the question. He didn't say "Yes, we are talking to the Chinese." 

The U.S. isn't even in negotiations with China while exorbitant tariffs remain in place. (145% tariffs Trump imposed on Chinese imports, 125% ones China imposed in retaliation on U.S. imports to China.) Plus, Trump still won't stop lying and claiming that the tariffs will be paid by Chinese companies. That's not how tariffs work. Tariffs are paid at the point of entry to a country, paid by the importer. That is, whatever comes from China will be 145% more expensive for the U.S. importing company.

But the people who trade stocks apparently don't understand any of this. They are pushing stocks up hard today, as they also did yesterday. Another "reason" is not just what is misinterpreted as a softening of Trump's position on tariffs, or progress (!) in non-existent negotiations, but the fact that Trump changed his tune on Federal Reserve Board Chairman Jerome Powell, who he had been publicly attacking for days because Powell isn't lowering interest rates. (Another Trump distortion of reality- the chairman of the Fed cannot raise and lower interest rates on his own. That requires a vote by the Fed Open Market committee, on which the chairman has only one vote.) Trump had been publicly threatening to "fire" Powell, which he does not have the legal authority to do, but as we have seen, Trump has been doing many illegal things since January 20 when he became president again, or rather dictator as he prefers, including firing officials illegally. Seeing that the stock and bond markets were upset, Trump stopped calling Powell a "loser" (the worst epithet there is in Trump's mind, a product of his pathological upbringing by his sick father, Fred)  and said he wasn't going to "fire" Powell after all. Or rather, he merely said he has no "plan" to fire Powell. Like he ever needs a "plan" for his arbitrary and vengeful acts. 

Yet for some reason, this typical Trump capricious (and meaningless, if you parse it like I just did) change of rhetoric completely reassured the financial speculators, and the stock market especially has been off to the races in an oingoing so-called "relief rally." (As of noon, the rally is off the highs but still up 2% to 3% in the major averages, the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq..The DOW is a mere 30 stocks, so it is silly to use it as a weather vane.)

Given the relentless bias to drive stocks always higher, and the mindless chauvinistic optimism of American financial speculators, one must always assume that pushing U.S. stocks down is as hard as pushing an inflated ball underwater. It will always forcefully push upwards. The 1929-1940 stock market drought must be seen as an anomaly in the modern era. (The completely unregulated 19th century cannot be used for comparison. In that century, there was an economic panic or crisis or depression about every decade.)

                           "What, you BELIEVED that??"

Trump's Impossible Demands To Maybe Possibly Think About LOWERING His Globally Destructive Tariffs Somewhat- And the Trump Dictatorship

Elimination of U.S. trade deficits is the demand Trump has frequently repeated. That has been an obsession of Trump's for years.

He thinks trade deficits mean the U.S. is getting "ripped off." He constantly asserts that "We've been treated very badly for so long." No, trade deficits mean Americans get to live off the labor and resources of poorer (and not poorer) nations! Americans get to buy and consume products and food for much less than it would cost to produce domestically, get food that cannot be grown in the U.S. (like coffee and bananas), and American businesses get manufactured parts and products for less cost.

The other nations get dollars.

And what happens with the dollars earned by other nations? They go into funding U.S. budget deficits by buying Treasury bonds!

So how is the U.S. suffering? How is it getting "ripped off" and "taken advantage of by everyone for years," as Trump has complained for years, with great bitterness?  In fact, the U.S. has a great racket going.

Until wrecker Trump came along.

How will it be possible for, say, Vietnam, or Mexico, to NOT run a trade deficit with the U.S.? There is just too much that America as a country, as businesses, as people, want from those and many other countries, and not enough those countries can buy from the U.S. So it is an impossible demand. That means there is no plausible end in sight for the Trump tariff economic terrorism unless Trump suddenly flips his script and declares victory ("We won a great victory it's the biggest win in American history!" he'd brag in his run-on sentences style of speaking, or some such boastful blather.)

Trump has been falsely calling his punitive tariffs, intended to extort submission to his demands, as "reciprocal." Establishment media has been mindlessly parroting this fake adjective. They aren't reciprocal, because they aren't a response to any actions by the victim nations, and they are MUCH MUCH HIGHER than the tariffs those nations impose, which were in single digits until Trump started his economic warfare on the world. Trump imposed tariffs on every nation on earth, and on uninhabited territories as well.
 

A big "Fuck You!" to the World

Trump also demands that all other nations completely eliminate all tariffs on U.S. exports, and maybe he'll lower his tariffs, and on top of that eliminate all alleged "internal barriers" to U.S. exports in those countries as well as subsidies to their industries, be eliminated. (By the way, the U.S. does a lot of subsidizing of U.S. business. For example, the oil and gas business. Mining. Semiconductors. The list goes on.)

And it just so happens that a large proportion of the imports he whines about are imports by U.S. companies manufacturing their products in other countries to low the costs of production. Which is a good thing for Americans buying products and for workers in the producer countries who are provided income.

On the other hand, many American blue collar workers have been left in the lurch by this economic globalization of supply chains. To the shame of both U.S. parties of the ruling political cartel (Democratic and Republican parties) virtually nothing was done to help that class of worker.

The result is that they were ripe for the picking by a lying, deceitful, false-promising demagogue like Trump. Here's an example of the braying bombast typical of Trump, claiming he will deliver Great Things by his malicious, destructive actions: "We're going to become a wealthy nation again wealthy like never before." 

Nevertheless, even though Trump got around 74 million votes or so each time he ran, he NEVER won a free and fair election. In 2016, Hillary Clinton got about 2 million more votes than Trump, but the Electoral College, that anachronistic relic of post-colonial days, "elected" Trump president.

In 2020 Trump first tried to steal the election by getting state election officials to lie about the outcome after the votes were counted, then on January 6, 2021 sent a mob to invade the Capitol to prevent the formal certification of Biden as the victor in the Electoral College. The mob's mission included hanging Trump's vice president, Michael Pence, and murdering House Speaker Nancy Pelosi if they could get their hands on her.

Stunningly, and ominously, Trump was allowed to get away with this coup attempt by a combination of Democratic Party fecklessness and dilatory action, and the Republican Judiciary's protection of Trump, most crucially the Republican Party-controlled Supreme Court. These days Trump still bellows that the 2020 election was "stolen" from him, and now he adds that he should have simply stayed in office. 

And in 2024, as the journalist Greg Palast has documented with government data, several million black voters were either denied the right to vote at all, or had their ballots invalidated by Republican state officials. That made the difference between losing and winning for their Leader, Trump.

Trump has made himself a dictator, ignoring laws and court rulings about his kidnaps and renderings of foreign citizens legally in the U.S. to a prison in El Salvador, mass firings of government workers, shutting down entire departments and agencies created by Congress, impounding the funds appropriated by Congress, illegally firing key officials and purging the government of its internal watchdogs against corruption, such as Inspectors General.

So it is only logical that this dictator, Trump, and his accomplices, including the sinister Steve Bannon, are now saying that Trump will run for a third term, in blatant violation of the U.S. Constitution, which forbids it. Given Republican control of enough states to swing the Electoral College result, it seems more likely than not that Trump can accomplish his monstrosity.

If that happens, we will have to say goodbye to the illusion of American democracy. It's past time to wake up from that 200-plus year dream
 

Trump Threatens Again To Seize Greenland From NATO "Ally" Denmark

In his daily stream-of-consciousness rant today, King Trump threatened to send more U.S. troops to Greenland, obviously to affect an occupation of that sovereign Danish territory. And again, he insisted the U.S. needs to annex Greenland for U.S. "national security."  [1]

He also still says Canada would be "beautiful" as the 51th state of the U.S.

So the U.S. is threatening two members of the U.S.-created and bosses NATO military alliance with hostile seizures, in the case of Canada the complete extinction of that nation.

Yet media propagandists still refer to Canada and Denmark as U.S. "allies." Allies do not threaten allies territory, sovereignty, and continued existence as nations.

The assembled poodles pretending to be journalists meekly pretended all this is normal and reasonable.
Let me remind you, the U.S. has since World War II maintained military bases on Greenland. Denmark has been most cooperative about this. Also Greenland is inhabited by a civilian population. Of course what they might want doesn't figure in Trump's dictatorial mind.

Let me remind you, the U.S. has since World War II maintained military bases on Greenland. Denmark has been most cooperative about this. Also Greenland is inhabited by a civilian population. Of course what they might want doesn't figure in Trump's dictatorial mind.

It's about time the European lapdogs who run those countries stop pretending the U.S. is their ally and protector. Yet instead, they are racing to assure Trump that they will meet his outrageous demand that they spend the equivalent of 5% of their gross national products (their economies) on "defense." Which actually means buying weapons from U.S. weapons manufacturers. NATO requires "standardization" of weapons, which means for the expensive stuff, largely U.S. ones.

The U.S. doesn't spend 5% of GDP on the military (well, maybe if you count Veterans Affairs, part of NASA, the 2/3rds of the Department of Energy's budget that is for nuclear warhead assembly, disassembly, and research, and more here and there, it might approach 3%), nor should it. NO nation should mindlessly base its military budgets on a percentage of GDP. Instead it should evaluate potential threats, determine the military forces and equipment needed to deal with the threats and their costs, and appropriate the right amount of money. But to my knowledge, NOT A SINGLE POLITICIANS OR MEDIA JABBERER HAS EVER POINTED OUT THIS OBVIOUS FACT OR CHALLENGED THE % DEMANDS!! 

Just how mindlessly conformist are these elite jackasses?

Very conformist, apparently.

Trump can wave the "national security" magical wand to justify anything because that is EXACTLY how that phrase has been used for decades to justify U.S. aggression, U.S. repression inside and outside the U.S., and various U.S. crimes, AND the secrecy used to suppress awareness of these crimes from the American people. A good chunk of those people would support the crimes anyway, contrary to the delusions of leftists who think that if "the people only knew" the truth they would rise up in righteous anger blah blah. The fact that there are always large numbers of reactionaries, national chauvinists- aka "patriots"- racists, and fascists eludes leftists and is the reason that their favorite slogan, "The People, United, Will Never Be Defeated" is fatuous and dangerously misleading. The people are rarely united. The only times they are are during some wars.

"National Security" is NEVER DEFINED by those throwing it around. It really means U.S. POWER. Pure and simple, that is the real meaning. Whether talking about global domination, or suppression of domestic dissidents, that is what they do behind the veil of "national security." And only those with "security clearances," that is, those deemed to have the correct ideological mindset, get to know the details of the dirty crimes being committed behind the veil of "national security."

        He whom the Gods would make King, they first make mad. (Or maybe just drunk on power.)

1] Referring to Greenland, Mad King Trump said "We really need it for national security. Maybe we'll send more and more soldiers. What do you think of that Pete?" [Talking to Peter Hegseth, the alcoholic rapist Trump and the GOP Senators made Secretary of Defense. I did not hear an audible response from Hegseth.]

 

Stock Market Speculators Finally Get It Through Their Thick Skulls That Trump Isn't Bluffing About Tariffs

This afternoon U.S. stock markets suddenly nose-dived while Trump was announcing that ruinous 25% tariffs on Mexico and Canada take effect tomorrow. Given Trump's oft-declared love of tariffs, and his use of them in his previous incarnation as president of the U.S., it was idiotic of the blockheads who drive stock prices hither and yon in manic-depressive fashion to have ever doubted him on tariffs.

One thing that needs explaining is why are the corporate bosses whose businesses stand to suffer greatly from the tariffs are so supine and acquiescent about this. The auto manufacturers make much of their car parts- like engines, rather important!- in Canada and Mexico. Their profit margins are below 10%. A 25% tariff means either they LOSE money selling cars, or the number of cars they sell drops by a lot because they have to hike the sale prices.

Then there are the high tariffs on imports from China, which Trump just increased. Many, many goods sold in the U.S., as well as parts for products, are still made in China. You just cannot erase a nation of 1.2 billion people which has developed a huge and extraordinarily diversified manufacturing base, from the U.S. economy.

Trump's fantasy is that the outsourcing of much U.S. manufacturing to cheaper labor sites outside the U.S., a massive movement that has occurred over decades, can be quickly put into reverse and thousands of new factories suddenly open inside the U.S.

It is an example of Trump's de facto dictatorial powers that U.S. corporate sector isn't in rebellion against this. Every other U.S. president has mostly catered to the whims of corporations and big capital. Occasionally they have to do things that displease that sector. Theodore Roosevelt had to break up some trusts. Franklin Roosevelt had to institute a thin social safety net (paid for by workers as well as companies). But there has never been such an assault on corporate interests as what Trump has been doing.

Very inconsistent of the corporations and their media propagandists. They used to scream "Socialist!" at the drop of a hat of any Democratic president proposed anything at all that tilted slightly progressive. But with Trump, it's grovel and kiss his ass.

But hey, that Putin is such an autocrat! All the rich "oligarchs" there tremble and survive only on his sufferance! How UNLIKE the "free and democratic" U.S.A.!

Trump To Ukraine- Your Rare Earth Minerals Or Your Life

On February 28, 2025, Career Extortionist Donald John Trump got unexpected resistance from Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky. Trump had summoned Zelensky to the White House to sign an agreement to hand over to the U.S. (presumably U.S. corporations in favor with Trump) half the revenues from Ukraine's natural resources- the minerals, oil, natural gas. In return for- basically nothing. No guarantee of military aid, intelligence aid, nothing. Just a typical Trump move, vague rhetoric, nothing enforceable. Nothing Trump has any intention of enforcing. [1]

Trump's shakedown attempt failed, so far. Zelensky was describing his view of the history of the war with Russia. Trump didn't want to hear it. He laid into Zelensky, saying he doesn't have "the cards," meaning he's playing with a weak hand, while Trump held the, well, trump card of U.S. war support. (Recall that Trump in his previous go at being president, briefly delayed delivering military supplies to Ukraine in a clumsy effort to get information on the corrupt Biden family doings in Ukraine, which pro-Democratic Party media dismissed as "dirt" without mentioning the outrageous, openly corrupt deal that Biden son Hunter got from Ukrainian gas company Burisma- a seat on the corporate board for $50,000 a MONTH, for several years. That's a multi-million dollar not very well disguised bribe to the Biden family. Incredibly dishonest hiding of the facts by Democratic Party politicians and their media allies. Oh, and Trump was actually impeached by the Democrats for that delay. Needless to say, the Republicans, who have memories as long as their party symbol, the elephant, never forgot or forgave.)

In yesterday's meeting, Trump rebuked Zelensky for being "very disrespectful," and "you're not being thankful, and that's not a nice thing." (Trump always accuses people who stand up to him of being "not nice," and worse.) Trump's vice president, the slippery opportunist J.D. Vance, jumped on Zelensky, with an accusatory rhetorical question, "have you said thank you once," and then revealed a festering grudge, denouncing Zelensky for "campaigning for the opposition" (that is, Biden) last October. (Of course "campaigning for" is a matter of interpretation. Don't trust Vance's.)

Trump bellowed at Zelensky that he was losing the war, and using the fact that the Ukrainian military is dependent on U.S. weapons and ordnance, armaments that Europe cannot manufacture as leverage, his ranting made clear that Ukraine had no choice but to give in to Trump's extortion.

Or so Trump thought, and evidently had previously calculated.

Zelensky didn't back down, however, so he was effectively thrown out of the White House in front of the assembled media. The schedule joint lunch didn't happen.

Conveniently on hand outside the White House to verbally excoriate Zelensky was Trump's number one Senate stooge, Lindsey Graham of South Carolina. He rabidly attacked Zelensky, and insisted Zelensky would have to go unless he changed his attitude. (Graham often thinks he has the right to choose the heads of other nations' governments, a consistent imperialist impulse.) Among the things Trump's barking dog Graham said about Zelensky was "The way he confronted the President was over the top." All Zelensky did was try to talk back to Trump, a major offense when dealing with an Emperor-King.

 

Meanwhile USAID had cut off an infrastructure program in Ukraine, all USAID programs having been cancelled by Secretary of State Marco Rubio, the reactionary Florida Cuban Trump plucked from the Senate for a cabinet post, and Elon Musk and the fake "Department" Trump created, DOGE, for "Department Of Government Efficiency." A deceptive name for what should be called Artificial Department Of Government Dismantling Or Destruction, ADOGOD.

After leaving the meeting where he was dressed down by Trump and Vance, Zelensky posted Thank-Yous to Trump, America, and the American people, on Trump hitman Elon Musk's propaganda site, X (formerly Twitter). Zelensky has thanked the U.S. and Europe innumerable times during the war.

On Ukraine, Trump is right that it cannot win the war. However the way he wants to end it mirrors what he did in Afghanistan, when he negotiated with the Taliban, cutting the Afghan government completely out of the process, and leaving it to his successor, Biden, to pull the rug out from under the client regime that depended on the U.S. for its survival. That regime collapsed as soon as the U.S. hastily retreated, or "cut and ran," an oft-used expression in U.S. discourse by war mongers but was strangely absent in the Afghan case, when it perfectly applied in a very literal sense. The result of handing over that country to the medieval and deranged Taliban has been awful for the Afghan people, and especially horrendous for Afghan women, who are now banned from employment and education and virtually imprisoned as housework and breeding slaves in their homes. 

But Trump cannot totally cut the Ukrainian government out of the picture as it is much stronger than the Afghan regime and unlike that regime, has the support of its population which supports the war effort except in the eastern portions of the country, which seceded after the U.S. coup and was bombed and shelled by the Kyiv regime, which waged war on it, Russia supporting the secessionists. Europe also support Kyiv, although it will not be able to manufacture weapons and ordnance of the type and in the quantities the U.S. has been supplying. Hence Trump's arm-twisting of the Ukrainians.

Unfortunately the U.S. put Ukraine in this difficult position. Just a few days after the Russian invasion in February 2022, Putin initiated negotiations with Zelensky about an agreement to end the war, which at that point Russia's thrust to Kyiv was grinding to a halt. The U.S. immediately stopped that. British prime minister at the time Boris "Bojo The Clown" Johnson" immediately rushed to Kyiv to pull Zelensky away from the negotiation path. The talks with Russia were promising. 

Then Ukraine went on  to achieve victories in the war. In the fall of 2022 Ukraine was at its high point of military success. This isn't mere hindsight. The chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, the highest U.S. military officer,  general Mark Milley, said at that time that it wouldn't get better for Ukraine and this was the time to seek an end to the war. [2]

However, then-president Joe Biden was always an aggressive war monger in Ukraine for years. He rejected that option. So he doomed Ukraine to ultimate defeat. (As Obama's vice president, he pushed for weapons to be sent to Ukraine, but Obama demurred, opting for just training missions.)

There are larger ways in which the U.S. painted Ukraine into this corner. There was the U.S.-instigated fascist led coup of 2014, ordered by Obama, with high U.S. officials on the ground in Kyiv agitating, most notoriously Victoria Nuland of the State Department, and people like (now dead) U.S. Senator and rabid militarist John McCain.

And then there's the original sin. President George "Bush The Younger" Bush in 2008 strong-armed NATO, over objections from Germany and France, into declaring that Georgia and Ukraine would be brought into NATO. Russia immediately howled that this was intolerable. (The German chancellor at the time, Angela Merkel, says she knew this would never fly with Russia, but being a U.S. lapdog, as are all bourgeois European "leaders," she went along with the U.S. diktat.)

Most of the U.S. imperialist elite, being drunk on its power as usual, thought they could just shove it down Russia's throat, just as they had shoved down two earlier NATO expansions after the collapse of the Soviet Union down Russia's throat, betraying a promise made to Mikhail Gorbachev, the last, ill-fated head of the U.S.S.R., that NATO would not expand "one inch to the east" in return for the Soviets not to stand in the way of the absorption of East Germany by West Germany. (So-called "reunification," although by that time East Germany was a very different country from West Germany, just as Austria is different from Germany, regardless of the fact that all speak German. Hell, the U.S., Britain, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and a bunch of other places all speak English. They're far from identical places.) William "Bill" Clinton expanded NATO in 1999, followed by another expansion by Bush and the notorious declaration at that 2008 NATO summit in Bucharest, Romania, NATO having already planted its flag that far east. NATO was created as an anti-Soviet military alliance by the U.S., with the obligation on the U.S. to go to war with the U.S.S.R. if that nation attacked any NATO member.

Why is bringing Ukraine into NATO a red line for Russia? Because the U.S. could put nuclear ballistic missiles in that country, as it has nuclear weapons all over Europe, which could annihilate the Russian government and key targets in a few minutes. No one enjoys having a loaded gun pointed at one's head, even if the person holding the gun purrs that it's strictly for self-defense! That is a form of coercive leverage. Moreover, imagine if China overthrew the government of Canada and Mexico, and brought one of those countries into an anti-U.S. military bloc. The U.S. wouldn't wait 8 years to invade, as Russia did after the 2014 U.S. coup. It would invade in 8 days!

UK prime minister tried to make up for the Trump gang's brutal treatment of Zelensky the next day, March 1st, warmly welcoming him with a crowd to provide cheers. The U.S. move to abandon Ukraine also go the backs up of people in Ukraine.

The fact is, in various ways, Trump is effectively forcing Europe to move towards independence from the U.S., finally, 80 year after the end of World War II in 1945. Not that that's Trump's intent, just a positive byproduct of his hostile and economically destructive actions. (Did someone say, "Tariffs"?) So while the Democratic Party and the U.S. imperialist elite are aghast at Trump's baseball bat whacks at the U.S. alliance system, which the U.S. has totally dominated, I think it's about time that system broke down. I'm an anti-imperialist, you see. Because all empires are in fact criminal enterprises that use violence, the threat of violence, and various forms of coercion to subjugate other peoples and economically exploit them and their resources, often to extreme degrees. Empires are not "glorious," contrary to their propagandists, including many so-called historians.
=========================================================================
CODA AND FOOTNOTE 

In a sense, Trump's bullying of Ukraine is far from unique in U.S. imperialist history. It's just a throwback to 19th century type imperialism, which was cruder than what we've come to expect, at least in appearance. We did have the unprovoked invasion of Iraq by George Bush, and thousands of assassinations (including of Americans, some in the U.S.) by Barack "The Drone Assassin" Obama.

But with Trump, you have a person who is a bully, with the power of the most powerful position on earth. That is not a happy combination. Oh, and he's currently using that power to deconstruct pieces of the U.S. government, including the IRS. That alone with make the Federal deficit worse. The pretend deficit hawks of the GOP (Gang Of Plunderers) are onboard with that. The Trump-Musk regime has already fired several thousand IRS employees, including some in enforcement.

Every dollar spent on the IRS brings in more than a dollar in revenue. Every dollar spent auditing the rich brings in $6 in revenue. Those audits are now being virtually eliminated.

This is just greedy rich people cutting their taxes. While doing this, they and the lying corporate media pretend that the deficit is caused by Social Security and Medicare. That is one gigantic BIG LIE. Social Security and Medicare run annual SURPLUSES. Yes, by 2035 Social Security is expected to take in less in payroll tax contributions than it pays out. So it will make up the difference by tapping into its gigantic multi-trillion dollar trust fund. Big deal. That is not "bankruptcy," as demagogic politicians and dishonest media propagandists call it. And here's an easy fix: remove the cap on income subject to FICA tax so people who make millions a year in income (even a billion in some cases!) pay the tax on their full income. Right now poor people pay FICA starting on the first dollar of wages. (Unlike the income tax, there is no standard deduction under FICA.)

Those annual Social Security trust fund surpluses are spent by the government on other activities to reduce the annual deficit. Treasury bonds are placed in the trust fund in return. Of course those bonds then have to be paid off eventually, with interest, with other Federal revenue- income taxes, fees, tariffs, asset seizures ("forfeitures"), whatever.

This years-long attack on Social Security as the cause of deficits indicates that the rich oligarchs won't be satisfied until their taxes are set at zero, and they get even more hundreds of billions in government welfare than they already do every year. (Notice "welfare" is a dirty word in the U.S., and is only applied to the pittances grudgingly allotted to the very poor, mostly women with children, who are painted as undeserving parasites.)

Alright, this went off on some tangents, but they are connected and important to be aware of. I share my knowledge for free.

1] Speaking of Trump extortion, he recently extorted $15 million from the cowards running Disney Corporation, which owns ABC, a major pillar of the corporate propaganda system. ABC paid Trump to settle a completely meritless suit Trump brought for "libel," because on-air host George Stephanopoulos (a former Clinton regime figure) said Trump had committed rape. In the civil suit that one of Trump's rape victim's brought and won against Trump, the jury found that a sexual assault occurred, which the judge said was tantamount to rape. So this was an eminently defensible case for ABC. 

This is on the cowardly corporate execs. Or maybe cowardly misses the point. Disney, like all giant corporations, needs the goodwill of the Federal government to avoid friction in its obsessive drive for maximum profits lest that government throw sand in the corporate gears. Many regulations affect corporations. And these large corporations are rapacious in buying other corporations- which the U.S. Department of Justice can oppose by filing anti-trust suits to block the intended mergers. As in fact the Trump DOJ is doing right now to stop Hewlett-Packard Enterprises from buying Juniper Networks.

I guess the execs at those companies forgot to bribe Trump with campaign donations and/or gifts to his "Inauguration Fund." Or maybe Trump just didn't notice what the DOJ is doing. The Biden regime DOJ started objecting to the proposed merger in November 2024, a full 10 months after the merger was announced in January 2024, with an anticipated completion date in a year. Seems like a long time to wait to raise an objection. But the DOJ didn't file suit in court until January 30 of 2025, the eleventh day of Trump's latest term as president. Idiosyncratic for Trump, who makes a point of doing the opposite of whatever his Democratic predecessors did.

2] "U.S. scrambles to reassure Ukraine after Milley comments on negotiations," Politico, Nov. 14, 2022, for example.
 

 

 

 

 

Trump To The Republican Party Is Like Hitler To The Nazi Party

Both men had/have complete control of their respective parties. Both parties were/are effectively personality cults completely devoted to their respective Leaders. (Hitler was "Der Fuhrer," Fuhrer is German for leader, thus "The Leader.")

Trump has sent around a picture of himself wearing a crown. He's really shoving it in everyone's face. Because he knows he has impunity. The Congress is controlled by the Party he controls, so he cannot be impeached and removed from office. (Hell, the Republicans wouldn't even convict him after he was impeached for the violent coup attempt of January 1, 2021. Republican politicians in the Capitol had to flee for their lives. The Republican vice president, Pence, was in mortal danger.) And the Supreme Court paved the way for his dictatorship before the election, first by sabotaging the criminal cases against him for the coup and the theft of classified documents, then gratuitously declaring that the president of the U.S. CANNOT BE GUILTY OF A CRIME, as long as what he does is an "official act." That was the Nixon doctrine, "when the president does it, it's legal." That didn't fly back in the 1970s. Now it's official Constitutional Law, thanks to the Republican Supremacist Court.

Not the first time in history a "King" has crowned Himself.

 It's obvious that revolutionary changes are necessary. The Supreme Court has to be overthrown, for starters. But instead of revolution we're getting revanchism, an attempt to return to the 19th century. Trump pines for the 1890s, which he cites as a golden era. That's when the U.S. conquered the Spanish colonies of Cuba, Puerto Rico, the far off Philippines, and assorted other Pacific and Caribbean islands. His hankering to absorb Canada and Greenland into the U.S. and "renaming" the Gulf of Mexico Gulf of America, Denali in Alaska as Mt. McKinley (his new second favorite president after himself) and threats to seize the Panama canal are all of a piece of anachronistic imperialism. It is a regression to an earlier form of U.S. Imperialism.

We've seen this kind of U.S. arrogance before. Drunk on power, our rulers think they can do anything. George Bush (Bush the Younger) thought the U.S. could "remake" the Middle East (and Afghanistan) more to his liking. Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, and Nixon tried to cut Vietnam in two and create a permanent client regime in the southern half.

The U.S. is certainly very powerful, but it has more success picking on very small and defenseless countries like Grenada (invaded by Reagan) or Panama (invaded by the Bush the Elder). And yes, it has won major wars- against Mexico (1846), a senile Spanish empire (1896), and with help (the World Wars against mostly Germany). 

The one thing on foreign policy Trump is doing right is trying to end the U.S. proxy war in Ukraine against Russia, which is destroying Ukraine. THAT is the one thing the Democrats hate! They are fine with his support for Israeli genocide, and they don't actually oppose his anti-immigrant policy- which is really just an extension with much nastier rhetoric of the policies of Biden, and Barack "Deporter in Chief" Obama, who set a record for deportations (over 8 years) that Trump has yet to match (but give him time). But the Democrats (and Euroscum like UK prime minister Keir Starmer, who has criminalized anti-genocide protest in Britain) are determined to fight on to the last Ukrainian.

However, the way Trump is trying to end the Ukraine war is unethical. He's cutting the Ukrainians out of the process, same as he sold out the Afghan client regime by dealing only with the Taliban, stabbing the Afghan government in the back. In both cases, the parallel historical analogy is Munich 1938, when Britain and France sold out Czechoslovakia to Nazi Germany at a conference from which the Czechs were banned (not invited- same thing). And yet, the Democrats haven't invoked that analogy. It is an analogy that has been speciously invoked ad nauseam to justify U.S. violence, subversion, and imperialist aggression innumerable times since World War Two, yet not now, when it is actually appropriate, with Trump! Amazing.

With Ukraine cut off from U.S. arms, that would leave the Europeans and the warmongering Keir Starmer, loathing British prime minister, to keep sacrificing Ukrainians if they so choose- Starmer has even said he'd send British "peacekeeping" troops to Ukraine.

But to return to the start of this essay: Trump To The Republican Party Is Like Hitler To The Nazi Party.

 

DEI Replaced By HIE

 Diversity Equity Inclusion flushed down the toilet by the racist Trump regime and the eager to conform and comply U.S. corporate bosses, replaced by HIE: Homogeneity, Inequality, Exclusion.

NYC Strongman Eric Adams Gets His Reward From Trump

 [Oh, by the way, we are now effectively living under a dictatorship, ruled by Trump and Elon Musk. I will get to that in another essay.]

Gangsters Rule The U.S., And Corruption Is The Norm.

That reality has been made apparent every day, starting on January 20, under the Trump regime.

Yesterday, the criminal New York City strongman mayor Eric Adams was rescued by Trump from the obviously true corruption indictment against him. The Trump Department of "Justice" ordered the U.S. Attorney's office for the Southern District of NY to drop the charges against Adams for taking bribes from the Turkish government and illegal campaign contributions camouflaged to disguise their real sources. Adams' own emails show him conspiring in these crimes. But just to ensure that Adams continues to be Trump's loyal lapdog, the charges were dismissed "without prejudice," meaning that they can be refiled in the future, brought back to life as it were, giving Trump a weapon to hold over Adams' head.

Adams, aggressively self-promoting and very much a big fan of himself, summoned the media to record him praising Trump and referring to the aborted indictment as "this cruel episode." This puffed-up reactionary oppressor of anti-genocide protesters predictably preened himself yet again in public as is his habit, and continues to arrogantly believe he can be reelected as mayor this year. A truly nauseating prospect which hopefully will prove delusional on his part. Much more decent Democratic politicians are running against him for the party's nomination.

The evidence that Adams is guilty is indisputable. (At least by honest, rational people. Hey, some people dispute the Holocaust. And establishment drones pretend Lee Harvey Oswald assassinated JFK, and the Twin Towers at the World Trade Center, and Building 7, fell by magic.)

The handwriting for Adams to beat the rap has long been on the wall. Adams for months has been sucking up to Trump, attacking immigrants, parroting Trump's hateful anti-immigrant rhetoric, going to Trump's Florida lair, Mar-a-Lago, to kiss his ring, and attending his inauguration January 20 as an invited guest. Adams ordered his staff not to criticize Trump. Worse, he ordered all city workers to cooperate with the ICE terror raids hunting "illegal immigrants" the "murderers, rapists, worst of the worst" Trump claims they all are. (ICE- Immigration and Customs Enforcement.)

Adams' corrupt circle of confederates haven't been so lucky. Seven or more have been forced to resign- I've lost count- some for coercing sex from subordinates, and one just pled guilty to Federal charges. Guess they had nothing to offer Trump. Adams is on his third or fourth police commissioner, a member of the plutocratic class, a Tisch. Too bad New York State tolerates corrupt politicians. It could prosecute them, theoretically, under state laws.

 

 The Supremely Self-Satisfied New York City Strongman Eric Adams, Oppressor of Anti-Genocide Protesters.

 Trump himself is notoriously corrupt, as are many of his accomplices, like World's Richest Person Elon Musk, The Four Hundred Billion Dollar Man. Trump learned corruption from his father, Fred, who greased the palms of politicians like Mayor Abe Beame, who Fred was close with, in return for bending and breaking city rules.

Trump knows he's corrupt. That's why he fired a slew of Inspector Generals of government departments, and cashiered the heads of the Government Ethics Office and of the Whistleblower Protection Office. (Not that whistleblowers had great protection anyway. They were criminally prosecuted by the regime of Barack "The Drone Assassin" Obama.)

Ironically, cynically, Trump constantly justifies his destruction of government agencies and functions by claiming they are "totally corrupt." That adds a layer of additional outrageousness to the destructive behavior of this malign, vicious, racist anti-human being.

Trump and his hatchet man Musk branded USAID "totally corrupt," a cesspool. This has been a pattern in their attacks on parts of the government they are destroying or coopting. Contrary to Trump's repeated assurances that he would protect Social Security and Medicare, his partner in crime Musk claims that those programs are rife with fraud, which is his justification for seizing control of the Treasury Department database, which makes the payments to recipients of those programs. How Musk and his dozen or so young fascist and racist computer nerds plan to uncover unworthy recipients among the 70 million is not explained.

But it is very easy to identify what is by far, in dollar terms, the place where you will find the overwhelming bulk of government waste and corruption.

The Department of "Defense," aka the Pentagon. 

Here's just one example of thousands, that I just read about. The U.S. military was using a system to coordinate aerial refuelings of planes from World War II. During operations over Afghanistan, Iraq, and Syria there were 1,500 such refuelings every day. So military weaponry corporation Northrop Grumman was given a contract to modernize the system. After ten years, Grumman had scarfed up $745 MILLION in taxpayers' money, twice the original "estimate " (which are generally bogus in the war industry) and had produced nothing. 

At the time, there was an experimental procurement company named DIUx, set up as a sort of thimble to try to empty the bathtub of corruption. It managed to come up with an actual software solution that cut planning time for planning refuelings from several days to under 1 minute. Rather than being hailed, the Air Force and House staffers working on "defense" stubbornly resisted the innovation. Eventually it was forced through, but the DIUx people faced constant resistance and retaliation. [1]

Because you see, there is big money in military contracting corruption. Military officers and Congressional staff and politicians who play ball can expect to be lucratively rewarded later on. "Retired" generals and admirals commonly go to work for the corporations for high "compensation," and in addition some are paid by U.S. media companies to be shills for the military and its expensive, underperforming weaponry.

Here's an even very very much larger example: the trillion-dollar F-35 fighter plane. There is too much to describe about how this plane is a giant scam, the propaganda for it a pack of lies, how it falls short (to put it charitably) on all the fulsome claims made for it by the weapons makers and repeated by the media and politician parrots. Just go online and use duckduckgo or another search engine (or do you still use spyware Google?) and do some research on "problems with the F-35" or "criticism of the F-35." Lockheed Martin has failed to get the various systems and software to work on the plane. Pierre Sprey, a great warplane designer with credit for the F-16 (which defeated the F-35 in a mock dogfight) and the A-10 Warthog, an excellent close ground support plane being scrapped, its role now to be filled by the F-35, which it cannot do at all well, has been scathing in his critique of the F-35.

I will be surprised if fire-breathing Godzilla Trump and hitman Musk mess with the military-industrial-Congressional complex, however. (President Eisenhower was convinced to drop "Congressional," his original intent, from that famous farewell 1961 speech.)

 1] Source: "Rebooting the Pentagon," The New York Review of Books, February 27, 2025 issue.

New York Doctor indicted in Louisiana for abortion pills. Trump exercises dictatorial power, shuts down USAID. And Elon Musk has your Social Security Number now.

1]- If Louisiana can get their hands on her, the doctor  faces 15 years in a medieval type Louisiana prison and a $200,000 fine. The mother of the teenager who needed the abortion faces that fate.

2]- Trump shut down an agency created and funded by Congress, which he has no right- or legal authority- to do. Elon Musk, his de factor right hand man, called it a "criminal organization," and "radical left," -insane bullshit- and motivated Trump to take the illegal action. Trump said USAID "is run by radical lunatics." Of course it is an arm of U.S. foreign policy, that provides the parsimonious amount of NON-MILITARY foreign aid the U.S. provides. The agency goes back to 1961. The idea that ANY part of the U.S. government employs left-wing radicals is as preposterous as Hitler's claim that Germany didn't lose World War I, but was stabbed in the back on the home front.

One of the last hospitals in Gaza is shutting down- it received USAID funds.

20 million people around the world with AIDS are kept alive with medicines paid for by USAID. Maybe some other nation or nations or international organization will step into the breach. They better do so quickly, or there will be sicker people- and deaths.

Not that the white racists Trump and Musk care about murdering Africans.

These are just 2 of the important stories from the headlines feature of democracynow.org

For ten minutes, 5 days a week, of your time, you will be vastly better informed than you can be from relying on the power establishment's propaganda system if you follow headlines there. Plus they have longer stories on various topics. The website is very well oaid out, and their archive goes back years and the search function works very well- much better than I've experienced at the New York Times or the New Yorker, for example. 

Don't make me have to inform you of what's going on. Take responsibility for knowing what's going on in the world YOU LIVE IN.

Obviously the remedy here is impeachment and removal from office of Trump. But the Republican Party controls both houses of Congress, and the Republican Party has degenerated into a political cult with Trump at its head.

Some think mass protests are somehow the answer. In his last round as president, Trump ordered then Secretary of Defense Mark Esper to have troops shoot protesters in the legs. Esper refused. But Defense Secretary this time, Peter Hegseth, will be glad to. In fact, this time the order will probably be to aim at heads and chests.

Too bad the lame and feckless Democratic Party helped allow this situation. The Biden regime could have indicted Trump in early 2021 for the failed coup and theft of a massive amount of classified documents. Instead they dragged their feet for several years, by which time Trump rebuilt his popularity and the Republican-controlled Federal judiciary effectively stalled the cases until they were killed or dropped. 

For the story about Elon Musk, here's the link:

https://www.democracynow.org/2025/2/3/elon_musk_gov#transcript

 For more on the shutdown of USAID, go to:

https://www.democracynow.org/2025/2/3/usaid_shutdown

 

 

 

U.S. Media Obsession Of The Day: Military Helicopter Causes Fatal Airline Crash In Washington, DC

I say "causes," because a Blackhawk helicopter has no business "training" next to a very busy airport, where it collided with an American Airlines plane coming in to land. Both craft landed in a freezing cold river. There were no survivors. The U.S. media didn't say "caused," even though it obviously did. It's "under investigation." 

For many years now, the U.S. military can do no wrong in the eyes of the U.S. corporate propaganda system. 

And once again, I am struck by the contrast between the obsession with a relatively minor tragedy befalling some Americans (33 people on the airliner, 3 on the "chopper") and the ongoing atrocities being inflicted by Israel upon Palestinians. Which total U.S. support makes possible.

For one thing, there's the sham "ceasefire" in Gaza. Israel continues to murder Palestinians there, including young children.  (Democracynow.org reports these murders, as do other non-corporate media which are not part of the U.S. power establishment.) And there is no "ceasefire," not even the pretense of one, in the West Bank, where an ongoing pogrom with "ethnic cleansing" (a euphemism for violent expulsion of a population) is invisible in the U.S. propaganda system. Over the last 15 months, this campaign of Israeli annexation has killed close to a thousand Palestinians (men, women, children, the elderly- there are no exemptions), destroyed or stolen Palestinian property, crops, olive trees, sheep, homes. Cynical Joe Biden made a symbolic move about that- putting empty "sanctions" on a few notorious Israeli "settlers" (most of those creeps are from Brooklyn, NY), but since they doubtless have little or no U.S. assets and don't move capital through the international (U.S.-controlled) financial system, these putative sanctions are devoid of effect. Trump cancelled even those pretend sanctions immediately upon taking office again.

And in case you believe there's a "ceasefire" in Lebanon, I must inform you that like all Israeli ceasefires these days, it is one-sided. Israel lashes out violently whenever it feels like it. Having decapitated Hezbollah and devastated southern Lebanon (a recurring habit of Israel's) Lebanon is virtually defenseless against Israel the bully nation. (Oh, Israel keeps gobbling up more pieces of Syria too. Or weren't you informed by American "journalists"?)

The only response to any of the facts by the U.S.-Israeli power establishment is to brand their victims "terrorists" and people who mention the facts "anti-Semites." We're dealing with closed-minded imperialist fanatics, fanatics who are incorrigible.