The same person 100 years apart? The division of the people according politics, religion or ethnicities in order to attack and subjugate those who are least able to fight back!
JB Pritzker; Charlie Sykes.
This is an adapted excerpt from the Aug. 26 episode of “Deadline: White House.”
On Monday, Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker fired back at Donald Trump after the president threatened to expand his federal takeover and send National Guard troops into Chicago, which he referred to as a “killing field.”
I urge people to read the transcript or watch the video of Pritzker’s speech, because frankly, that is the way it’s done.
Pritzker didn’t dismiss concerns about crime in the city. “Not one person here today will claim we have solved all crime in Chicago, nor can that be said of any major American metro area,” he said. Instead, the governor turned those concerns on Trump, listing the ways the president and his fellow Republicans have made Chicago less safe for its residents:
If Donald Trump was actually serious about fighting crime in cities like Chicago, he, along with his congressional Republicans, would not be cutting over $800 million in public safety and crime prevention grants nationally, including cutting $158 million in funding to Illinois for violence prevention programs that deploy trained outreach workers to de-escalate conflict on our streets; cutting $71 million in law enforcement grants to Illinois, direct money for police departments through programs like Project Safe Neighborhoods, the State and Local Antiterrorism Training Program, and the Rural Violent Crime Reduction Initiative; cutting $137 million in child protection measures in Illinois that protect our kids against abuse and neglect.
Pritzker put it succinctly: “Trump is defunding the police.”
Not only is that true, it’s great messaging — and Democrats should follow the governor’s lead. Democrats must make it clear to the American people that they take crime very seriously. But they also have to show voters what’s happening in Chicago and that what will likely happen in other Democratic-run cities across the country isn’t really about crime. It’s about the performative retribution of Trump — it’s about politics.
This is a president who is acting as if he has no limits. He is destroying constitutional guardrails and violating the norms of democracy almost daily. The question now is: How much damage can he do before he’s stopped?
One of the major problems that we’ve faced in dealing with Trump has been a failure of imagination. How far would he go? How bad could it get? What would he do with the unchecked powers of the presidency?
In real time, we are seeing what he is capable of doing. We’re seeing it play out in Washington, D.C., and we may soon see it in Chicago. Trump is giving us a brutal reality check about how fragile our constitutional republic really is.
Which brings me to another important line from Pritzker’s speech: “If it sounds to you like I am alarmist, that is because I am ringing an alarm, one that I hope every person listening will heed, both here in Illinois and across the country.”
We must understand the magnitude of the moment. All of this may feel like some sort of dystopian nightmare, but it is literally the times that we are living in, and every American must open their eyes and see what’s happening.
This article was originally published on MSNBC.com
My Opinion: Michael Abrams
The “Resident” abetted by sycophantic Congress will personally be responsible for disease outbreaks and closing of rural hospitals while touting the “savings”. The “silent public” who will normally attack the facts have fully embraced the agenda of the current administration purposely or tacitly are upset over “the Epstein files”. The “Epstein files” are just another distraction from the real issues that should concern all voters. The Neer do well Congress has saddled the country with more debt that will be paid by the voters (and their progeny). It would interest the willing to read this bill and understand how the upper 1% are big winners in the “BBB”. The lower end of the income scale (earners under 50K annually) get zip. The ongoing idea that there is massive fraud in the safety net programs (Medicaid and others) which has been proven false. The idea appears to be that the people who are gaming the system are mostly people of color collectively as if there are no white Americans suffering and struggling. The choices we have is pay close attention to your representatives’ actions and statements, call or write to them if you are not happy with their decisions on your behalf. FORGET PARTY POLITICS, this is less important than the integrity of the person.
Nothing is more boring than watching paint dry or Congressional sessions or debates, both are dull subjects but the only one that can educate you in what your representatives are doing! Does anyone remember the statement of Oct 30, 2020? ” I’m going to surround myself only with the best and most serious people,” the Republican said in August 2015. “We want top of the line professionals.” It’s a line that’s come back to haunt him, yet he is still surrounding himself with sycophants who are largely unsuited for the positions they are in. They amount to highly paid “yes men and women loyal to “Trumplestilskin”. This is just the tip of the proverbial iceberg. Whether you chose to believe it or not, the power is in the hands of the voters if we chose to use it.
Extra Descriptive: “Trumplestealskin”
This will be the fourth of July to remember- we have seen our(?) Congress gives us up to the demands of a child. That being said: pay attention to the results of the Big Beautiful Bill’s effect on the country as a whole and how it affects individual lives. This is not so much political as it is an attack on the freedoms that we have enjoyed for hundreds of years, the current actions of Congress and the administration is a perfect example of excessive government while ignoring the will of the people (us!). Our shining example is being tarnished and held up as maybe not so great.
| Robert ReichMay 12 |
| My opinion: There was a chance to avoid this corrupt administration but too many people went for the: egress” and now find them selves outside! MA. |
Friends,
Trump is overplaying his hand.
Not just by usurping the powers of Congress and ignoring Supreme Court rulings. Not just abducting people who are legally in the United States but have put their name to opinion pieces Trump doesn’t like and trucking them off to “detention” facilities. Not just using the Justice Department for personal vengeance. Not just unilaterally deciding how much tariff tax American consumers will have to pay on almost everything they buy.
Polls show all these are tanking Trump’s popularity.
But one thing almost all Americans are firmly against — even many loyal Trumpers — us bribery. And Trump is taking bigger and bigger bribes.
Yesterday it was reported that he’s accepting a luxury Boeing 747-8 plane worth at least $400 million from the Qatari royal family, for use during his presidency and for his personal use afterward.
Trump just can’t resist. He’s been salivating over the plane for months. It’s bigger and newer than Air Force One — and so opulently configured that it’s known as “a flying palace.” (No report on whether it contains a golden toilet.)
Apparently he’s been talking about the plane for months. In February, he toured it while it was parked at Palm Beach International Airport.
He’s tried to redecorate the White House into a palace but that’s not nearly as satisfying as flying around the world in one, especially once he’s left the White House (assuming he will).
Attorney General Pam Bondi said it’s perfectly legal for him to accept such a bribe, er, gift.
Hello?
The U.S. Constitution clearly forbids officers of the United States from taking gifts from foreign governments. It’s called the “emoluments clause.” (See Article I, Section 9.)
Anyone viewing Bondi as a neutral judge of what’s legal and what’s not when it comes to Trump can’t be trusted to be a neutral judge of Bondi. Recall that she represented Trump in a criminal proceeding. Presumably he appointed her attorney general because he knew she’d do and say anything he wanted.
Oh, and she used to lobby for Qatar.
So, what does Qatar get in return for the $400 million plane? What’s the quid for the quo?
This week Trump takes the first overseas trip of his second presidency. He’ll land in Saudi Arabia on Tuesday, followed by a visit to Qatar, and then to the United Arab Emirates (U.A.E).
That’s a big boost for Qatar right there.
Trump also just did what Qatar has been wanting done for years — announcing that the Persian Gulf (as it’s been known since at least 550 B.C.) will henceforth be known as the Arabian Gulf.
Trump’s company has just announced a new golf resort in Qatar, reportedly partnering with a company owned by the royal family.
Qatar is also pushing the Trump regime to lift sanctions on Syria.
The payback could be any number of things. The only certainty is that you and I and other Americans won’t necessarily benefit.
This week’s trip to Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the U.A.E. is as much a personal business trip for Trump and his family businesses as a diplomatic trip.
Eric Trump, who officially runs the family business, has just announced plans for a Trump-branded hotel and tower in Dubai, part of the U.A.E.
The Trump family’s developments in the Middle East depend on a Saudi-based real estate company with close ties to the Saudi government. Saudi Arabia has a long list of pressing matters before the United States, including requests to buy F-35 fighter jets and gain access to nuclear power technology.
Trump’s family crypto firm, World Liberty Financial, announced that its so-called “stablecoin” — with Trump’s likeness all over it — will be used by the U.A.E. to make a $2 billion business deal with Binance, the largest crypto exchange in the world. The deal will generate hundreds of millions of dollars more for the Trump family.
I had assumed that Trump’s undoing would be his unquenchable thirst for power. It may yet be, but I’m beginning to think his insatiable greed will do him in. America’s Grifter-in-Chief knows no bounds.
| Robert Reich |
Friends,
In the last week, Trump has gone wild on the global economy, saying tariffs are the key to American prosperity.
As a result, global stock and bond markets tanked.
Today — telling reporters that “you have to be flexible” and conceding that “over the last few days it looked pretty glum” — Trump paused his tariffs for most countries for the next 90 days, backing down on his policy that had sent markets into a tailspin and threatened to upend global trade.
The reversal prompted the S&P 500 stock index to climb over 7 percent in just minutes.
Traders with inside information about what Trump was about to do — some of them, presumably, Trump family members and cronies — just made a fortune.
It looks like chaos but Trump’s chaos always creates winners and losers, and Trump makes sure he’s on the winning side.
The mayhem that Trump’s cuts in the federal workforce is creating have nothing to do with efficiency or with reducing the federal budget deficit.
Trump and Musk just gutted the IRS at the height of tax season by firing thousands of employees – and is planning to downsize the agency even more.
Recent estimates show that the richest 1 percent of Americans already underpay their taxes by as much as $205 billion each year. And for each $1 the IRS invests in auditing the tax returns of the richest 1 percent, it collects $13 in additional tax revenue.
So the tax revenue our government loses every year is way higher than the amount of taxpayer dollars DOGE claims to have “saved” by cancelling contracts and grants for vital government programs – of which only a small portion can actually be verified.
The truth is: Gutting the IRS has everything to do with making it easier for billionaires like Elon and Trump to evade taxes.
It all feels like chaos until you look more closely
Trump’s unpredictability also makes him seem particularly powerful and dangerous.
In 1517, Niccolò Machiavelli argued that sometimes it is “a very wise thing to simulate madness.” Wise, that is, for the manipulative ruler. Trump is simulating madness, but it’s all about increasing his wealth and power.
An increasing number of so-called “leaders” – in the private, public and non-profit sectors, and around the world – are telling their boards, overseers, trustees or legislatures: “We have to give Trump whatever he wants and even try to anticipate his wants, because who knows how he’ll react if we don’t?”
My strong recommendation to anyone in a position of leadership here or abroad: Do not give in to Trump’s feigned madness. Do not surrender. Do not capitulate. Join forces and fight back.
Story by Ailia Zehra • 17h • 2 min read
President Donald Trump’s recent actions including his tariff policy and his defiance of courts over the deportations being carried out by his administration have raised concerns, but the president has been doubling down on most of his controversial positions.
In an article for the Washington Post published Friday, columnist Dana Milbank noted Trump is least concerned with the blowback.
“And Trump continues to Trump. Twice in the last week, he has posted a photo from the Oval Office of himself holding an image purporting to show the knuckles of deportee Abrego García, with a message saying ‘He’s got MS-13 tattooed onto his knuckles,’ Milbank said.
“But the ‘MS-13’ characters are obviously photoshopped, as clumsily done as Trump’s one-time manipulation of a government weather map with a Sharpie,” he added.
“’The president deserves better than the current mishegoss at the Pentagon,’ John Ullyot, who just quit as a top aide to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, wrote in a takedown of his former boss in Politico this week. Ullyot, who had been the department’s chief spokesman, described ‘a month of total chaos at the Pentagon,’ a ‘near collapse inside the Pentagon’s top ranks’ and a ‘full-blown meltdown at the Pentagon,’ and he alleged that ‘the Pentagon focus is no longer on warfighting, but on endless drama.’
The author noted that “in the celebrated case of Kilmar Abrego García, deported from Maryland to El Salvador in violation of a court order, the Trump administration blamed ‘an administrative error’ and ‘an oversight’ for the original deportation. Now, the administration is trying to justify Abrego García’s deportation retroactively with a statement from a disgraced police officer who claims the Maryland resident was an ‘active member’ of the MS-13 gang in Upstate New York — where he has never lived.
Jose Pagliery
Thu, March 7, 2024 at 3:31 AM CST·3 min read
“Bannon, with the aid of his counsel, has, for months, done nothing but intentionally stall and delay plaintiff’s enforcement of its valid money judgment,” the law firm that previously represented him wrote to a New York state judge last month, employing an underline to show their heightened frustration.
Bannon, who was once Donald Trump’s White House chief strategist and played an active role in the former president’s Jan. 6 coup attempt, is already trapped in a precarious position. He’s a convict trying to avoid serving his four-month prison sentence for ignoring a congressional subpoena that sought to question him over his role in the MAGA insurrection. And the Manhattan District Attorney is putting him on trial in May for duping nativist donors to “We Build The Wall” who wanted to support a privately built U.S.-Mexico border barrier.
But now he’s making it even worse on himself.
It’s been seven months since a New York state judge ordered the conspiracy-spewing right-wing political agitator to pay the $484,197 he owed the defense lawyer he stiffed, Bob Costello.
Steve Bannon Admits Bank Account May Have Evidence of Fraud
But since then, according to court filings, Bannon has been dodging the ordered judgment and ignoring follow-up subpoenas. That has put the aggrieved New York City law firm of Davidoff Hutcher and Citron in the awkward position of asking the judge to intervene yet again, citing what they called “a last ditch effort concocted by Bannon to game this court.”
In its attempt to get a readout of Bannon’s personal finances and his ability to pay the bill, the law firm tried to question him under oath and sent subpoenas to learn more about his businesses and what’s in his personal bank accounts. Emails show that Bannon’s new lawyer, Harlan Protass, initially agreed in November to schedule a deposition and turn over materials—provided that they first sign a “simple and straightforward” confidentiality agreement.
But as the months went by, nothing happened.
Then, in January, Bannon suddenly put up resistance and claimed he couldn’t possibly answer questions or turn over bank records. Doing so would potentially reveal evidence of fraud that could ruin his attempt to overturn his federal conviction or even bolster the Manhattan DA’s case.
“DHC’s taking of post-judgment discovery from Mr. Bannon poses a significant risk of compromising Mr. Bannon’s Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination,” Protass wrote in court filings.
It was an unwelcome surprise. On Feb. 6, Costello’s law firm told the judge that Protass has been toying with them and engaging in “a feeble attempt at stalling.” Joseph N. Polito, a senior counsel at Costello’s firm, wrote that the excuse “is beyond any and all logic.”
Steve Bannon’s Lawyer Sues Him Over Unpaid Bills
Polito then took the relatively rare and aggressive approach of asking that New York Supreme Court Justice Arlene P. Bluth hit the right-wing influencer and his lawyer each with $10,000 sanctions—the highest allowable fine “for engaging in intentional dilatory litigation tactics.”
“Bannon’s intentional bad faith conduct has left plaintiff with no other choice but to seek civil contempt and sanctions. Without this relief, Bannon will be further emboldened to continue his dilatory tactics that have, and continue to, severely prejudice plaintiff in its efforts to satisfy the substantial money judgment that remains outstanding,” Polito wrote.
But Polito went even further, asking the judge to also tack on the cost he incurred “for having to address Bannon’s frivolity,” an eloquent insult used to describe the hours he’s wasted chasing down the conservative media figure.
Protass did not respond to a request for comment, but he is expected to file a formal reply in court records later this week. Polito did not reply to an email asking about the case.
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Trump says Black voters relate to criminal prosecutions, prefer the ‘white guy’ to Obama
USA TODAY
COLUMBIA, S.C. − Former president Donald Trump, campaigning in South Carolina Friday, brought the issue of race into the campaign by comparing his legal battles to the injustices Black Americans face in the legal system and saying Black voters would prefer him over his predecessor, “Black president” Barack Obama.
Speaking to an audience of mostly Black Americans, Trump suggested − inaccurately − that he is popular with African American voters. He said his 91 criminal indictments and mug shot were part of the reason.
“A lot of people said that’s why the Black people like me, because they have been hurt so badly and discriminated against, and they actually viewed me as I’m being discriminated against,” he told an event sponsored by the Black Conservative Federation where about two-thirds of the crowd were Black Americans and one third were white people.
“It’s been pretty amazing but possibly, maybe, there’s something there,” he said of his theory that his criminal woes are something that makes him relatable to Black voters.
At another point, Trump squinted at the crowd and said: “The lights are so bright in my eyes I can’t see too many people out there. But I can only see the Black ones. I can’t see any white ones. That’s how far I’ve come.”
Prep for the polls: See who is running for president and compare where they stand on key issues in our Voter Guide
In disparaging President Barack Obama over the costs of a new Air Force One, Trump “Would you rather have the Black president or the white president who got $1.7 billion off the price?”
As the crowd cheered that remark, Trump said: “I think they want the white guy.”
A USA TODAY Suffolk poll published on Jan. 1 showed Trump with the support of only a small sliver of Black voters – 12%.
PollingA fraying coalition: Black, Hispanic, young voters abandon Biden as election year begins
His support among Black Americans has not increased and is identical to what he garnered in the 2020 election.
Trump’s primary opponent, Nikki Haley, blasted him over the comments.
“It’s disgusting,” Haley told reporters Saturday. “But that’s what happens when he goes off the teleprompter.”
Former Congressman Cedric Richmond, co-chair of the Biden-Harris 2024 campaign, blasted Trump’s comments.
“Though I may be disgusted, I am not at all surprised that Donald Trump would equate the suffering and injustice of Black people in America to consequences he now faces because of his own actions,” Richmond said, in a statement. “Donald Trump claiming that Black Americans will support him because of his criminal charges is insulting. It’s moronic. And it’s just plain racist.”
Trump’s remarks were defended by Diante Johnson, president of the Black Conservative Federation.” Our community supports the policies of President Donald J. Trump and knows full well that life was better four years ago under his administration,” Johnson said. He said that Black voters will cast their ballots in November “for safer streets, a better financial well-being, a secure border, and a complete rejection of Joe Biden’s disastrous tenure.”
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