The Emperor Remodels

 As usual, if you want the truth in one picture, turn to our political cartoonists. I’ve sandwiched this entry between cartoons by John Darkow and Mike Luckovich. Both depict the wanton violation of “The People’s House”—tearing down the East Wing to install a grand faux-gold ballroom to satisfy the faux golden boy president. I hear Nero fiddling away. Everything is now in flaming chaos.

 

One wonders when the people who voted for him will finally feel repulsed and deceived. Perhaps all they care about is his entertainment value. If Trump says his playthings are funded by donors, they take it at face value (ignoring the obvious “pay to play”) and cheer on his AI video showing him dumping excrement on the people they hate. His true followers are his enablers—the politicians, the judges, the cronies—all of whom have an open invitation to “The Rose Garden Club” (yes, that’s really its name), which now looks like the patio of Moolah Lago, complete with the new golden ballroom.

 

When SCOTUS declared him immune to just about anything, we all knew what was coming. His pardon of the J6 “tourists” was merely the tip of the iceberg. The ICE website—now under the direction of supreme sycophant Kristi Noem—is advertising a $50,000 sign-on bonus for uber-masculine men who can now legitimately roam our cities masked, seeking out the so-called "invaders" many of them despise. How many of these new ICE recruits are former J6 participants or Proud Boys?

 

And who is going to stop him? All the so-called “laws” that have reigned for decades are really built on good faith. So what if a court rules that he cannot tear down part of the White House without congressional approval—or that he cannot withhold congressionally authorized funds? There is no “police force” to enforce the courts’ decisions. Any other administration would back down once the court had spoken.

 

With all the ICE provocation taking place in American cities, it may be only a matter of time before the Insurrection Act is invoked. Will the military follow orders if asked to fire on protesters? Meanwhile, back in Washington, the demolition goes on and the plutocrats party.

 

Alacrity of Autocracy

 We are at a symbolic tipping point: Trump firing the commissioner of the Bureau of Labor Statistics because he believed Friday’s jobs report was manipulated “to make the Republicans, and ME, look bad,” as he wrote on social media.

A classic autocratic (and Pavlovian) response—no evidence, no careful review of the data, just his self-proclaimed genius “gut” instinct.

The report followed closely on the heels of the Federal Reserve’s decision to hold interest rates steady. No doubt Fed Chairman Jerome Powell will be blamed, although he has repeatedly stated that the Fed’s decisions are driven by data. A rate cut is reportedly likely next month -- whether Powell can endure the constant onslaught from Trump and his acolytes until then remains to be seen. (It is evidence of dear leader’s lack of understanding that lowering short term rates – the only rate over which the Fed has direct control – would have little immediate impact on the national debt, which his One Big Beautiful Bill exacerbates.) 

Powell has also been waiting for the chaos surrounding tariffs to settle—if it ever will. These tariffs are designed to feed the narrative that the U.S. has been treated unfairly by its trading partners. Facts don’t matter. Only the story—and Trump’s self-imagined Superman persona rectifying it.

There is no opposition from Congress, and the glacial pace of a federal appeals court in Washington, D.C., in deciding the legality of those tariffs—imposed under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act—only adds to the chaos. Even if the court ultimately agrees with the lower courts that Trump lacked authority under the IEEPA, the case will likely land before the Supreme Court—already stacked in his favor.

The point of this brief entry is captured in a quote from 1984 by George Orwell:

“And if all others accepted the lie which the Party imposed—if all records told the same tale—then the lie passed into history and became truth.” The Party’s slogan was: “Who controls the past controls the future: who controls the present controls the past.”

In summarily firing the commissioner of the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the Party has spoken.  Our Four Freedoms further fade, as captured above by the award-winning editorial cartoonist for the Atlanta Journal Constitution, Mike Luckovich  

 

The Beautiful Bill That Isn't

 

Once, it felt like “This land was made for you and me,” as the Woody Guthrie song goes.

Never before have I felt so disenfranchised. America may have always fallen short of being a “perfect union,” but over my lifetime, racial, gender, and economic equality grew, and the “American Dream” became more tangible. That is, until Donald Trump purloined the Republican Party.

Between the Texas flood tragedy and the passage of the “One Big Beautiful Bill (OBBB),” I was hardly in the mood to “celebrate” July 4, as our unalienable rights seem to be dwindling and American institutions are being dismantled, one by one. January 6, 2021 should have put an end to it all, but DJT has proven himself an escape artist extraordinaire, and the beneficiary of extraordinary luck.

I daresay I am not alone in lamenting what we have lost and what we are becoming. As former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers wrote in a recent New York Times Op-Ed, Lawrence Summers: This Law Made Me Ashamed of My Country  Everything that’s wrong seems to coalesce in the OBBB—not only in its substance but in how it will be cynically implemented. The tax “benefits” arrive just in time for the 2026 midterms, while the real pain—cuts to Medicare, food aid, clean energy, student loan programs, affordable housing, and rural hospitals—hits afterward. The political calculation is as cunning as it is cruel.

Until now, I felt our country stood for assimilating generations of immigrants fleeing persecution or simply seeking a better life. (“Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,” as Emma Lazarus’ poem on Lady Liberty’s pedestal proclaims.) Now, empathy has vanished—replaced by false narratives portraying undocumented immigrants as the primary source of crime. While some do commit offenses, studies show they do so at lower rates than native-born citizens. Now, with the OBBB’s massive funds for ICE and deportation centers, MAGA lawmakers gleefully cheered, thinking anyone trying to escape “Alligator Alcatraz” would be torn apart by the Everglades wildlife. Reportedly, when the President toured the facility with Governor DeSantis and ICE Barbi Kristi Noem, he supposedly said, “Biden wanted me in here, that son of a bitch.”

The OBBB reallocates resources, shifting funding from social safety nets and clean energy to tax cuts, immigration enforcement, and national defense. But the math doesn’t add up, and the bill is estimated to add more than $3.3 trillion to the national debt over the next decade.

Here’s another reason to feel disenfranchised: While the OBBB was being formulated, what is an ordinary citizen to do? I wrote letters to my Senators, Rick Scott and Ashley Moody, as well as to my representative, Brian Mast. I even called. All are MAGA Republicans, but I felt I had to make my arguments against passing the OBBB, particularly focusing on the unsustainability of the deficit. Except for Brian Mast, I received brief formula responses that extolled how hard they were working for Floridians and how much they “appreciated” my views.

Representative Brian Mast did not reply until after the OBBB was signed into law. His was a detailed (but formula) response which is below in a four-part screenshot.

He employed classic Gish Gallop tactics: a flood of loosely connected talking points, misleading statistics, and emotionally appealing claims, all designed to overwhelm rather than address the fiscal irresponsibility and unsustainable deficit implications of the OBBB. I randomly checked one of the many footnotes; it was cherry-picked to substantiate a point he made, but ignored what the same footnote said about the whole, much of it negative. As I lack the time and expertise to read this 1,000-page bill, in full disclosure, I requested the assistance of AI, asking it to turn to public data and nonpartisan fiscal analysis. This is what that query revealed:

Claim: “This bill secures the border, reins in wasteful spending, and reignites economic growth.”
Reality: This is a vague and unsubstantiated assertion. The bill’s core function is massive tax reduction, not meaningful deficit reduction or targeted infrastructure investment.

Claim: “Extends the 2017 tax cuts that unleashed our economy.”
Reality: The 2017 tax cuts provided short-term growth but not enough to offset revenue loss. The national debt increased by over $2 trillion post-enactment, even before COVID.

Claim: “Across every income level, Americans got a break…”
Reality: While marginal tax rates decreased, the effective tax relief was minimal and temporary for most. The wealthy received permanent, far larger benefits.

Claim: “Increases the child tax credit from $2,000 to $2,200.”
Reality: This $200 increase does not compare to the temporary 2021 expansion that lifted millions out of poverty. Many low-income families remain excluded due to refundability limits.

Claim: “Cuts taxes on tips, overtime, and Social Security.”
Reality: These cuts offer modest benefits and are not offset. Cutting Social Security taxes may actually weaken the trust fund’s solvency over time.

Claim: “Fully funds Trump’s border wall… hires more border patrol… empowers Coast Guard.”
Reality: Border wall funding is a separate issue and cannot justify multi-trillion-dollar tax cuts. These provisions serve as emotional appeals, not fiscal justification.

Claim: “Increases Social Security payments by creating a $6,000 tax deduction.”
Reality: This is misleading. It doesn’t increase benefit payments—just allows some recipients to reduce taxable income, with limited real impact.

Claim: “Strengthens Medicaid by eliminating fraud and abuse.”
Reality: Fraud should be addressed, but even perfect fraud elimination does not offset the massive cost of the tax cuts. This is a political talking point, not a fiscal plan.

Claim: “Work requirements apply only to able-bodied adults without dependents.”
Reality: These requirements often create administrative burdens that remove eligible people. The cost savings are limited, and the societal harms can be significant. The bill's changes to work requirements and funding could result in nearly 12 million people losing health coverage.

Claim: “This bill empowers individuals to live the American Dream.”
Reality: The bill’s structure overwhelmingly favors the wealthy and deepens the deficit. Real empowerment comes from opportunity, fairness, and sustainability—not debt-financed tax cuts.
 

Note: This analysis and rebuttal were drafted with the assistance of ChatGPT, a language model developed by Open AI, to help ensure clarity, factual grounding, and accessibility.  The conclusions drawn are my own.    

Looking ahead, I fear the OBBB will cause massive dislocations in our society: deepening inequality, increasing cruelty toward law-abiding, tax-paying migrants, and continuing the decimation of core American institutions—health, education, and justice. Even more concerning, it undermines the very idea of America as a nation others can trust. The long-term economic, political, and social consequences are staggering—and potentially irreversible.  

No Crown for a Con!

 

Those five words were the makeshift sign I put together to display at our local No Kings rally. Ann and I went with two women from our community, one of whom is currently undergoing treatment for cancer. All four of us knew that our individual presence—or absence—meant very little to the broader anti-Trump, anti-fascist movement. But it meant something to us, to be there on the side of the road, feeling like we were at least doing SOMETHING.

 

The demonstration was one of several in the area, the largest in West Palm Beach where there was a march on the bridge towards Mar-a-Lago, and perhaps ours was the smallest, lining PGA Blvd. in Palm Beach Gardens.  Nonetheless I would agree with the local paper that there were perhaps a thousand of us at our location.

 

Passing cars generally gave us the thumbs up or honked enthusiastically as our numbers grew by the minute. Of course, there were others who ignored us, or who rolled down their windows to give us the finger. A few muscle car drivers made their displeasure known by flooring it, letting their fart-can mufflers drown out everything.

 

One enterprising MAGA type filmed us, clearly hoping to provoke boos he could use in a social media post. Unfortunately, the crowd obliged. Better to ignore a cipher like that.

 

But the hot Florida sun takes its toll—especially in a community like ours—and our friend with a compromised immune system was unprepared. Though water was available, she hadn’t been drinking much. Eventually, she began to pass out. She clung to me, and I gently laid her on the ground. A volunteer EMT rushed over, followed by police, and finally an ambulance. She was treated on the spot for dehydration, but went to the hospital for further treatment which thankfully was successful.

 

All in all, it was peaceful, but the heat forced us to leave and take stock of what, if anything, we had really accomplished. Juxtaposed against our national wave of grassroots demonstrations was the Big Beautiful Parade for our Dear Leader. It was apparently a low-energy affair. Judging by the slouching march of the troops past the reviewing stand—far from the precision spectacle Dear Leader likely fantasized—they seemed to wish they were spending the day with their families instead. It was a pathetic, expensive waste of time and resources.

 

But make no mistake: he is dangerous—unbound, erratic, governed only by his so-called gut instincts. He has surrounded himself with a cabinet of conspiracists, kleptocrats, and power-worshipers. The Senate’s constitutional role of Advice and Consent is now meaningless, and the justice system has become puppet theater. The country continues to be fiscally irresponsible, and venerable American institutions are being ravaged, threatening our culture and intellectual discourse.

 

We’ve surrendered our private data to DOGE. Our reputation as a dependable ally and reserve currency is vanishing. We’re tearing apart immigrant families that have been here for generations, all in some deluded effort to resurrect an America that’s long since packed up and left. Globalization isn’t going anywhere. I can’t wait for us to reopen those mythical “widget” factories or fruit-picking fields—this time staffed by all-white nationalist labor. You betcha, they’re just itching for those menial jobs—while their overlords get drunk on crypto fortunes.

 

All of this in less than half a year.

 

Just when you think it can’t get worse, along comes the Big Beautiful Bill—a remix of Project 2025 that basically codifies the horror. So I asked AI about this bill. What came back was chilling. This is where AI actually shines: digesting a 1,000+ page bill—rubber-stamped by our somnambulant legislature and distilling it into something clear and actionable.

 

I’ve written to my Florida representatives. Yes, I know it’s hopeless but for the same reason I held my sign on the side of the road, it makes me feel I am doing SOMETHING!

 

In summary, AI’s analysis of the BBB is downright apocalyptic. At its heart it is an expansion of executive power, endangering independent institutions, rule of law, separation of powers, a free press, and fair elections.

 

Perhaps that is one of the reasons Trumpublicans have buried so many issues in one piece of legislation which is being hurried through the legislative process, well before the mid-term elections. 

 

 

 

 

Party Like There’s No Tomorrow – There Might Not Be

 

Dubai Token2049

The May 3 Wall Street Journal describes a bacchanalian bash—unimaginably over-the-top—in “What Happened in Two Days at a Very Wild Crypto Party. Arrests from just a year ago are forgotten. Executives ride zip lines, champagne flows, and deals are struck in Dubai.”

After 100 days, Trump’s presidency is essentially a revenge tour aimed at wrecking the institutions we’ve relied on since World War II. Instead of stability, we have chaos—fueled not by coherent strategy, but by his seemingly impulsive, seat-of-the-pants decisions. It may take generations—if we have that time—to restore public and global confidence in American governance. Behind the chaos stand crafty, avaricious power-seekers, armed with the Project 2025 playbook.

They’ve ravaged the judicial and educational systems, shifted our culture from tolerance to intolerance, and turned Congress and an unqualified Cabinet into obsequious followers. Our international commitments—on trade, the environment, and the defense of democratic allies—have been gutted. We have, in many respects, become the rogue state we once vowed to oppose.

In this sense, Trump’s second presidency represents the most consequential seismic shift in American governance since FDR. But this didn’t happen to us—it happened through us. We hastened it, abetted by a performative “woke” culture that quickly gave way to a reactionary cowboy ethos, supercharged by platforms like TikTok, YouTube, and X that allow anyone to spin their own version of reality, unmoored from fact.

If that were the end of it, we might breathe easier. But the Wall Street Journal article suggests the story only deepens. Beyond the partying at “Token2049,” “the biggest names in crypto and 15,000 of their biggest fans marked a new era of freedom.” Ah yes—“let freedom ring.” But freedom for whom? This is the kind of deregulated “freedom” that enriches the few—like the Trump family—at the expense of everyone else. Quite convenient, when the foxes write the rules of the henhouse.

One marquee attraction: Eric Trump, alongside Zach Witkoff—son of Trump’s Middle East envoy—promoting their company, World Liberty, and its so-called stablecoin, “USD1,” a dollar-pegged cryptocurrency. I don’t claim to understand the technical aspects, so I turn to Wired:

The model is simple: World Liberty Financial receives US dollars in exchange for coins that customers can trade freely in the crypto market. It keeps some of those dollars in cash and cash equivalents and invests the rest in US government bonds—also called Treasuries—which yield interest. The profits of stablecoin issuers depend partly on the going interest rate—right now, short-term Treasuries yield a little over 4 percent—but otherwise scale in a linear fashion with supply. The larger the amount of a stablecoin in circulation, the heftier the underlying reserve of assets from which the issuer can generate income.

How convenient. We’re talking about U.S. government securities—the very instruments that underpin our bloated national debt. About 30% of Treasuries are held by foreign governments or by institutions. The Federal Reserve holds nearly as much. Among other roles, it buys Treasuries to help finance government operations.

And then this torpedo from the Wall Street Journal article: “To whoops and applause, [Eric] Trump said nothing would give him more joy than to see crypto help kill off the big banks that cut ties with his family.”  [emphasis mine]

There it is: the final destination on the Don Corleone Trump revenge tour. About seventy banks were involved in his near personal bankruptcy as well as the bankruptcy of six of his hotel and casino businesses in the 1990s, including Citibank and Chase. These same large banks serve as primary dealers in Treasury auctions. If crypto eclipses traditional banking, the global role of the dollar as a reserve currency is jeopardized. The financial regulatory rules for crypto are being written by those who have most to gain by their easing. 

When the banks have to crawl to Dear Leader, it’s the final nail in the coffin of what was once a flawed but functioning republic.

This article from the March 7 New York Times shows this has been developing right in front of our eyes, as have all his transgressions.  Note the symbolism of the staging: