Let's see how it is going so far...

The sleepy old man oversaw 9 straight quarters of record stock gains and job growth.
The smartest businessman in the world blew it all up in 8 weeks.

---

I kinda miss the quiet old man who steered the economy out of a raging dumpster fire without turning every news cycle into a circus train to hell.

---

Anyone that reads articles on Fox News should be terrified. All non-Maga statements are immediately removed because Fox knows how obviously weak their lies are, and Fox News is only there to manipulate your thoughts. It's not like they are trying to hide it.

---

Trump's refusal to fix his failure to protect due process is a refusal to do the Executive’s obligation to "take care that the laws be faithfully executed". Due Process is one of the most important legal principles of America. Without it, any citizen can simply be deported to some foreign torture prison without any chance to prove their rights. A prison without Due Process is a Concentration Camp.

---

The best way to lose the long term economic wars with China starts with Trump's attacks on education and scientific research. The best way in the short term is to start trade wars. After that, the best way is to reject the transition to renewables. Then the next best way is to destroy the economic and security relationships we have with our allies. After that is to cause economic chaos: psychopaths like trump thrive in chaos, nations, businesses and families not so much.

---

The Trump White House is sending 9,000 Afghan refugees back to Afghanistan to be murdered by the Taliban. These are men and women who stood side-by-side with the US military, many as interpreters, many as laisons to the locals.

---

China has halted U.S. beef imports and has struck a deal with Australia instead. Billions wiped out of U.S. Ranchers pockets. It is projected that Trump's policies will cost the tourism industry as much as $90 Billlion.

---

Elon, Elon, Elon... How's that chainsaw working out? Not so well. The projected $2 Trillion savings is now $150 Billion for the year. Apparently, even that smaller amount is suspect with critics pointing to inflated numbers, retracted claims, and a growing list of controversial cuts. That is all without looking at the math of how much all that random firing and rehiring of people will cost us in the end. Then firing 20% of IRS workers is enough to take all those savings away and more.

Another thing people are wondering is if there was so much fraud, why are there no prosecutions? It should be easy. You know the bank accounts... or just maybe he lied a bunch. One thing for sure, cutting all that research is going to lead to waste on a scale never seen before.

Their goal was never about savings, fraud waste or abuse. It's always been about gutting parts of the govt they don't like. Gut all checks and balances, gut regulators, gut foreign aid, target areas they saw as liberal and liberal workers. The savings was always a ruse.

---

Measles are spreading unchecked in 27 states with two unvaccinated children dead and many more are suffering from Vitamin A toxicity from following JFK jr's treatment advice. 99% of patiensts with the disease are unvaccinated. It has gotten bad enough that Junior MD finally did endorse the measles, mumps and rubella, or MMR, vaccine. Two doses of the MMR vaccine are about 97 percent effective at protecting against a measles infection. Of course, Junior had to chime in with misinformation and report that the vaccine wore off quickly. Still, that's nothing compared to all the other disease and vaccine research he has killed off. He seems to have a penchant for getting non-physicians to do medical research. Children suffer for the adults choices. That is not going to end well.

OK, it's not going good.

---

One of the most effective Maga talking points has been about the transgender issue. They say something about you can't seem to say the difference between men and women. There is a good response to that, because it is true. "I've never cared so much about it, but there seems to be a big problem that Mother Nature too often gets confused when making boys and girls".

---

If it looks like insider trading...
and smells like insider trading...
They're definitely insider trading.

---

Well, maybe it is going good for Mr. Trump. Apparently his on again off again tariff game has angered the rest of the world but has made nice profits for him and his rich buddies that followed his direction to buy stocks before he off agained the tariffs, and got the stock market to do a jarring recovery. They made billions. Now that is some high class insider trading.

OK, bad for everyone else, but great for that oligarch class.

---

He denied knowledge of Project 2025 because he knew how bad it was, but he is putting it in place now. Only 4% of Americans support Project 2025, but that is what they are doing.

---

In more tariff news, if you can get past the whiplash and that sickly sinking feeling as you watch the stock market drop, we now hear that no one at the ports is collecting those tariffs. Thanks to a technical glitch, Donald Trump’s tariffs haven’t even been collected at U.S. ports. On Friday (04/10/2025), U.S. Customs and Border Protection reported that an entry code in the U.S. system for American ships to use to have their freight exempted from tariffs isn’t working, and “the issue is being reviewed.” As a result, no tariffs are being collected by the U.S. government for the time being. No one knows when it will get fixed, especially with all the other erratic tariff stuff. The Stable Genius says they are being collected, but he has been known to lie on occasion... most occasions...

---

The Supreme Court has unanimously ruled the Trump regime must facilitate the return of a Maryland man wrongly deported to El Salvador. How lawless do your actions have to be for even Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito to rule against them?

---

When it comes to burning Teslas, after Jan 6, It doesn't bother me.

---

I wish people would catch on. It was not Biden or Harris that lost the election. It was won by lies, Trump's only life long strategy. It was Machiavelli that basically said that the person (prince) that lies the best will win. The prince of the Democrats is the Constitution, an inherently moral document, so it's hard for them to use lies. You need to neutralize that advantage. The thing is that what is going on now is just more of the class war in a phase that started with the New Deal. The wealthy want to finish destroying that and believe they can also do a corporate takeover of America.

---

The class war has been hot since the New Deal. Right now, the oligarchs hold the reins, but I don't think it will last. I hate to go with the 'S' word, but the only moral authority powerful enough to stop them will be socialism. Unregulated capitalism leads to the slavery that endangers us now.

---

If hard work made you rich, every farmer would be a billionaire. But they are not because the system does not reward labor, it rewards leverage. Modern Capitalism is about exploitation, not effort.

---

The IRS unit that audits ultrawealthy earners has been gutted. This will starve the government of revenue by making it easier for the rich to evade taxes — which the top 1% already do to the tune of at least $163 billion a year. See what DOGE is really about?

The conservatives love to fill up the comment sections of the liberal press with their lies. Return the favor. Much of the political battle is now on social media. Go there and tell the truth, like the Maga tell lies.

Arguably, Trump won the election using his lifelong strategy of lies. The great political strategist, Machiavelli basically said that he who lies best, wins. This site is dedicated to fighting those lies, by enabling others to easily paste respond on social media to Maga lies that are really just repeats of Republican talking points. This especially needs to be done because Maga is following Bannon's suggestion of flooding the media with "crap". Those lies must be fought. This is how.

It's not just about Maga. It's also about the other, normal citizens reading the comments, who need to be told about the lies so that they don't fall for them.

Democracy proceeds by persuasion of an informed electorate. All other political systems use lies and force. Persuasive speaking is called Rhetoric and is older than Democracy. This site is to offer both political information and pithy (brief, to the point) rhetoric to reply to "conservative" comments on social media. It is not generally meant to persuade liberals or conservatives of anything. It is meant to offer ammunition to respond to Maga lies. It does have some background parts as well though, to explain certain topics in a bit more depth. That understanding can help with responses too.

While it does get updated and expanded, unlike other news outlets that need to continually produce a new product, this changes only with changes in the political issues and the solutions being offered. The basic issues really don't change much. "Biden crime family" is still strongly trending in the comments sections, so the response is still here.. The point it to keep it short and clear... and to blow away political lies.

Note that the web site is currently being updated to respond to the new political state we have after the election. Be patient. We are working on it.

This site is not meant to get anyone emotionally excited as most sites work to do. It is simply a collection of responses meant to be used to fight Maga lies with truth. The truth is that democracy is better for almost all Americans. Democrats are supporting democracy and the Maga conservatives are very opposed to it.

Why support democracy? At this point, the 2024 election was a referendum on freedom and democracy in America. A vote for Donald Trump was a vote to end that. The Republicans have long tried to persuade Americans that democracy doesn't work and that only they can fix it. Usually, they want to fix what they have intentionally broken. Mr. Trump ran as a dictator saying that he would fix things, but didn't mention that he was a front man for the oligarchy. He denied knowledge of Project 2025 because he knew how bad it was, but he is putting it in place now. We know where this leads. It is bad for America and bad for Americans. It is only good for the extremely wealthy that want to use their wealth for power, and to put themselves above the law.

This site is to help tell the truth to Maga lies, so get out there and tell the truth, like the Maga tell lies.

Trump's deportation of Abrego Garcia isn't about Abrego Garcia. The evidence against him is pretty sketchy and apparently he hasn't affiliated with gangs while in the US.

The first important point it is about is the complete lack of due process before Garcia's abduction. That is kidnapping. Without due process, anyone, any citizen, can be jailed or removed to another country without being given a chance to prove who they are, what their legal status is, or that they are even a citizen. Look up Allende Pinochet. He used that power, but he didn't deport people to other countries. He had them drugged and then thrown out of planes over the ocean. Really, being disappeared into a El Salvador prison might be worse than that.

The second important point is Trump's rejection of the Supreme Court's Constitutional authority. That means we are currently in a dictatorship.

Ultimately, it is Maga that must stop Trump. Not the part of Maga that thinks dictatorships are macho. Not the part that believes everything is a conspiracy to control them, and not the part that simply thinks all government is evil. It's the "Maga base" that voted for Trump because they are hurting economically, and Trump said he would help them. When they see how his policies hurt them and raise prices; when they figure out how much he lied and that he has no interest in helping anyone but the rich, they will stop him. They need to be told the truth to help them see the lies. When you do fight the lies with comments telling the truth, you are not just persuading Maga folks, but also the many others that are reading and might believe the lies put in the comments.

This is where it gets really frustrating talking to MAGAs. Because whenever it's pointed out that it's wrong to use the government for revenge, MAGAs always say, "Well, Biden did it."

First, no - Biden did NOT use the government to exact revenge from his rivals. Biden used the government - specifically, the DOJ - to prosecute crimes where there was sufficient evidence. Big difference.

Second - MAGAs apparently don't hear themselves. The message basically is, "We think that what Biden did was wrong and we don't want to support it. So we're going to support Donald doing exactly the same thing that we criticized Biden's administration for."

How does that make any sense? If it was wrong for Biden to (allegedly) do it, then why is it okay for Donald to do it?

Russia has reintroduced political officers, known as zampolits, into its military to ensure patriotism and political unity behind President Putin's policies. These officers are responsible for the moral, political, and psychological conditions within military units, and they play a role in maintaining discipline and good behavior among soldiers. The reintroduction of zampolits is part of efforts to tighten control over soldiers' exposure to unfavorable viewpoints
In the US, we call them DOGE.

---

04/16/2025. Elite Pentagon Unit Resigns En Masse After Clashing With DOGE. The Pentagon’s elite tech unit is collapsing after clashing with Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).

Nearly every staffer at the Defense Digital Service (DDS) is resigning over the coming month, according to the program’s director Jennifer Hay and three other current members of the office—effectively shutting down the program. “The best way to put it, I think, is either we die quickly or we die slowly,” Hay said, according to Politico. She plans to leave by May 1.

Dubbed the Pentagon’s “SWAT team of nerds,” the DDS was created in 2015 with the aim to modernize defense operations with fast tech fixes and digital tools for the military.

Hay’s 14 person team was reportedly blindsided at being sidelined by DOGE, having expected the DDS, with its tech talent, to be brought into Musk’s drive to automate operations at the Pentagon and integrate AI. An unidentified departing team member said that with the resignations, critical initiatives—like improving the Pentagon’s tech talent pipeline and countering enemy drones—will be abandoned. A former senior Pentagon official dismissed DOGE’s supposed mission to eliminate “waste and fraud,” arguing Musk’s brainchild is essentially a wrecking ball. “They’re not really using AI, they’re not really driving efficiency. What they’re doing is smashing everything,” the former official said. DOGE’s cost-cutting crusade has already shuttered other digital modernization programs, including the General Services Administration’s 18F program.

Are you familiar with the term "Neo-Liberalism"? It's not about what you usually think of the term "Liberal". It refers to how business is treated and was largely started by Reagan. It means Liberalism towards business or perhaps "anything goes Capitalism". It was jobs going overseas. It was Share holder interests over everything else. It was profits over everything else. It was nations and society serving business instead of business serving society and nations. It's why there is so much wealth inequality and why the world is awash in debt. All the profits of production gains of five decades of growth went to the owners and everyone else lost out. Well, Biden's State of the Union Speech said that was going to change, from Corporate Capitalism we had after Reagan to Democratic Capitalism we had before that from the time of President Eisenhower. Business would serve the nation again like it did after President Eisenhower, the most prosperous time in America's history.

What does this mean today? Trump got elected for a reason. Many many Americans are hurting. The thing is though that the Republicans have very effectively worked to convince their base that the problem is the result of the culture wars and so they ignore the economic wars that are what are really hurting them. Warren Buffet said that there is a class war and his side is winning. The people that President Biden worked to help the most are the very desperate people that voted for Trump. Trump isn't going to help them and neither are his wealthy backers.

Compliments of Economist Robert Reich...

Someone wrote the comment: "I am not a right winger, I just fail to see any benefits leaning to the current lefts lack of American values". I offered this response that the left is far from perfect, but is trying to adapt to an unknown future and work for social justice. The right is baically just trying to pillage.

The thing is the left is moving forward, leading in a dangerous, rapidly changing world. Leaders tend to fall in holes and make other mistakes, so you can argue against the left simply for that reason. They will make mistakes. The alternative though to trying to adapt to the future... is death. Not to decide is to decide. To not select the left right now is to select for the Trump dictatorship and corruption, it is to choose rule by oligarchy and economic slavery. It isn't about right vs left even. It is about the wealthy owners vs those that work to create that wealth.

So the benefit of the left is trying to find a path forward, adapting to a changing world in order to survive. It is also a choice against going back to repeating the horrors of history that we have many warnings about. Pick Trump and you are picking a repeat of what caused the Great Depression. Choose the oligarchs and you are picking economic slavery. I suggest picking the left, then there is a chance for a good future.... probably after lots of stumbles.

As for American values, the left works for Social Justice. There is no value more American than Social justice.

In a moment that should’ve stopped time, Jimmy Carter—quiet as a monk, sharp as a scalpel—offered a truth so unassuming, most missed the incision. He was speaking to Trump, but really, he was speaking to all of us. Carter’s point was this: While China has spent decades laying tracks for the future, we’ve been digging graves in the past. They’ve built cities, schools, trains that move faster than thought. We’ve built military bases, debt, and an empire of rust.

It wasn’t a boast. It was an autopsy.

China chose infrastructure. We chose interference. They built railways across continents. We bombed bridges across borders. They invested in AI, medicine, and education. We invested in overthrowing oil-rich governments, branding it freedom.

We spent $300 billion trying to bend the world to our will. They spent it making their own nation unshakable.

We don’t have high-speed trains. We don’t have roads that last. We don’t have universal healthcare, or education systems that top the charts. But we do have the most advanced weapons on Earth, pointed at every direction but inward. If we’d used even a fraction of that money on ourselves, our cities would hum like circuits. Our schools would shine. Our hospitals would heal. Our people might feel something we haven’t felt in a long time—progress. That was Carter’s quiet bombshell: the war we’re losing isn’t to China. It’s to our own addiction to dominance. And our refusal to invest in anything we can’t control.

Maga has gotten us into this mess and it is pretty much maga that is going to have to get us out of it. Here are some messages for them. If they figure out how much they've been lied to, this insanity may end.

So, this is what you will trade to give tax cuts to Billionaires?
Department of Education - Cancel education for children throughout the US.
National Institute of Health - I thought health was the most valuable thing a person had. Just wait for bird flu...
Department of labor - Sure, rip off workers all you want. (It's more a Trump thing).
Consumer Financial Protection Bureau - Seriously? Unleash the scammers and Frauds.
Centers for Medicare and Medicare Services - Work or die, then die. Oh, and empty those wasteful nursing homes.  
U.S. Social Security Administration - Yes, more houses for the vulture capitalists to buy. Out on the street for you.
Lower prescription drug costs for Americans on Medicare and Medicaid, because the wealthy don't have enough money. 
Enacted tariffs against our allies that will raise the price of everyday goods — from groceries to fuel ... for the same reason.

06/13/2024. How did a disease get so politicized? That link gives a very good retrospective on the U.S. response. It was a new disease that had never been seen before. The CDC recommended following the protocols for flu which included masks and 6 foot social distancing. Because of what has been learned about the transmission, the masks were probably more help than the distancing. Both saved thousands of lives.

Diseases are just part of life. Even some diseases get diseases. This is far from the first human pandemic and far from the last. Diseases evolve and there are a lot of human hosts that travel all over the world. There are a number of known avian flus that the CDC is watching and concerned about. The disease early warning systems started by President Bush and dismantled by Trump must be rebuilt or we will have the same or worse problem. While Covid killed over a million people, it was not as dangerous as a lot of diseases.

When they say Joe Biden should be prosecuted, ask them...
What for?
Did he demand that the governor of Georgia find votes for him?
Did he try to blackmail a foreign leader to finding political dirt on his opponent?
Did Josh Hawley say he was responsible for the Jan 6 attack on the capital?
Did Mitch McConnel say he was responsible for the Jan 6 attack on the capital?

Now the usual answer to that, if they do answer, will be that:

He took money from foreign governments. Just reply "No, he never did".

If they say that his family took money from foreign governments. Just reply "Did he get $2 Billion from the Saudis like Jared Kushner did?".

If they claim that Joe Biden got a Ukrainian prosecutor fired to protect his son: Just Reply that
"For his actions to be improper it would mean that Biden somehow also got the United States Department of State, the European Union and numerous individual European countries, the International Monetary Fund, and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development to also push Ukraine to remove Viktor Shokin for corruption. If we are trying to help rebuild a country, we want them to get rid of corruption. No, Joe Biden got him fired because he was so corrupt that every honest country and business wanted him fired."

---

President Biden's pardons were about Trump and his desire for revenge, not about any crime of Biden's family or anyone else. Trump has been in pay back mode, putting targets on the back of both Bolton, Fauci and others. Trump talks abut prosecuting everyone that looked at him sideways. There's an irony to Trump's desire for revenge. Jesus did not say not to lie or steal or commit adultery. Those were laws before his time. His messages were simply of love and forgiveness. I cannot imagine a more anti-Christian value than revenge, the stated goal of Mr. Trump. I mean, even if not in the scriptural way, that really makes Trump the anti-Christ.

President Biden certainly had good days and bad days, like any elder. On a good day though, he could throw out fiery speeches like his two State of The Union speeches where he said he wanted to change America back to a fair Citizen Democracy from the Corporate Democracy Reagan had made it into with Trickle Down Economics. On a bad day, he took his eye off of the borders and modern immigration pressures. On a good day, Biden directed policies of investment in American infrastructure and manufacturing. On a good day, Trump went golfing. On a good day, Biden was never much of a golfer. On a bad day, Trump caused domestic and diplomatic chaos, took away rights of American's, or supported conspiracy theories to divide America. While he talked about helping Americans and had concepts of policies, Trump's real accomplishment helped the wealthy the most, and financed corporate stock buy backs ... while exploding the National Debt. On a good day, Biden pardoned the targets of Trump's vengeance. On Trump's good days, he pardoned criminals like the ones that attacked the Capital police or corrupted elections. On a bad day for Biden, he debated Trump and got run over by Trump's Gish Gallop debate technique of a firehose of lies. On a bad day for Trump, he surrendered to the Taliban. On a bad day for Biden, he had to clean up after Trump surrendered to the Taliban.

I'd take a bad day for Biden over a good day for Trump.

---

01/10/2023. Trump has repeatedly suggested that Democrats are encouraging migrants to flow into the country illegally in order to register them to vote in the 2024 election. The claim is unsupported, but many people believe it.

These claims ignore the facts around noncitizen voting in federal elections, which is illegal and remains exceedingly rare even as it is thoroughly scrutinized, according to Sean Morales-Doyle, director of voting rights at the Brennan Center for Justice. Anyone registering to vote in the U.S. must attest under penalty of perjury that they are a U.S. citizen, Morales-Doyle said. Lying is punishable by fines, imprisonment and deportation, he said — such steep penalties that very few people are willing to accept the risk. On top of that, federal law requires states to regularly maintain their voter rolls and remove anyone ineligible, a process that identifies immigrants living in the country illegally. Even with this and other vetting processes in place, only a small number of noncitizen voters have been uncovered — evidence that Trump's theory has no teeth, Morales-Doyle said.

After the 2016 election, an examination of 23.5 million votes cast including some of the most populous counties in Arizona, California, Florida and Texas, election officials found only about 30 cases of potential noncitizen voting.

A Georgia 2022 audit of its voter rolls found fewer than 2,000 instances of noncitizens attempting to register to vote for 25 years, none of which succeeded.

The problem is that the modern national debt, started by R. Reagan, was largely created not just to give tax cuts to the rich, but also to starve the government of funds for social programs that might help the Democrats politically. It's mostly a Republican thing, built by Trickle Down Tax Cuts. Before that, spending was controlled by PayGo.
So who was responsible for the Deficit Spending that created the National Debt:
Reagan took the deficit from $70 billion to $175 billion.
Bush 41 took it to $300 billion. 
Clinton got it to zero. 
Bush 43 took it from zero to $1.2 trillion. 
Obama halved it to $600 billion while paying off the Great Bush Recession. 
Trump got it back to a trillion." PolitiFact - 23 July 2019

 The U.S. national debt when President Trump entered office on Jan. 20, 2017 was $19.9 trillion. On Jan. 20, 2020, it was $28 trillion. 

Obama raised the National Debt in his first year in office to pay off the Great Bush Recession. The money was already spent before Obama ever got into office.

Now putting the debt racked up by the Bush administration on the books does mean that the National Debt rose by $8.6 Trillion in 8 years under Obama and that's pretty scary no matter who spent the money but consider this. U.S. National Debt on Jan. 20, 2017 was $19.9 trillion. On Jan. 20, 2020 it was $28 trillion. So that means that Trump raised it by $8.1 trillion in just 4 years. If it was horrible under Obama in 8 years, it actually seems worse under Trump in 4 years.

The Republicans own the National Debt. Reagan started it and since then they have intentionally jacked up the National Debt to transfer the wealth to the rich and to make sure that there would be no money for social programs that could politically benefit the Dems

When it comes to the National Debt, both parties are not guilty of it. The Republicans  ran up the National Debt intentionally to give tax cuts to the rich, but more to make sure that there was no money for social programs that could benefit the Democrats politically. Yes, Obama added to it to pay off the Bush Great Recession, but aside from that, starting with Reagan, the National Debt is owned by the Republicans. Only the Dems have tried to reign in the federal budget and Clinton even paid it off some. Republicans have just jacked it up.

Here are just a few things Democrats have done for America in the past.
Social Security, Medicare, civil rights, minimum wage, 5-day work week, defeated the Nastis, balanced the budget (temporarily; thanks, W. Bush), killed bin Laden, clean air, clean water.
Healthcare Reform, Food Safety.
New Deal, Great Society, Peace Corp, Vista, Job Corp.
Civil Rights, Women’s Right to Vote, Equal Rights, The Voting Rights Act, Equal Pay Act, Motor Voter.
Consumer Protection, FDIC, Banking and Wall Street Regulations, SEC, Federal Reserve System, Anti-trust Legislation.
Funding for Science, Medical and Engineering Research, Space Exploration, NSF, NIH
Support for Public Education, Head Start, School Lunch, and Breakfast Programs.
NLRB, 8 hr. Work Day/40 hr. work week, Overtime, Unemployment.
Protection for the Environment, Endangered Species Act, FEMA.
Veterans’ Benefits, GI Bill.
UN, NATO, Marshall Plan.
Economic Growth (Democratic Presidents: Roosevelt through Biden)

The following data was obtained from the Federal Government in 2020 via the Freedom of Information Act, and it provides the proof that the Democrats are better at governing than the Republicans.
Jobs: D = 68,312,000; R = 42,538,000.
GDP - yearly average: D = 3.50%; R = 2.79%.
Business investment - yearly average: D = 6.6%; R = 2.92%.
Deficits - annual percentage of GDP: D = 2.07%; R = 3.04%.
Unemployment - yearly average: D = 5.59%; R = 6.31%.
Growth in Spending - average yearly increase: D = $36.9 Billion; R = $78.6 Billion.
Balance of Trade - deficit: D = $5,625,690; R = $7,042,879.
Stock Market - yearly growth: D = +1.92%; R = -0.64%.
Clinton took a weak economy from Bush Sr. and built a surplus. 
The last balanced federal budget was under Clinton.
Obama took a recession from Bush Jr. and built the longest job creation stretch in history.
Biden took a reckless budget from Trump and cut the deficit $1.4 Trillion in 2022 alone. 
Republican presidents caused the Great Depression, 11 Recessions and 1 Great Recession.
A Democratic president got us out of the Great Depression, 10 Recessions and the Great Recession.
Trump's Recession in 2020 was #12.
Trump is the only Republican President to have a Recession end while still in office.
When a Democratic President had a Recession, it was over before they left office.
A Republican President has never gotten us out of a Democratic President's Recession.

Republicans talk the talk on the economy while the Democrats walk the walk.

---

Personal disposable income has grown nearly 6 times more under Democratic presidents
Gross Domestic Product (GDP) has grown 7 times more under Democratic presidents
Corporate profits have grown over 16% more per year under Democratic presidents (they actually declined under Republicans by an average of 4.53%/year)
Average annual compound return on the stock market has been 18 times greater under Democratic presidents (If you invested $100k for 40 years of Republican administrations you had $126k at the end, if you invested $100k for 40 years of Democrat administrations you had $3.9M at the end)
Republican presidents added 2.5 times more to the national debt than Democratic presidents
The two times the economy steered into the ditch (Great Depression and Great Recession) were during Republican, laissez faire administrations and 3rd was at end of Reagan with an S&L bailout, tripling of the debt, doubling government jobs, 96% of all debt now tied to Repubs and/or their policies.
*
Recessions Since 1950 and Party in White House at onset:
Jul 1953 - May 1954 Republican
Aug 1957 - Apr 1958 Republican 
Apr 1960 - Feb 1961 Republican
Dec 1969 - Nov 1970 Republican
Nov 1973 - Mar 1975 Republican
Jan 1980 - July 1980 Democrat
Jul 1981 - Nov 1982 Republican
Jul 1990 - Mar 1991 Republican
Mar 2001 - Nov 2001 Republican
Dec 2007- Jun 2009 Republican
There have been 22 recessions since 1900.
16 recessions have started under Republican leadership, 6 under Democrat leadership and the 2 worst, in 1929 and in 2007, were when Republicans had control of the White House and Congress for more than 8 years (the only times in history).

06/10/2024. Violent crime dropped by more than 15% in the United States during the first three months of 2024, according to statistics released Monday by the FBI. The new numbers show violent crime from January to March dropped 15.2% compared to the same period in 2023, while murders fell 26.4% and reported rapes decreased by 25.7%. Aggravated assaults decreased during that period when compared to last year by 12.5%, according to the data, while robberies fell 17.8%.
v The numbers were gathered from 13,719 of the just over 19,000 law enforcement agencies from across the country, according to the bureau.

Meanwhile, property crime went down 15.1% in the first three months of this 2024. Burglaries dropped 16.7%, while motor vehicle theft decreased by 17.3%. The declines in violent and property crimes were seen in every region of the US.

In a statement Monday, Attorney General Merrick Garland stressed the new data “makes clear that last year’s historic decline in violent crime is continuing.”

12/21/23. One of the main political strategies of the Republicans is to scare their base about everything. It is a good motivator. One of their primary scare tactics is to claim that crime is out of control. They repeatedly showing videos of isolated criminal activity and claiming cities led by Democrats have burned to the ground have been wildly successful. A recent Gallup poll found that 63% of Americans “describe the crime problem in the U.S. as either extremely or very serious, up from 54% when last measured in 2021.”

That same poll though shows that only 17% of Americans “say the crime problem in their local area is extremely or very serious.” That shows how effectively we’re convincing people that Democratic President Joe Biden has turned the country into a criminal hellscape, even though those same people see no actual evidence to that effect. Recent data says that the truth is that crime is down.

New FBI data comparing crime from January through September of of 2023 with the same period teh previous year shows a number of trends
  Violent crime is down 8%.
  In cities of more than 1 million people, violent crime is down nearly 15%.
  Murder is down 15.6% nationally and down 25% in cities of more than 1 million people.
  Robbery is down nearly 10%, and burglary is down nearly 12%.
  Motor vehicle theft, in one instance of good news, is up 10%.

Crime data analyst Jeff Asher at AH Datalytics has the murder rate down 12.6% over last year, and recently wrote that this could be “either the largest or one of the largest national declines in murder on record.” He also wrote: “The decline in crime shown in the quarterly data – if realized – would be historically large. To put some of this in perspective, a 4 percent decline in the nation’s violent crime rate relative to 2022’s reported rate would lead to the lowest violent crime rate nationally since 1969.”

Recently the National Retail Federation released what The New York Times called a “startling estimate that 'organized retail crime’ was responsible for nearly half the $94.5 billion in store merchandise that disappeared in 2021, a figure that helped amplify claims that the United States was experiencing a nationwide wave of shoplifting.” Facts intervened again and the federation had to retract that claim, as apparently retail theft is down, the group was using faulty data and an expert reported that “organized groups were likely responsible for just about 5 percent of the store merchandise that disappeared.”

One thing is for sure though. The Republicans will keep saying America is facing a crime spree the likes of which we’ve never witnessed.

06/30/2023. Republicans claim Democrats can’t keep us safe – crime data disagrees.

Third Way, a center-left think tank, has found that states which voted for Trump in the 2020 election had overall higher murder rates than those which supported Joe Biden. This trend, called the “red state murder gap”, has been consistent for 20 years. The pattern remains the same even if the most populous county in each red state is excluded – undercutting an argument common on the right that large cities, which tend to be led by Democrats, are to blame for homicides. This is especially true in the South that has traditionally had a high murder rate.

Overall though the analysis suggests that it's not as much about state politics as much as local policy, particularly gun laws. Unfortunartely though, gun laws are only as good as those in the next state over.

There are signs that the pandemic-era wave of murders has crested. Statistics from AH Datalytics indicate murder rates in 90 US cities until the end of May have fallen by about 12% year on year, including in New York City, where Jordan convened a hearing of the judiciary committee into the city’s purported crime problem shortly after Bragg brought his charges against Trump.

07/17/2023. Republicans claim illegal immigrants bring a crime wave. The trouble is that it is completely false. “When you look at the data, the data shows quite strongly — this is specifically data from the Texas prison system — that undocumented immigrants commit crimes at lower rates than U.S.-born citizens, though at slightly higher rates than people who come through the legal immigration system,” he said at the time. “So we know that there’s really no correlation between increased migrant arrivals and spikes in crime.”

What the Republicans do is mention are specific instances of crimes, such as Kate Steinle or Laken Riley, allegedly committed by people in the country illegally. Well, yes, there is crime committed by illegal immigrants, but generally less than by citizens. It would be better if no crimes were committed by immigrants, but the problem is not nearly as bad as the Republicans like to scare their base with.

At the same time, Republicans repeatedly vote to cut funding to the FBI, IRS, and even Homeland Security as well as have maintained roadblocks to processing immigrants so they can be legally deported faster.

Woke seems to have originated as a term for "being aware of institutionalized racism in America". Now that Maga has chewed it into a new meaning to them, it would probably be more useful to say that it is a "call for Social Justice". Basically it calls against racism and Sexism. It is a call for tolerance of GLBQTRSV. It is many things, but it is for limited reasons.

Obviously, the Christianity based on Jesus' message of love and forgiveness was tolerant nd inclusive. A big difference from the Judaism that Christianity came from was that it wanted converts and outsiders to join.

That is one reason, that is meaningful to some. There is another far more objective reason, but still based in morality. A problem we face is that we, Americans and humanity, exist in a rapidly changing world where no one knows the future and or what we are going to need to survive in it. It is clearly getting more dangerous. We are all in this together. We are going to need every potential and capability that humanity has got, and only by working together are we going to survive into the future. Unfortunately, the oligarchs and company are only concerned with power, now and in the future. For them, for any ruling class, change is dangerous to their position, power, and wealth. For everyone else, change is necessary to survival. There are always things we don't like about others, heck, they are different, but we do depend on others and will depend on others to make it to the future. That is why Social Justice is necessary. Without it, without fairness, we will not be able to work together.

Trump is a problem created by Maga and to some degree will have to be solved by Maga. When they realize all he has is lies, they will push back. We have to fight those lies and show the truth to them, but carefully or they feel challenged. Really, they are going to have to figure it out on their own. They will. The economic pain Trump is heading them to is going to make them think.

That doesn't solve their problems. People supported Trump for different reasons. Some have been corrupted by Putin. Some want a dictatorship because they think it will bring order in a chaotic world. Some follow the ideology of John Birch and think all government is evil. Neither of those will like a dictatorship. Many are hurting economically, but this path leads to an oligarchy and an economic slavery worse than anything since the Gilded age. Many did not want unelected bureaucrats to determine their fate, and now we have Musk taking every scrap of their data and tearing apart the institutions of the nation that support them. Most of these really only supported Trump because of his lies, about how bad everything in America was and how only he could fix everything. Some of those that believed his lies already have seen the truth. Every day more will be hurt, more will see that he fixes nothing. He only destroys. These are the people that we must address with truth to fill where those lies were. Then they will turn away from Trump... and that will be the only way he is to be defeated.

Actually, they may change. Many of them anyway. Much of this is about kitchen table economics, and that is going to get worse. As it gets worse, we need to tell them they were lied to. It is about economic wars, not culture wars. That is part of why to emphasize that the Oligarchs have grabbed control.

Trump causes chaos and the truth is that only psychopaths thrive in chaos, not nations, not businesses and not families. Certainly not America.

The thing is, Trump has a loyal, energized base... which he is going to hurt very badly. He only has contempt for them. The truth is that he is a front man for the rich oligarchs. That base though is hurting and Trump's policies will make them hurt worse. Pain does focus the mind. They voted for Trump because of the economy, but no Executive Order so far even tries to lowers prices. Nothing he has done is about prices or inflation, though he did get rid of the Consumer Protection Bureau.

The truth is that Trump did not get rid of the swamp. Instead he got rid of the Inspector Generals that were supposed to fight waste and fraud. He got rid of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. That will not lower prices. He said bribery of foreign countries is OK, just as the Supreme Court said kickbacks are OK. He said lobbyists could work for the government, something he had said was a horribly corrupt practice.

Nations, businesses and families grow through investment. Many of the wealthy only understand grifting of existing wealth that is created by others, by working people and small businesses. Tax cuts for the corporations haven't led to investment. They've led to stock buy backs. Corporations already have all the money they can use and are looking for any ways they can invest it. Unfortunately, they are machines with no off switch, like the greed of too many individuals.

Culture War vs Class War. This is about Class War and Desperation.

This whole political mess may look absurd, but it is serious. There is reason and hard money behind it. Besides,the Class War has been the normal during history, but that's a more complicated story. (There has never ben a middle class, just rich and poor. This is about those that want it that way again.) The problem becomes when the balance is lost.

The Republicans have convinced their base that the class war is actually a culture war. Those voters think Trump will protect them from "coastal elites" when it is the Republicans that are fleecing them... and they are hurting, which is why they are supporting Trump... Somehow, I doubt that he will actually help them. This is the real grievance and why so many Americans are desperate enough to follow a populist leader, even an autocratic one. They want and need their problems solved. They are desperate.

Class war is about money and is very realistically important. It's about the investment class (who they call the upper class) exploiting the working class (they call the lower class) for profit and transferring their wealth by various means. It's why while the wealth of the nation and prices have gone up for the last 30 years, all the excess wealth (and then some) has been going to the investment class. None of it has been going to the working class so now the working class can't afford housing, health care, higher education... vacations or even families. It is kitchen table economics.

Culture wars are things that don't hurt you like if someone is gay or if they have an abortion or they aren't the right religion or they might know CRT or be woke or their might be a gay character in a book or that the Democrats are pedophiles that drink the blood of children or vaccines are poison or global warming is a conspiracy. All the rest of the things the Republicans use to excite the base. It's about anger and fear, not money. They don't want you to think about that. None of those hurt someone but that is what the Republicans want us to fight about so we don't see what hurts us, the economics of the class war. That is not wha this site is about, but I highly recommend that you learn about it and the best way is probably from Economist and former Labor Secretary Robert Reich. His site has great resources for understanding how the economy has gotten to how it is now. to get an idea of what his work is like, may I recommend a short video he mad about The Powell Memo: How and Why Corporations Took Over America.

---

Trump is adored by his followers. Dave Chappelle explained why

“I’m just being honest with you, I live in Ohio amongst the poor whites,” he said, adding, “A lot of you don’t understand why Trump was so popular (and) … very loved.” Chappelle — who acknowledged in his monologue that he’s a Democrat — then delivered a comedic explanation for why Trump is adored by his followers.

He joked that Trump was an “honest liar” who told the unvarnished truth about a system set up to help the rich and powerful. And he recounted how Trump openly admitted as much during a 2016 campaign debate: “He said, ‘I know the system is rigged because I use it.’ ”

The comedian then joked about how Trump, accused during that debate by Hillary Clinton of not paying taxes, shot back: “That makes me smart.”

Chappelle shared that for many working-class Americans struggling to makes end meet, Trump’s “honesty” in revealing that the rich and powerful have been taking full advantage of a system designed for their benefit only enhanced his stature.

---

Democrats have occupied the White House for 18 of the last 26 years. Democrats controlled both houses of Congress during the first two years of the Clinton, Obama, and Biden administrations.

During these years, Democrats scored some important victories for working families: the Affordable Care Act, an expanded Earned Income Tax Credit, the Family and Medical Leave Act, and the Inflation Reduction Act, for example. I take pride in being part of a Democratic administration during this time.

Yet the most powerful force in American politics today is anti-establishment fury at a rigged system. There is no longer a left or right. There is no longer a moderate “center.” The underlying choice is either Trump Republican authoritarianism or Democratic progressive populism.

Democrats cannot defeat authoritarianism without an agenda of radical democratic reform — an anti-establishment movement. Democrats must stand squarely on the side of democracy against oligarchy. They must form a unified coalition of people of all races,genders, and classes to unrig the system.

Trumpism is not the cause of our divided nation. It is the symptom of a rigged system that was already dividing us. While Trump authoritarianism masquerades as being anti-elitist, it is backed by some of America’s richest corporate and financial leaders — such as money manager Stephen A. Schwarzman, industrialist Charles Koch, venture capitalist Peter Thiel, shipping magnate Richard Uihlein, and almost every major American corporation and trade association.

The central goal of the corporate and financial backers of Trump authoritarianism has been to split the bottom 90 percent of Americans into warring factions so they don’t look upward and see where all the wealth and power have gone.

We have yet to discover whether their ploy succeeds in the long run.

---

Capitalism is the use of capital as a tool of productivity. All forms of government use capitalism. That is pretty much how every bridge, building, power plant, airport and government building is built by any government from kingdoms to democracies to socialisms to communisms (though there China has used human capital a lot). It is by investment. The trouble is that capital is a great power and tends to get misused to amass more power. It is often used as a bludgeon and even the laws can be purchased. As they say, money never sleeps. It can take on a life of its own.

Greed is a funny thing. In Western Culture it is known as one of the Seven Deadly Sins. In some other cultures, it has a worse reputation. It's just a natural thing in many ways but what is the point of it? You can't take it with you. Greed by itself, is problematic,but only so dangerous. When it becomes dangerous is when it is actually driven by the human instinct for dominance and control. Then it lays waste to everything it touches.

There are a lot of things you can do to resist the damage Trump is doing to America in his authoritarian power grab. This web site is bascially about responding to Maga lies on social media and comments sections, but there are other methods.

First and foremost, work with others. Look around for others. Organize. Communicate. That's how politics, and all human endeavors work.

I like Mark Cuban's suggestion. Use Bluesky and encourage others to. It could challenge the dominance of tech giants in the social media landscape. It is a “less hateful world” compared to X. If Bluesky ends up with more users than the others, you destabilize musk, zuck, trump." As a decentralized platform, it is a more democratic approach to social media, where power is not concentrated in the hands of a few.

While this site is about understanding issues and giving a written response that reveals the lie and shows the truth, instead you can use the (Socratic) method of just asking questions, such as asking "Which Executive order lowers prices". This, and other more psychological based methods that might work in conversation, are explored by Jeremy "Unsure" Sherman. He has a great take on the problem and a number of YouTube videos exploring how to positively address Maga folks.

There is also Deprogram A MAGA Trumpster that offerers a Trumpster Deprogramming Course Anyone Can Do At Home and a YouTube Video Collection with many videos about the problems and solutions of Trumpism. This site too is about using truth to fight the Maga Lie Machine.


When it comes to protecting American rights, it's hard to do much better than the ACLU 

 50 Things You Can Do. A list of howe you can resist Trumpism.

On Facebook are many good pages including:
Democracy Watch
Concerned Citizen
The Village Square - Fighting Political Polerization.

The richest person in the world spent more than $290 million backing President Donald Trump and Republicans in the 2024 elections. It has given him the power of the Presidency and he intends to use it. He was not elected to any government position, but is is accessing confidential information, including information pertaining to national security and to his own business interests.

Musk is unaccountable for wielding power what is the power of the Presidency. He's not only the richest person in the world, he also has the world’s largest megaphone, through which he is amplifying lies in support of right-wing parties and candidates around the world, and by which he blew up a bipartisan compromise on the federal budget that not incidentally barred him from working on Artificial Intelligence with the Chinese.

Musk's high flying young interns are sucking up every bit of financial and personal information they can access legally or by brute force... and recording it who knows where or for what purpose. They also seem to be re-writing not just much of the code that the American economy runs on, but also who has access to it.

Musk seems hell-bent on cutting off as much funding as possible for the programs that matter to the rest of us. It's instructive to note that none of the DOGE people talk about making the IRS more effective at making sure the rich and big business pay all their taxes. Why is it always about reducing spending, never about increasing revenue.

Better and better, not only does Musk have financial and business conflicts of interest. He has major political conflicts of interest not just as a personal friend of Xi and Putin, but with huge business interests in China. In the past, he has made many statements showing he has minimal allegiance to America. As far as his loyalty to American democracy, he seems to have distain for it and an awful lot of associates that are white supremists (to call them politely), including among the previously mentioned interns.

One case of his conflicts of interest seems to Musk's efforts to cut USAID. USAID is how the US diplomatically competes with China. It is the essence of American "soft power" and a counter force to China's Belt and Road initiative. Getting rid of it is a Gift to China and Musk will be rewarded handsomely for it in terms of China business. Killing it was never about its cost.
Foreign policy experts have argued that the decimation of USAID and its goodwill foreign policy strategy, for instance, will weaken the US's global positioning and provide China the leverage to take center on the world stage, with some unexpected complications to boot. If our children ask why China is dominant on the world stage, that will be a large part of the reason. To make it even worse for Americans, it is causing huge disruptions for farmers who have been selling food to the countries USAID was helping. That missing food will cause political chaos in contries that are currently friendly to the US.

Ask the hard core Maga: Did you vote for President Trump or President Musk?

---

The great thing is that Maga operates by lies. The bad thing is that Maga operates by lies. The great political strategist Machiavelli, basically said the whoever lies the best wins and following Bannon's lead, Maga fills the media with lies. It's not just about telling lies. It's about making it impossible to tell what the truth is. The great thing is that they are usually really lame lies or are just trivial insults, both from Republican talking points. Luckily, there aren't that many of those talking points, so it's not hard to have answers ready for them. That's what this page is. The best way to respond is with a short pithy statement that (1) shows the lie and (2) tells the truth. This page is supposed to offer those pithy sayings.

---

Keep a few things in mind:
If the Maga folks ever figure out that they have been played by the billionaires, it will be game over. They are already ready to fight. You want them as an ally. Use truth, never insults. Anyway, it is the leadership that is trying to divide us and start the fight. Most citizens aren't that far apart in their opinions. Don't waste time on the die hard Magas. Most people that voted for Mr. Trump did so because they are economically hurting. A great response to use, because it is true, is:
The Right wants their base fighting the culture wars so that they ignore the economic wars eating them alive.
What they need to realize is that it is not Right vs Left, it is Top vs Bottom, the Wealthy vs everyone else.

---

Use their own words against them. If they complain about the Jan 6 investigation, say: "Yes, it seems a little unfair that all witnesses against Mr. Trump came from one party, but that was the Republican party".

Another winner for some occasions is: Dec. 28, 2023. “I’ve been around for a long time and it just seems that the economy does better under the Democrats than the Republicans.” - Donald Trump in an interview with Wolf Blitzer, 2004.

In the mean time, keep asking the Maga folks if they think billionaires running the government is a good thing. It's a simple message and should be spot on.

Socrates probably wasn't the first, but he especially focused on the power of using questions to get to the truth. It puts the question on the person you are asking and in the case of Maga lies, then they have to try to hide the truth from themselves.

While you can tell Maga folks they were told a lie and then state the truth of something, a lot of Maga lies (Republican talking points) can also be phrased as questions. Like:
Which Executive order lowers prices?
Just how much higher are prices going to go and for how long?
Do you think you are going to get what you voted for?
Is this even near what the Constitution says?

---

Trump wrote on Truth Social that IT WILL ALL BE WORTH THE PRICE THAT MUST BE PAID. Holy mackerel. What does that mean? I thought prices were supposed to go down.
I mean doesn't this go directly against his claim of lowering prices at the grocery store for us all? I'm confused. We are paying higher prices than ever before and it sounds like tariffs that will lead to even higher prices? I am not sure it makes sense.

---

Musk is making things crazy in Washington. How far is that going to go cutting things?

Is [Medicaid, ACA, Medicare, Social Security] safe? I need that.

Couldn't this hurt the entire economy and lead to inflation and even a recession?

This article was interesting and probably true... unfortunately. Maga is driven by fear.

Anyone that is afraid about what Trump is doing should know about the John Birch Society. A lot of what is going on follows ideas and play books that basically go back to them. I recommend reading that article, because I think it is close to the root cause. Basically, they believe that the government could solve all our social problems easily, but choose not to, so that they can control us. That refers to both Right and Left. They are both in on the conspiracy. All current government is just plain evil.

That may sound familiar. The anti-state Libertarians also like the idea of no government or laws, because then no one can regulate their businesses or tax them, but that is another anti-government story.

There is another article: Dealing with friends who become conspiracy theorists, by Sean Kernan though that seems to explain that inexplicable. Why do they believe it has to be a conspiracy in the first place? There are many reasons given. People feel they have a lack of control in their life. Conspiracies offer a sense of community. These beliefs give someone a break from the mundane. They fulfill an individual’s strong desire for uniqueness. They believe they are on to something important that others don't understand. Those are all true, but there is another, probably more basic reason. Fear is the default behavior that evolution has given us. It drives them to believe that society’s powerful, unseen powers, act in hidden and nefarious ways. People feel they have a lack of control in their life. Conspiracies offer an explanation and in the modern world, a target. Really, the problem is the oligarchs and the ancient class war, but the Right Wing Media machine has convinced the Maga faithful that it is the Liberal Coastal Elites. They want them fighting the culture wars so that they don't notice the class wars eating them alive.

This offers a few paths. Use their own fears and emphasize the, obvious, class war going on. Mention that:
.
What you need to catch on to is that it is not Right vs Left, it is Top vs Bottom, the Wealthy vs everyone else.
.
It really seems like tariffs are just going to lead to even higher prices? How far is that going to go?
.
Musk is making things crazy in Washington. How far is that going to go? Is [Medicaid, ACA, Medicare, Social Security] safe. I need that.
.
Couldn't this hurt the entire economy and lead to inflation and even a recession?

Emphasize the class war. They know it. Ask about the billionaires and if they mention Soros, reply that Musk spent $290 Million on the election and seems to have won any bidding war. Now he can do anything he wants. It is true and they know it. Remind them. Kitchen table economics are why they are read to fight.

Play on their fears. It's what much of Maga responds to. President Musk’s policies are going to hurt the Maga crowd more than anyone. They are desperate and they are going to lose all kinds of social benefits, to pay for tax breaks for the wealthy. If Medicaid is gone, who will help with the nursing home expenses? Will I be able to get medical insurance? Will my children get an education?

Another advantage of this path is that these are not just real problems, but also they are problems that the Right Wing Leadership does not want them thinking about. Make them think about them. Let them scare themselves. They should be scared.

We keep asking ourselves how can the Maga base not see what is going on. Well, it is because they have been endlessly propagandized with lies about the Liberal Elite being the deep state secretly running America. Eventually, the truth will come out. Hopefully not too late to prevent a real mess. The thing is though that the oligarchs are doing so well that they aren't really hiding anymore. President Elon is smashing democracy as fast as he can. Well, call them out for what they are. See if that works. Maybe they will read it just to know what to tell you that you are wrong about.

Elon Musk has sounded the alarm about a plot by the US government to fund Politico and other news organizations, presumably to spread leftist lies.

The proper response is that: About $30,000.00 was spent on Politico Pro subscriptions, not direct funding of grants of any kind. What a surprise that governments have subscriptions to news outlets. Amazingly, there were subscriptions to other news and foreign affair magazines like the NYT. I sure hope there are, but there is no indication of any wrong doing or manipulation of the news... like when Fox News had to pay $3/4 BILLION for lying about the election.

It's hard to govern when you hate government. Apparently that is the problem. A democracy is inefficient, so they want to replace the government with a CEO, which they say is called a "dictator". They seriously claim that they want to destroy the government it for the good of the country. While right now with Trump, it's just about power, it works based on the anti-government ideological efforts leading back the John Birchers. 
John Birches, think government is one large conspiracy or else they would have fixed everything long ago.

The reason Musk wants to get rid of NSAID is as a gift to China. It is NSAID that competes with China's Belt and Road Initiative for the favor of other nation's governments around the world for America. Instead of America helping nations around the world, China can help them and after a while America simply won't be welcome around trhe world. Also, Musk and other Billionaires stands to get business favors and tons of money from China. 

Apparently, according to Representitive (R)Chip Roy, the current GOP budget proposal would raise the National Debt by $5 Billion dollars. That's OK, the Right Wing Media Machine is already working on preparing Americans for higher prices as well. ...At least the rich will get tax cuts.

Trump has done a lot in his first week, but nothing Trump has done benefits the economy that he said was why to elect him. He has no interest in the economy now. He says that he's tired of talking about inflation. He mostly has been working on revenge. 


The immigration crackdown already started to send ripples into the economy as workers are afraid to come in to work. Soon it will effect not just food production, but elder care, construction and other industries. I can see why Trump doesn't want to talk about inflation, because it is going to soar. 

Not only are the approximately 11,000,000 to 13,000,000 immigrants a huge part of the labor force. The best, cheapest scenerio to deport them all would be about $185,039,617,010. 

Oh, and if Trump goes after the Cartels as he says he wants to, that will increase immigration pressure.


	
You would think that all the billionaires he got for cabinet positions in the government would want to pay more attention to the economy, but they seem too busy fighting for their own control and power.
	
In his efforts to drain the swamp, Trump illegally fired all 17 Inspector Generals responsible for controlling the swamp monsters. The Inspector Generals are being fired to eliminate audits and internal investigations of fraud and corruption. A little gift from the President to his Cabinet picks to reward themselves from the budgets they manage.
He also went ahead and fired all 3 Democrats on Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board (PCLOB) just because. 

	
Also fired was the National Labor Relations Board acting chair Gwynne Wilcox — despite her congressional appointment not being up until 2028.
Wilcox’s firing closes down the NLRB because it’s left with just two members, and the Supreme Court has ruled that the Board needs at least three to issue any rulings.
Trump also fired NLRB General Counsel Jennifer Abruzzo, leaving Board attorneys who investigate employee and employer complaints without any guidance.

Presto — American workers are no longer protected from illegal firings or unfair labor practices by their employers. The National Labor Relations Act of 1935 is effectively gone.
	
The Trump Administration announced (and temporarily cancelled) that it would temporarily halt all federal payments. That leads to a Constitutional Crisis, because "Congress controls the power of the purse strings" and he has claimed that power for himself. That power of the purse, as part of the "Separation of Powers" is about the only thing keeping Trump from being a king. This action is a direct challenge to "Separation of Powers" our government is based on. The Supreme Court ruled against this kind of "Impoundment" action in 2012.
	

What a mess...
Paul Abbate, the deputy FBI director, then serving as acting director, retired on Inauguration Day. Now, senior FBI leaders ordered to retire, resign or be fired by Monday, February 1.
The leadership changes have drawn internal consternation, in part because these officials didn’t have anything to do with prosecutions of Donald Trump, which have been the focus of the president’s ire.
The personnel moves come as hundreds of FBI agents who were assigned to investigate the January 6 US Capitol attack and Trump’s alleged mishandling of classified documents are bracing for the possibility that they could be forced out or punished, similar to what has happened to dozens of career Justice Department lawyers.
	
December 29, 2024  Republicans launched an unprecedented assault on the Department of Veterans Affairs’s healthcare system earlier this month with devastating bills that would gut it from the inside out. This isn’t reform: it’s demolition and privatization. And it is fiscally reckless.

The architects of this attack are following the lead of Concerned Veterans for America, a Koch-backed outfit that has long plotted VA privatization. The proposals would strip the VA of its core functions, reducing it to little more than a checkbook for private-sector (and less accountable) providers.

01/30/2025. The preliminary internal F.A.A. Report about the D.C. collision between a helicopter and airliner at Ronald Reagan International Airport, says that staffing was "not normal for that time of day and volume of traffic". The controller who was handling helicopters was also instructing planes that were landing and departing. These tasks are normally assigned to two controllers rather than one.
I wonder if that understaffing could be because the Trump folks seem to have fired everyone responsible for Air Safety? It was just over a week after firing the heads of the Transportation Security Administration and Coast Guard, eliminating all members of a key aviation security advisory group, and freezing all hiring at the Federal Aviation Administration including key air traffic controllers, that the United States has experienced its deadliest aviation disaster in nearly 24 years.
It's understandable. Trump needs to cut funds from all the government agencies that protect us in order to pay for his tax cuts to large corporations and billionaires.
It's hard to say just now though, but in the past, Musk has blamed black pilots for causing crashes.

---

A lot of people don't seem to understand the important thing about tariffs - the consumer pays them. Tariffs are added to the price of things after they have come into the country. In no way does the other country or the supplier in another country pay the tariffs. Tariffs are paid by the importer and passed on to the consumer. They are basically a tax paid by the consumer.  They are instant price inflation and likely to lead to a recession.

Mr. Trump's signature policy plan is to replace the income tax with tariffs. It has been tried before with disastrous results. The (R)Smoot (R)Hawley 1930 Tariff Act was signed by (R) President Hoover in 1930 and raised tariffs astronomically. It had been overwhelmingly supported in Congress by Republicans. Over 1000 economists at the time signed a letter asking Hoover to veto it. Business leaders like Henry Ford and J.P. Morgan warned against it and sure enough it supercharged the Great Depression.  Some economists say Trump's proposal would be far worse than the Smoot Hawley Act as it is 6 times what the Smoot Hawley Act did. Tariffs are paid by the consumer. It raises prices and that is the definition of inflation. 

Another basic problem with the plan to replace income tax with revenue from tariffs, is that they won't raise the $1 trillion needed to replace the income tax revenues. Tariffs have historically contributed no more than 2 percent of federal revenue. It's not going to work.

Trump's trade war with Canada, Mexico, and China through imposing tariffs has already sparked retaliatory measures, with Canada imposing a 25 percent tariff on $30 billion in U.S. goods and Mexico planning agricultural import tariffs.

The tariffs imposed by Trump don't just hurt the working class with higher prices. They also do great harm to the wealthy, with billionaires facing more significant financial losses from the trade war than the average person, as shown by the stock market drop and income distribution impact. Expect a recession, and then more economic mistakes. Basically what he did and how he did it looks like an all around screw up. It's going to hurt, as Trump already has admitted.

Traditional Conservatism is about the preservation of what has worked and what seems good. It used to be a guiding protagonist of conservation and environmental protection. It worked to preserve huamn rights and would have been called Woke back when Richard Nixon supported the Environmental Protection Act (EPA) and abortion rights.

Now we have Trump, who is happy to be a destroyer. He's certainly not conservative.

“It is a fact that other Americans are a direct threat to my way of life,” Leonard said. “It is not a fact that my way of life is a threat to theirs.” The problem isn’t polarization but, rather, the GOP-led assault on the rights of millions of Americans.

A lot of this current mess started with "No Compromise, No Cooperation" Newt Gingrich's Contract on America. He likes biology and saw Darwinian "Law of the Jungle" as the best way to get the policies victories the Republicans couldn't get through elections, because no one really liked their policies. That is also the reason the Republicans have worked to dominate the courts. It is why the Constitution is an inconvenience for the Republicans because it is the legal foundation of American Democracy and American Law. It represented the compromises and cooperation necessary to democratic government. They don't want Democracy. They want to rule. This is not new. Just look at history.

Everything really did get dramatically worse when Newt Gingrich brazenly announced that the other side wasn't a group of colleagues to be negotiated with and have dinner and drinks with; they were enemies to be treated as enemies, stopped at every opportunity, and crushed whenever possible. They were to be painted as evil and an existential threat to all that we hold sacred and the lives of ourselves and our children.

They do that through horrid straw man arguments and dramatic, hyperbolic exaggerations of the other side's positions. Because their audience lives in a nearly perfect information silo, they are vulnerable to this kind of misinformation and demagoguery. They literally don't know any better.

They take fearful people, make them ever more afraid, and then give them a laundry list of Bad Things That Democrats Do, and make them thoroughly terrified. And they're totally made up.

Then, they send their candidate out to say, "I, alone, can fix it."

It was a very long run of political Mutually Assured Destruction before that, but Newt ... went nuclear when nobody else really had.

He's still doing it today, and his followers have taken pages straight out of his playbook.

The first way to understand what is going on these days is to say that we are in a class war between the wealthy and everyone else. This is an ancient struggle and in the past has often actually been a driver of progress. Progress though, has led to democracy and its ideals of equality. The class war destroys any possibility of equality, economic, social, legal, political, or otherwise. It makes sense. We all have self interest. The problem is that the modern world allows too much control by a few. Wealth gets concentrated and we now have reached a point where Housing, Health Care and Higher Education are widely unaffordable. For many, even Family has become that way.

Do be aware that the class war is a problem, but it does get more complicated because while the class war is a rather natural outcome of economics that needs balancing, there is also greed which is another kind of evil. There is also a resistance to change has created dangerous ideologies. This is about describing the economic class war, something America is very familiar with, just because it is a nation that creates great wealth.

In history, there have always been a few rich and the rest were poor. There was never a middle class and the working class was the poor. It's not just that a lot of people want to control wealth. There are also people that want to go back to how things were in history. The wealthy didn't have to worry about law. That was for controlling the workrs that made them wealthy.

Culture war issues do not effect pocket books. The working class and what is left of the middle class are hurting financially. Trump said it was because the game is rigged, and he knew it because he took advantage of it. His success was blaming "liberal elites" for it and somehow convinced his base that he would help them. Really, it's old money, the kind that hates unions and protects their interests by financing Republican causes and candidates. There has always been just the rich and the poor. It seems that much of the conservative goal is to return to that. They want their power with no limits from law. Anytime anything is proposed that helps ordinary people, they scream that it is socialism or communism, evils that cannot be tolerated. There is this constant battle between people trying to improve society and those who want to control and exploit it. There needs to be a balance between the two, but some people just don't seem to be good at balances and we have to solve the problem of the extremes.

01/18/2024. Nearly 270 millionaires and billionaires urged world leaders congregating in Switzerland for The World Economic Forum on Wednesday to tax their wealth, warning that if their elected representatives don't address the drastic rise in economic inequality, the consequences will be "catastrophic."

"Our request is simple: we ask you to tax us, the very richest in society," the letter signed by 268 millionaires and billionaires from 17 countries and published Wednesday.

"This will not fundamentally alter our standard of living, nor deprive our children, nor harm our nations' economic growth. But it will turn extreme and unproductive private wealth into an investment for our common democratic future."

"Inequality has reached a tipping point, and its cost to our economic, societal and ecological stability risk is severe -- and growing every day. In short, we need action now," the letter states, adding that philanthropy and one-off donations will not fix the issue.

The letter comes as a new poll published Wednesday shows that 74% of wealthy people support higher taxes on their fortunes, while 75% support the introduction of a 2% tax on billionaires, as proposed by the European Union Tax Observatory.

"Throughout history, pitchforks were the inevitable consequence of extreme discontent, but today, the masses are turning to populism, which is on the rise throughout the world," Abigail Disney said in a statement.

"We already know the solution to protect our institutions and stabilize our country: it's taxing extreme wealth. What we lack is the political fortitude to do it. Even millionaires and billionaires like me are saying it's time. The elites gathering in Davos must take this crisis seriously."

The first way to understand what is going on these days is to say that we are in a class war between the wealthy and everyone else. This is an ancient struggle and in the past has often actually been a driver of progress. Progress though, has led to democracy and its ideals of equality. The class war destroys any possibility of equality, economic, social, legal, political, or otherwise. It makes sense. We all have self interest. The problem is that the modern world allows too much control by a few. Wealth gets concentrated and we now have reached a point where Housing, Health Care and Higher Education are widely unaffordable. For many, even Family has become that way.

Do be aware that the class war is a problem, but it does get more complicated because while the class war is a rather natural outcome of economics that needs balancing, there is also greed which is another kind of evil. There is also a resistance to change has created dangerous ideologies. This is about describing the economic class war, something America is very familiar with, just because it is a nation that creates great wealth.

In history, there have always been a few rich and the rest were poor. There was never a middle class and the working class was the poor. It's not just that a lot of people want to control wealth. There are also people that want to go back to how things were in history. The wealthy didn't have to worry about law. That was for controlling the workrs that made them wealthy.

Culture war issues do not effect pocket books. The working class and what is left of the middle class are hurting financially. Trump said it was because the game is rigged, and he knew it because he took advantage of it. His success was blaming "liberal elites" for it and somehow convinced his base that he would help them. Really, it's old money, the kind that hates unions and protects their interests by financing Republican causes and candidates. There has always been just the rich and the poor. It seems that much of the conservative goal is to return to that. They want their power with no limits from law. Anytime anything is proposed that helps ordinary people, they scream that it is socialism or communism, evils that cannot be tolerated. There is this constant battle between people trying to improve society and those who want to control and exploit it. There needs to be a balance between the two, but some people just don't seem to be good at balances and we have to solve the problem of the extremes.

03/09/2024. Reagan believed in American democracy. He called it “the highest social achievement of mankind” and he recognized that democracy is vulnerable. He said our democracy is “under attack from the outside, and it is under attack by those who would destroy it from the inside.” Now, Reagan’s own party is devoted to eradicating what he cherished. Ronald Reagan said that “democracy is worth dying for, because it’s the most deeply honorable form of government ever devised by man.” Today, we have a deeply dishonorable man leading the fight to kill democracy.

During a recent Conservative Political Action Conference panel discussion moderated by Trump’s former chief strategist Steve Bannon, right-wing activist Jack Posobiec said this: “Welcome to the end of democracy. We are here to overthrow it completely. We didn’t get all the way there on Jan. 6, but we will endeavor to get rid of it and replace it with this, right here,” Posobiec said as he pointed to the crowd and raised his clenched fist.

Conservatives make no secret of their intent to destroy democracy. To the contrary, they speak loud and proud of the fact that they reject the notion that America’s destiny should be determined by the will of the majority of its citizens and instead they strive to impose iron-fisted domination by their immoral and evil minority. Reagan Republicans celebrated the fall of fascism and the rise of democracy. Trump Republicans do the exact opposite. They wrap themselves in the flag and wave the Bible, pretending to be patriots and Christians when in fact they’re neither.

The main purpose of this is to offer some pithy sayings that you can paste in the comments section of media or in social media that are powerful political truths to disrupt the dishonest Republican narrative. There are a lot more in the sections below. I ordered them the best I could, but there are so many of them.

08/28/24. In a podcast interview with Russian American computer scientist Lex Fridman that aired Tuesday, Trump acknowledged that he lost the presidential election “by a whisker.” (You can check out Trump’s comments around the 11:10 mark.) The surprising remarks follow a similar comment by Trump at a Moms for Liberty conference last week, saying Biden “beat us by a whisker”—before baselessly claiming that Democrats “used Covid to cheat.” At a press conference at the southern border last month, Trump said that he came up “just a little bit short” in the last election.

Of all the statements you can post, one statement stands out more than any other because it is such a sad, damning truth. This is especially good to use when a Republican attacks the Democrats or the President with a short, dumb comment. Post this where you can. If you want to have fun, post it in comments sections, on Twitter, on Fox, on Reddit, on WaPo, conservative Facebook groups or get an account on Truth Social if you really what to go for it. Simply post one of these:

(Use all or part as needed.) That's a truth that hurts, because it's true. Republicans haven't legislated and they try to dominate through the courts because no one likes their policies. They don't always even have a known platform but instead just say "vote for us and we will fix everything those despicable socialist Democrats are doing to destroy this country". They love to claim that "Democrats hate America". Worse still, they break things just so they can claim the Democrats have failed and only they can fix them. They damage America to damage Democrats politically.

Paste that one line and you will get every kind of deflection, whataboutism, personal attack and evasion imaginable, but you won't get many lies, because it's so true. There is no answer except more guns and tax cuts for the rich. Post it with a list of President Biden's accomplishments that are listed below. Occasionally, they will reply with something valid. The country has also problems like immigration that neither party can solve for whatever reason. The answers to paste for those are below as well.

Here's one for bonus points because it's a favorite story in the Republican echo chamber. Figure out where you can use it and you will not only annoy them, but confuse them too because "in the bubble" they constantly hear it about Democrats.
Maga Republicans hate America.

Clearly, Maga Republicans do hate American Democracy because they can't get what they want through fair elections. That is also why they work so hard to dominate the courts. Voters just don't like what few policies they seem to have. Republicans actually do like America. They want to rule it though and they are horrible at even governing. They also want to end every program that helps ordinary Americans from Obamacare, to SNAP food assistance, to Medicaid, to Medicares, to Social Security that keeps old folks from dying on the cold streets. They practice selfishness and cruelty.

Thomas Jefferson said he viewed with “solemn reverence that act of the whole of the American people” which established “a wall of separation between church and state.” George Washington approved a treaty that explicitly stated, “The government of the United States is not in any sense founded on the Christian religion.” The very First Amendment in America’s Bill of Rights states “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion.” The principal author of the Constitution, James Madison, in his treatise, “Memorial and Remonstrance Against Religious Assessments,” described 15 reasons why the U.S. government must avoid backing any religion.

There is a reason the word “God” does not appear a single time in the Constitution. The founders were breaking with an England and Europe that were still in the thrall of the idea that rulers derived their powers from heaven above, “the divine right of kings.” But in the Constitution it explicitly states their view that the powers of government are derived “from the consent of the governed.”

Madison said that “religion and government will both exist in greater purity the less they are mixed together” and saw the separation of the two as essential to avoiding “the ceaseless strife that has soaked the soil of Europe with blood for centuries”—a sentiment that clearly resonates with our own times. Washington celebrated that the U.S. had at last created a form of government “that gives to bigotry no sanction.” Benjamin Franklin wrote at length about the pernicious nature of religious tests in government documents.

11/22/2023. Sinclair Media personifies Right Wing fear mongering in media.

Every year, local television news stations owned by Sinclair Broadcasting conduct short surveys among viewers to help guide the year’s coverage. A key question in each poll, according to David Smith, the company’s executive chairman: “What are you most afraid of?” The answers are evident in Sinclair’s programming. Crime, homelessness, illegal drug use, failing schools and other societal ills have long been core elements of local TV news coverage. But on Sinclair’s growing nationwide roster of stations, the editorial focus reflects Smith’s conservative views and plays on its audience’s fears that America’s cities are falling apart,

Sinclair’s local network of 185 stations across the country makes it an influential player in shaping the views of millions of Americans, especially at a time when local newspapers are rapidly being gutted - or closed altogether.

Smith, an enthusiastic supporter of Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump who has built Sinclair into one of the largest television station operators in the country, purchased the Baltimore Sun last month. In a private meeting with the Sun’s journalists, he urged them to emulate coverage at the local Sinclair station, Fox45, which in 2021 produced a documentary titled simply “Baltimore Is Dying.” In 2019, a Sinclair station produced an hour-long documentary titled “Seattle Is Dying,” which described how “the appeal of the city is giving way to rampant crime, homelessness and disgrace.”

As Sinclair increasingly fills the void left by newspapers, it offers its viewers a perspective that aligns with Trump’s oft-stated opinion that America’s cities, especially those run by Democratic politicians, are dangerous and dysfunctional. A 2019 study by researchers at Stanford and Emory universities showed that a Sinclair acquisition of local stations resulted in “substantial increases in coverage of national politics at the expense of local politics” and “a significant rightward shift in the ideological slant of coverage.”

03/25/2024 Washington Post.
A previously undisclosed $50 million investment helped launch Newsmax into a Fox News competitor, a new report shows, and it came from an unexpected place: the Qatari government. In 2019 and 2020, a former Qatari government official and member of the royal family, Sheikh Sultan bin Jassim Al Thani, invested tens of millions into the fledgling far-right media company, according to documents leaked by a Cayman Islands–based financial services provider and reviewed by The Washington Post.

This was during a moment of acute Middle East tensions during the Trump administration. The investment bolstered a key conservative media outlet at a time when Qatar was facing intense diplomatic pressure from its neighbors and seeking allies in the United States. At the time the investment was made, a coalition of countries led by Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates had established a diplomatic and economic blockade against Qatar, accusing it of supporting terrorist groups across the Middle East. Qatar had counted on its relationship with the United States for protection, but President Donald Trump initially sided with its regional rivals, praising their move in 2017 and criticizing Qatar for funding terrorism.

After the investment, Newsmax reporters were told not to crtiticized Quatar. Further, it became a pro-Trump outlet, more extreme even than Fox News. According to a report released on Jan. 4 by House Democrats, the Qatari government paid over $460,000 during Trump’s presidency to Trump World Tower in New York City for properties it owned, and in 2018 members of Qatar’s ruling family spent more than $280,000 at Washington, D.C.’s Trump International Hotel. In August 2018, a firm that had received significant financial backing from Qatar’s sovereign wealth fund also bailed out a company controlled by the family of Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law and close adviser, on a troubled Manhattan real estate investment.

Trump then changed his tune as well. “They are investing very heavily in our country,” Trump said of Qatar during the 2019 White House meeting. “They’re creating lots of jobs.”

Hurricane Helene came from warm water in the Carribean, not from Africa. It's likely to happen again next year...