The United States is now facing the greatest threat to our free way of life in our history. Even the US Civil War was not the danger that is Donald Trump. In the Civil War, the South wanted to separate from the rest of the Union. Today, Trump does not want to separate from the US, he seeks to destroy the fundamental functions and purpose of the US. He seeks to destroy the Constitution, replacing the Judiciary and Legislative Branches with puppets of the Executive. Plainly stated, Trump seeks to establish himself as a dictator . . . and as of May 2025, he may succeed.
So let me get this straight. Trump called out the CA National Guard in L.A. but he blocked the use
. . . .of the D.C. National Guard by ordering Acting Sec. of Defense Christopher Miller to order a stand down for the DC National Guard two days before Jan. 6, 2021 violent and illegal storming of the Capitol Building by Trump’s MAGA supporters who believed his lies that the election was stolen from him in 2020.
This is a dictatorship kind of thing.
Trump, Stephen Miller, and the rest of his Nazi henchmen don’t really care about illegal immigrants but want to provoke violence so they can declare martial law.
Trump knows he lost in 2016, 2020, and barely squeaked by in 2024 and he and Miller, Bannon, Bondi, Noem, Hogsbreath, and those useless bags of hair who are Senate Republicans and Representatives are all in on killing Americans who disagree them.
In response to the disturbances in Los Angeles, on Saturday, June 7, FBI Director Kash Patel posted the following on the social media site X:
“Hit a cop, you’re going to jail… doesn’t matter where you came from, how you got here, or what movement speaks to you. If the local police force won’t back our men and women on the thin blue line, we FBI will.”
We need to remind Patel that many of the January 6 rioters who attacked and seized the US Capitol were convicted of beating police officers, many of them beaten very badly, yet President Trump pardoned every single one of them, including pardoning those who “Hit a cop . . . “
If it were not for double standards, the Trump administration would have no standards.
Trump is an illegitimate president, but he’s not the first. The last Republican who was elected president without fraud or naked treason was Dwight D. Eisenhower. And it’s damn well past time that Democrats started telling the story.
But let’s start with Trump, and then go to Nixon, Reagan, and Bush.
Greg Palast recently did the math, and it’s now irrefutable: the only reason Trump is in the White House is because over 4 million Americans were either denied their right to vote or their votes were discarded.
The US Elections Assistance Commission data tells the damning story: a staggering 4.7 million voters were wrongfully purged from voter rolls before the election. By August 2024, self-proclaimed “vigilante” vote fraud hunters had challenged the eligibility of 317,886 voters across multiple states. When Election Day arrived, the Georgia NAACP estimated challenges had exceeded 200,000 in Georgia alone.
This wasn’t just a few isolated incidents. It was a coordinated national strategy:
Last month, the New York Times conducted a survey that found that nearly half of the respondents who approved of President Donald Trump “had not heard much” about anything Trump has done over his first 100 days back in office. The government-sanctioned kidnapping and false imprisonment of pro-Palestinian activist Mahmoud Khalil? Nope. Trump allowing Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency to gut vital departments such as the U.S. Treasury, the Department of Health and Human Services, and the Social Security Administration? No idea. Tariff-fueled stock market losses? That was news to these people. . . .
But with people like Jake Tapper around, news isn’t working the way it’s supposed to. Tapper, the face of an entire news organization, would like you to believe that Biden’s downfall is still news in June 2025. In fact, he’s carrying on as if it were the only news story that matters,even as masked Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents are kidnapping people in plain sight. Even as Trump and his ghouls attempt to pass a bill that will annihilate Medicaid. Even as Trump’s Department of Health and Human Services secretary cancels vaccine research contracts that could save tens of millions of lives. While all of that wanton destruction is going on, CNN’s top anchor is busy telling the world that the “cover-up” surrounding Biden’s health is “worse than Watergate.”
That’s a laughable assertion given not just Trump’s current offenses but all of the offenses he committed the LAST time he was in office. These were scandals so grievous that they have their own names: Charlottesville, the first impeachment, the second impeachment, the insurrection. How many worse-than-Watergates did you and I witness Trump commit those first four years? How many are taking place right now, as I write this? Trump currently has the cognitive abilities of a tadpole and is letting his party burn the fucking house down. So I’m just a touch more concerned about all of that than about example No. 7,856 of Democrats being eternally clueless. . . .
When you remember all of that, it makes perfect sense that this monstrously self-absorbed dipshit wants you to believe that Joe Biden, currently dying of aggressive prostate cancer, is the biggest threat America is facing right now. In 2025. Jake Tapper clearly gives much more of a shit about his book sales than he does the fate of our national education system. And he wears his cravenness in the guise of a Serious Newsman, which makes it all the more insulting.
I’m told that right now Fox News is pretty much The Joe Biden Coverup all the time. This is the alternative reality, with its alternative facts, that so many of those precious swing voters live in, either directly or at least impressionistically and atmospherically.
BTW one thing that isn’t appreciated nearly enough is that the Democrats handled an absolutely horrible situation last July basically flawlessly under the terrible circumstances. It wasn’t enough because we are a nation of incurious morons, in no small part because Jake Tapper et al find it profitable for themselves personally that it should be so.
Because Daddy Trump and Daddy Musk are fighting, and he’s going to have to pick a side, and there are no good options—which perhaps is why the extremely online veep has gone very, very, very quiet.
Vance isn’t just the vice president, after all. He’s the vice president to a crazy, unhinged, vengeful sum’bitch who sent a murderous mob after his first vice president and relished their bloodlust.
Surely, at some point in Vance’s decision-making about whether to tether himself to Trump’s fortunes, he must have imagined, for at least half a second—even if he didn’t want to admit it—that perhaps one day an angry crowd could find its way to chanting “Hang JD!” just as easily as it once chanted “Hang Mike Pence!”
So, certainly it is best to side with Daddy Trump.
But on the other hand, Trump won’t be around forever. No matter how much he threatens it. And if Vance still dreams of calling himself president one day, he’s going to need some financial assistance. Perhaps the kind of tech bro billionaire money he’s been so actively courting all these years. And who has more of that money than Elon Musk?
Literally no one.
Meanwhile, Musk has made it perfectly clear in his too-online way what he thinks should happen.
No, the Republican-controlled House isn’t about to impeach Trump, and definitely no, the Republican-controlled Senate isn’t about to convict Trump, and absolutely no, Vance is not going to be replacing Trump now.
If Vance picks the right side now, maybe one day he’ll get his chance, with Musk’s katrillions of dollars helping him to get there. But which side is the right side?
If he wraps himself around Daddy Musk and incurs the wrath of Daddy Trump, will he get the chance to cash in three years from now?
Pity poor Vance, the guy who used to think Trump was Hitler until Trump offered him the super sweet job of being Pence’s replacement.
As the ugliest of ugly divorces rages on between his two masters, no wonder he’s keeping his mouth shut.
Okay, let’s admit, to be scrupulously fair he’s a former grocery clerk and gardener, not that there’s anything wrong with that:
When Thomas Fugate graduated from college last year with a degree in politics, he celebrated in a social media post about the exciting opportunities that lay beyond campus life in Texas. “Onward and upward!” he wrote, with an emoji of a rocket shooting into space.
His career blastoff came quickly. A year after graduation, the 22-year-old with no national security expertise is now a Department of Homeland Security official overseeing the government’s main hub for terrorism prevention, including an $18 million grant program intended to help communities combat violent extremism.
The White House appointed Fugate, a former Trump campaign worker who interned at the hard-right Heritage Foundation, to a Homeland Security role that was expanded to include the Center for Prevention Programs and Partnerships. Known as CP3, the office has led nationwide efforts to prevent hate-fueled attacks, school shootings and other forms of targeted violence.
Fugate’s appointment is the latest shock for an office that has been decimated since President Donald Trump returned to the White House and began remaking national security to give it a laser focus on immigration.
News of the appointment has trickled out in recent weeks, raising alarm among counterterrorism researchers and nonprofit groups funded by CP3. Several said they turned to LinkedIn for intel on Fugate — an unknown in their field — and were stunned to see a photo of “a college kid” with a flag pin on his lapel posing with a sharply arched eyebrow. No threat prevention experience is listed in his employment history.
Typically, people familiar with CP3 say, a candidate that green wouldn’t have gotten an interview for a junior position, much less be hired to run operations. According to LinkedIn, the bulk of Fugate’s leadership experience comes from having served as secretary general of a Model United Nations club.
“Maybe he’s a wunderkind. Maybe he’s Doogie Howser and has everything at 21 years old, or whatever he is, to lead the office. But that’s not likely the case,” said one counterterrorism researcher who has worked with CP3 officials for years. “It sounds like putting the intern in charge.”
“Totalitarianism in power invariably replaces all first-rate talents, regardless of their sympathies, with those crackpots and fools whose lack of intelligence and creativity is still the best guarantee of their loyalty.”
A campaigning Trump sold a booming economy, shrinking trade deficits, and job growth that would surpass anything the masses had ever seen. Then he was inaugurated. And his promise of plenty shattered on the rocks of reality. But the man knew his fans. He kept lying. And now that the numbers contradict his claims, he rages, obfuscates, and blames others.
On Wednesday, ADP, a preeminent payroll and HR services company released its May private sector employment report. It showed a sharp decline in new job growth, with only 37,000 new positions added. It was the smallest gain in more than two years. It was far short of Dow’s prediction of 110,000.
The future looks even worse. What will happen to jobs as Trump’s tariffs — the ones he hasn’t chickened out on — kick in? For instance, steel tariffs have doubled today to 50%. You can bet that any business making stuff out of the metal is calculating how many jobs it will have to shed as demand declines in the face of rising prices.
Sadly but predictably, the administration has no plan beyond yelling. On Thursday morning, Trump reacted to the dismal news by lashing out on Truth Social and finger-pointing. His target was the Fed head, Jerome Powell.
“ADP NUMBER OUT!!! “Too Late” Powell must now LOWER THE RATE. He is unbelievable!!! Europe has lowered NINE TIMES!”
As usual, the Bozo in the Oval was making stuff up. “Europe” — I’m guessing he means European Central Bank — has lowered its interbank loan rate three times, not “NINE TIMES!” in 2025. In addition, context is key. The EU did not do as well in 2024 (GDP +1.0%) as the US did in Biden’s last year (GDP +2.8%). Things were getting better in America.
The Fed was not worried about a recession. Their mandate was to stop inflation from returning. It wasn’t until Trump dynamited the economy that poor job growth became a pressing issue. In essence, Trump is saying, “I shat the bed. Why isn’t Powell cleaning it up?”
And shit the bed he did. America’s new golden trade age is on hold. The agricultural forecast, for one, is so bad that the administration is trying to bury the numbers. Here is how Politico reported it:
Trump administration officials delayed and redacted a government forecast because it predicts an increase in the nation’s trade deficit in farm goods later this year, according to two people familiar with the matter.
The numbers run counter to President Donald Trump’s messaging that his economic policies, including tariffs, will reduce US trade imbalances. The politically inconvenient data prompted administration officials to block publication of the written analysis normally attached to the report because they disliked what it said about the deficit.
Here is the relevant chart from the USDA’s report:
The trend was already negative. Trump is making it worse.
For years, the slam on Trump is that he is a man so bad at business he couldn’t even make money as a casino owner. The observation has legs because it perfectly sums up the man. It is a rare business that guarantees its operator a positive top-line cash flow. And yet Trump managed to squander that advantage.
I fear that the economic statistics will become so dire that the administration will start manipulating the numbers. Every previous President has let the Labor Department and other executive agencies issue their monthly, quarterly, and annual reports without political interference. That will not last, as the redacted trade report shows.
Conservatives and libertarians (who are merely conservatives too embarrassed to use the title) may hate the Fed, but it is a rara avis in today’s Washington — an independent agency. The citizens will have to rely on it and iprivate companies like ADP when MAGA starts cooking the government’s books.
In addition, should the Democrats regain the House in 2026 (and they had better do so, or it will get existential), at least part of one branch of the federal government will be on the people’s side. But if MAGA wins, we will have to live with a North Korean approach to information dissemination.
“You don’t have the cards right now. With us, you start having cards”
—Donald Trump to Volodymyr Zelenskyy, Oval Office, Feb. 2025
“I’m not playing cards. I’m very serious. I’m the president in a war.”
—Zelenskyy’s reply
In that frigid Oval Office exchange earlier this year, President Trump told Ukraine’s wartime president that he had no leverage. No cards. No power — unless the United States would continue to hand it to them.
What Idiot Child Trump didn’t realize was that Zelenskyy had already anticipated this move after the Biden administration left and was replaced by one hostile to Ukraine’s survival as a nation. While Trump saw a desperate leader begging for help, Zelenskyy was preparing to pivot to a redefinition of modern warfare if his largest ally would be abandoning them.
That pivot in silence is what became Operation Spiderweb.
And it wasn’t just a military operation. It was a message — to Russia, to the world, and perhaps most pointedly, to Trump: I don’t need your cards. I’ve built my own deck
The Zelenskyy Doctrine
President Zelenskyy’s doctrine is not just military—it’s cultural. It’s the war of a nation that has had to prove its right to exist over and over again. These are people that will continue to fight and survive whether Trump continues support or not. And now, it’s showing other small or threatened countries — Taiwan, Estonia, Georgia — what survival might look like in the 21st century.
Cards on the Table
President Zelenskyy may not be the leader history or Ukraine expected — but he may be the one they needed.In the span of a few years, Zelenskyy has gone from underestimated to indispensable, from a political novice to a battlefield innovator. Not because he sought power, but because he refused to let go of his country.
And when he was told by Trump that he “had no cards,” Zelenskyy didn’t flinch.
He built a new deck — and played it to perfection.
