klepto- kakistocracy

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23 tags 820! SADLY PRIMARY 12 24 SEE TRANS 2 PLUM

neglected probably, 820 adding klepto- in honoR of dejoy amd mrs

SEE PLUTO // Fascism

SEE CORRUPT THREE GRIFT

SEE CRYPTO-CURRENCY

SEE DEREG SIL VLY AI inauguration

see emoluments

SEE NEPOTISM

plum --> yikes

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trump sen phone recs sue govt for $$$ jan 6 convicts

OMG OPPOSITE OF RETALIATION; FASCISM CRONY CAP’L

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CHRIS HAYES MONTAGE OF INCOMP GREEK AMB KIMBERLY NEW SPOX

// THOM 10 26

Put an alcoholic B-list weekend TV guy in charge of the Pentagon, a plumber in charge of DHS, a fracking guy in charge of Energy, a wrestling billionaire in charge of Education, a brain-worm-disabled former heroin- and sex-addicted lawyer in charge of our nation’s health, let a ketamine-addled trillionaire rip apart our federal government and destroy our soft power around the world by taking down USAID, shut down our pro-democracy propaganda operations (VOA, etc.), put a weight-loss “miracle pill” hawker in charge of Medicare and Medicaid, a C-list former reality TV star in charge of our airlines, his own criminal defense lawyer to run the coverup of Epstein at the Department of Justice, etc. The list is virtually endless.

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AN 3 26

The Department of Justice has awarded Michael Flynn, the retired three-star Army general who served as Trump's National Security Advisor for less than a month, a $1.25 million settlement—a decision that legal experts are comparing to outright theft of taxpayer funds.

Flynn's settlement, announced this week, compensates him for what the Trump administration is characterizing as wrongful prosecution. The irony is stark: Flynn pleaded guilty under oath in 2017 to intentionally making false statements to the FBI. He admitted to the crime in court with a lawyer present, with a judge confirming his understanding of what he was confessing to. Trump later pardoned him in 2020.

Now, with a new Trump administration in place, the Department of Justice under Attorney General Pam Bondi and Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche has agreed to hand over more than a million dollars in public money to a man who has already admitted guilt.

"I really do not understand how you justify this as anything but theft," said Andrew Weissmann, a former DOJ prosecutor who spent 20 years at the Department of Justice and served as general counsel at the FBI,during an appearance on "The Illegal News" podcast this week. "To make this a legitimate settlement, there would have to be a good faith belief that he has a meritorious argument and that there might be some downside in litigating this."

Weissmann's critique goes to the heart of how government settlements are supposed to work. When the DOJ settles a case, there must be a reasonable belief that the other side might actually win if the case went to trial—a genuine legal dispute, in other words. But in Flynn's case, Weissmann argues, there is no such ambiguity.

"I don't see the downside of having taken it to court," Weissmann said. "The issues here seem so completely one-sided that I really do not understand how you justify this as anything but theft."

The case against Flynn was straightforward. As National Security Advisor, Flynn had engaged in back-channel communications with Russian officials during the transition period. When FBI agents questioned him about these contacts, he lied. Vice President Mike Pence later went public saying he had repeated Flynn's denials on air, only to discover they were false—a betrayal that led directly to Flynn's firing after just 24 days in the job.

Flynn initially tried to withdraw his guilty plea, leading to years of litigation, but ultimately the legal process confirmed the guilty plea stood. There was no meritorious legal argument waiting to be discovered. There was no ambiguity about whether Flynn had committed the crime he admitted to committing.

Yet Bondi and Blanche signed off on the settlement anyway.

Weissmann raised additional concerns about the precedent this sets. "This is something that Michael Flynn admitted under oath he did, which was lied to the FBI. Now he then moved to withdraw his guilty plea. There was lots and lots of litigation back and forth, and that ultimately ended up with Donald Trump pardoning him," Weissmann explained.

The settlement also raises questions about potential conflicts of interest. Blanche was Trump's personal criminal defense attorney during his hush money trial and conviction. Now, as Deputy Attorney General, he's using government resources to benefit his former client.

"The next administration can look into this as an ethics issue," Weissmann said. "Remember, they represented Donald Trump individually. And they have to be looking out for the interests of the public, not for the interests of Donald Trump."

Perhaps most troubling to Weissmann is what this settlement signals about future Trump administration conduct. "This is the harbinger of more to come," he said, "because we know that Donald Trump wants to do this. And for all we know, this has been happening with other people doing this without bringing a lawsuit—just having a private agreement with the Department of Justice where they give out money and we just don't know."

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NORM O BBB GUT SAFETY NET TRUMPISTAS NEED, INLY DOABLE BC KAKI

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100K$ FIXER LOBBY 1026

FLASHBACK: At Fox, U.S. Ambassador Guilfoyle endorsed criminal investigation into Clinton “pay-for-play” claims

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an 9 26

President Donald Trump and his high-ranking officials are engaged in a simultaneous project of spreading far right ideologies worldwide — and raking in billions while doing so.

In an article by The Atlantic's Anne Applebaum on Monday, Americans learned the full extent of Trump's mixing of exporting paranoid politics and turning a profit from Brazil and the United Arab Emirates to threatening longtime democratic allies like Canada and Denmark. She added that the major industries helping Trump do this include oil and gas, rare earth minerals and cryptocurrency.

"American power is no longer deployed solely by trained diplomats and reliable officials, working through state channels. Informal envoys, private companies, online grifters, and hardened ideologues both inside and outside the government matter more," Applebaum wrote. "Unlike their predecessors, these people do not talk about spreading democracy, and don’t want to build long-term relationships. They don’t care about America’s reputation. They are deploying the tools of American diplomacy and government for their own purposes, to promote their own business interests or their own ideological goals, because, suddenly, they can."

She also added that "the clan of predators currently in charge of the U.S. federal government is no different. Wrongly described as 'isolationists,' many of its true believers don’t think of themselves as ordinary Republicans who won an election and will temporarily hold power until the next election. Nor are they mere appendages of Trump. They believe they represent something much greater: the vanguard of a movement that will alter not just America, but the world."

Applebaum contrasted the attitude of Trump supporters with that of Sen. John McCain (R-AZ), who famously said during the 2008 election that his opponent, Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL), was a decent man with whom he happened to disagree.

"Their enemies are existential, and they are international: super-spreaders of a 'wokeness' plague, or proponents of a fictitious 'censorship-industrial complex,' or advocates of 'regulation' that will hamper American business, or self-hating promoters of “mass migration” who want to drown Western civilization in a sea of brown-faced aliens," Applebaum explained. "To maintain their power and defeat these enemies, the predators, like their Bolshevik counterparts, cannot rely on traditional diplomacy, because they don’t trust its practitioners."

She concluded, "Nor do they trust many of the leaders of the democratic states that have long shared the same political and economic values as America. Although the U.S. military and intelligence services continue to cooperate closely with allied governments, the ideologues in and out of the administration are actively seeking to replace them with people and parties who share their disdain for liberal democracy and for what were once considered, at least aspirationally, to be American values. To do so, they need to expand their global influence, manipulate elections in former partner nations, and alter the flows of money and power, especially inside other democracies. Much of the world has always believed America’s defense of democracy to be hypocritical, and that American-led economic integration was self-serving. But now even the people who sincerely believed in the postwar American project are discovering that it no longer exists."

Trump himself has raked in billions since assuming office in his second term, while his sons have netted millions using their foreign policy connections to get involved in matters like investing in tungsten mines. Earlier this month, a Gallup poll found a historically high number of Americans are upset with government corruption, writing that "Americans’ perceptions of government corruption in the U.S. are at their highest level in 20 years, with 89 [percent] of U.S. adults saying it is widespread. That figure is up 10 percentage points from last year and well above readings in the 72 [percent] to 79 [percent] range between 2010 and 2025."

The poll added, "Democrats’ perceptions of government corruption have risen the most sharply since 2024 compared with other party groups. In former President Joe Biden’s final year in office, 57 [percent] of Democrats said corruption was widespread in government; that rose to 76 [percent] in 2025, the first year of President Donald Trump’s second term, and reached 91 [percent] this year. The figure among political independents (90 [percent]) aligns more closely with Democrats’ than with Republicans’ (83 [percent]) and is up 12 points since 2024."

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AN 8 26 Trump graduates from petty grift to 'institutional graft': expert

U.S. President Donald Trump's net worth has continued to increase during his second presidency, reaching an estimated $6.5 billion in July (according to Forbes). The Trump-associated, cryptocurrency-oriented World Liberty Financial, which is playing a major role in Trump's profitability, became even more powerful when, on August 15, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, approved a back charter for the outfit. And journalist Rick Newman believes that Trump's "grifting" is soaring to a whole new level.

According to ABC News, "The decision marks the first time in U.S. history that a company owned by the sitting president's family has been granted bank status, as Democratic lawmakers express concerns over potential conflicts of interest."

During a Monday morning, August 17 appearance on MS NOW, Pinpoint Press founder Newman — known for his long history of financial reporting for U.S. News & World Report as well as Yahoo Finance — laid out some reasons why he finds it so troubling that World Liberty is being granted bank status.

When MS NOW host Stephanie Ruhle, sounding incredulous, commented, "This is crazy," she got no argument from Newman.

The Pinpoint Press founder told Ruhle and fellow journalist John Harwood (Ruhle's other guest during the segment), "World Bribery Financial, let's call it that. I mean, this is just the next step in Trump's self-enrichment scheme. This is not going to be a bank that holds customer deposits. So, if you're a Trump lover and you really want to put your savings in Trump's bank, you can't do that. Sorry. But what it's going to be able to allow them to do, I think, is sort of graduate from petty graft to institutional graft."

Newman continued, "So, one of the things they will be able to do with this bank is handle deposits for institutions — hedge funds or money firms or anybody else. Foreign institutions, things like that, where they have a lot of connections. They will make more money handling that stuff under the guise of: this is all part of a crypto company. So, here we go."

When Ruhle asked Harwood why major Wall Street CEOs like JPMorgan Chase's Jamie Dimon aren't commenting on Liberty Financial being grated bank status, he responded, "They're all hiding and cowering in the corner because they know Trump is likely to go after them…. He doesn't just make crypto deals to enrich himself, he starts a bank — and he gets himself deeper into the industry."

YouTube Ruhle

www.youtube.com

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bulwark

klepto expl for policy

3 3 26

https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=mona+charen+bulwark

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AN 3 26

First Lady Melania Trump is leading the United Nations Security Council next week, and it's prompting some to wonder what the angle is for the Trumps to benefit.

Writing for The Guardian on Saturday, columnist Arwa Mahdawi explained, "It is my working hypothesis that there are only two reasons a Trump ever does anything: money or malice."

So, she speculated, what is behind the new decision to take Mrs. Trump away from her meme coin, coffee table books, and filmmaking?

"I’m not sure holding the gavel at Monday’s security council session is particularly lucrative, so file this one under 'malice,'" wrote Mahdawi. "Foisting Melania on the Security Council as the U.S. assumes the body’s rotating monthly presidency sends a clear message to the world about just how seriously the Trump administration takes the UN. It feels like an attempt to undermine the credibility of the UN and multilateralism more broadly."

She recalled Trump's overall hatred that manifested during the COVID-19 crisis toward the World Health Organization in 2020, along with his ongoing abandonment of 66 other international organizations.

Daniel Forti, head of UN affairs at the International Crisis Group, told NPR that the "symbolism is unequivocal."

"It’s that the US really wants to dictate its own terms to the rest of the multilateral system and wants to work with the UN in a way where it really sets the agenda," he said.

Several months ago, Trump announced he was forming his own group of the united nations called the "Board of Peace," where he, and only he, will be the leader, and joining will cost $1 billion. The president announced last week that he was handing over $10 billion in taxpayer dollars to run the organization, though those funds have not yet been approved by Congress. The current goal is to rebuild Gaza, he said, but during a speech before the meeting last week, Trump claimed they are "going to go far beyond Gaza."

Mahdawi sees it as nothing more than "a vehicle for rampant profiteering."

Behind the scenes, Mahdawi said that a number of diplomats are fearful that it will become a shadow version of the United Nations, that favors the Americans.

"All of which must be very exciting for our first lady, who is clearly keen to try her hand at international diplomacy," Mahdawi closed. "Perhaps, after her valuable work experience stint at the United Nations on Monday, Melania will also find herself a nice little role on the Board of Peace. And maybe Ivanka Trump, who the president once thought about installing as the head of the World Bank, will also return to public life. Whatever happens, I think we can all agree that we’re terribly lucky to have such a talented ruling family. FIFA, I hope you’re paying attention; time to give Melania her own peace prize, don’t you think?"

AN 3 26

'Proven genes': Mock 'Draft Barron Trump' website pops up as president launches war

AN 2 26

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an 2 26

Melania Trump will preside over the United Nations Security Council next week — a decision igniting backlash before it begins.

“First Lady Melania Trump is set to make history at the United Nations, taking the gavel as the United States assumes the Security Council Presidency to emphasize education’s role in advancing tolerance and world peace,” a press release from the Office of the First Lady reads.

“Mrs. Trump’s leadership will mark the first time a sitting U.S. First Lady presides over the Security Council as members consider education, technology, peace, and security.”

An opinion piece at The New Republic says, “While the first lady has shown an interest in children’s welfare, particularly in Russia’s war on Ukraine, it’s hard to imagine her address as any more than a symbolic gesture that will look good in a social media post.”

U.S. Ambassador to the UN, Mike Waltz, wrote: We are thrilled to have @Flotus gavel in the US Presidency of the Security Council.”

Critics online are blasting the decision.

“Just when you thought they couldn’t disrespect professional, career U.S. diplomats, American diplomacy or international organizations more- they produce this grotesque theatre of the absurd,” wrote former U.S. Ambassador to Jamaica, Luis Moreno.

Associate professor of History Thomas Småberg commented, “I’m a social network scholar with a focus on the Middle Ages and Trump’s uses of family, friends and followers is straight out of medieval aristocracy. It’s so interesting to [see] his abuse of presidential power and his disregard for Republicans.”

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AN 12 25

President Donald Trump is increasingly focused on "cashing in" on his presidency as his second term increasingly "runs out of road," according to a new analysis from an associate editor at *The Independent*.

Writing for a piece published Monday, Sean O'Grady characterized Trump, the oldest person ever elected president, as "an old man in a hurry" seeking to eke as much acclaim and material gain out of the office as he can, before either his second term or his life comes to an end, and also as his influence over politics wanes in his "lame duck" era.

"This is... a president who knows he is running out of time," O'Grady wrote. "Whatever the truth behind reports that his health is failing, he’s nearly 80, his second term will come to an end, and he knows his domestic power is crumbling. He is an old man in a hurry."

Many aspects of Trump's second term can be viewed through this lens, O'Grady argues, from his desire to make Greenland a US territory, to his controversial remodeling of the White House to include a massive ballroom, to his plan to try and convert Gaza into a luxury beachfront resort region. All these plans and impulses, the editor suggests, stem from the fact that Trump is "a real estate guy who enjoys wealth, almost for its own sake," and is driven considerably by "materialism."

"In other words, this is a transactional president who has his eye on commercial opportunities, national and personal," O'Grady wrote. "It may not be a coincidence that his personal envoys in this peace process are another property developer, Steve Witkoff, and his son-in-law, Jared Kushner, both at least as influential in this as Marco Rubio, the secretary of state, who increasingly resembles a hostage. They will know that Trump would like to know what’s in all this for America and for Trump himself."

Trump's stated interest in rebuilding economic opportunities and "strategic stability with Russia" also plays into this, with O'Grady suggesting that the president is willing to pay Vladimir Putin's price for such developments, namely treating Ukraine "more like a US-Russia condominium than a sovereign European state in its own right."

"That may sound like an extreme verdict, but as it’s based on current trends and public remarks, it is a balanced, and frankly terrifying, one," the editor concluded."

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REF 3 2X?

Over the years, much of Donald Trump's wealth came from the real estate activities —from hotels to golf clubs to Mar-a-Lago — associated with the Trump Organization. But in 2021, Trump expanded into tech in a major way with a then-new company: Trump Media & Technology Group (TMTG), headquartered in Sarasota, Florida. Then, in 2024, the crypto marketplace World Liberty Financial became yet another income source for members of the Trump family.

TMTG's tech activities range from Truth Social, Trump's social media platform, to his cryptocurrency-related ventures. Liberal economist Paul Krugman is highly critical of Trump's involvement with crypto, which he considers a house of cards that won't be viable in the long run.

While an October 14 Substack column from Krugman criticized Trump's crypto expansion from a business standpoint, author Jacob Silverman analyzes it from an ethics standpoint in an op-ed published by the New York Times on October 17.

Silverman notes corruption scandals of the past, including Teapot Dome during the 1920s and Watergate during the 1970s — and argues that the potential for "corruption" with Trump's crypto activities is much greater.

"While campaigning, Mr. Trump announced his cryptocurrency venture World Liberty Financial, and, just days before inauguration, his namesake memecoin," Silverman explains. "Anyone can indirectly deliver money to a Trump family entity simply by buying World Liberty's tokens. Mr. Trump and his family have accrued billions of dollars in paper wealth through crypto ventures owned by the president, his sons and family friends. With World Liberty, Trump has created a powerful vehicle for those seeking influence. Anyone — you, me, an Emirati prince — can put money in his pocket by simply buying the tokens the company issues."

Silverman continues, "The key is the convenience factor. For influence peddlers, bags of cash and Swiss bank accounts have been replaced by crypto tokens that can be quickly shuttled between digital wallets and cryptocurrency exchanges. Savvier crypto users — nation-states, hacker groups, money launderers — can use digital 'mixers' and other tools to obfuscate their trail. It's precisely these conveniences that have also made crypto a favored tool of criminal organizations and sanctions evaders."

Trump is the only president in U.S. history who was voted back into office despite two impeachments and four criminal indictments. And Silverman fears the worst where World Liberty is concerned.

"We've never seen anything like this before," Silverman stresses. "You can tick off notorious executive branch scandals — President Ulysses S. Grant’s rogues' gallery of corrupt advisers, Teapot Dome's bribes for oil leases in the Harding Administration, Watergate and the downfall of Richard Nixon — but none of them featured this scale of mixing of personal and government interests, much less the sheer accumulation of profit, of Mr. Trump's multibillion-dollar crypto windfall…. Mr. Trump and his sons' enormous accumulation of crypto wealth appears set to continue throughout his term."

Silverman continues, "There seems to be no upper bound to how much foreign money can be channeled toward him. It's an open door to a form of corruption, at the highest level, that Americans have never had to confront. But we must confront the dark possibilities it presents."

*Jacob Silverman's full New York Times op-ed is available at this link (subscription required).

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mayfair london uberrich shell corps own houses

putin dep mayor stole $ smuggled abroad w help of banksters in west; applebaum

https://www.samharris.org/podcasts/making-sense-episodes/376-how-democracies-fail

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AN 625

Critics pounce as Trump turns 'official government website' into scheme for 'selling green cards'

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an 6 25

Bulwark Policy Editor Mona Charen says Americans do more damage than they know when they dismiss gross corruption as “everybody does it” —because everybody doesn’t.

“It’s perfectly clear why Trump and his many enablers rely on whataboutism. It’s the easiest deflection,” Charen writes. “What is the proper response to Trump’s iniquitous treatment of women? What about Bill Clinton? How can one evaluate his pardons of the January 6th insurrectionists? What about all those who rioted in protest of George Floyd’s murder and were never prosecuted? (They were.) Was Trump’s refusal to return highly classified documents a serious breach? What about Joe Biden keeping files in his garage?(Biden returned them when asked.) Is Trump corrupting the rule of law with his pardons of friends, donors, and political allies? *What about Joe Biden’s pardons of Hunter and his entire family?”

Many people, when caught in a lie or transgression admit their guilt and seek to repair the damage, said Charen. “That’s how mature people and societies stay civilized. … But “truly depraved people don’t take that route. Trump uses whataboutism not just to change the subject or disarm the accuser … but also to breed cynicism.”

Cynicism is corrosive because it invites the very thing it scorns, said Charen. “Once you elect a sociopath and agree with his jaundiced view that everyone is corrupt, you’ve lost any chance of upholding basic values.

IFrame Content

“Yes, Biden’s pardons of his family were grubby, but they were a few pebbles compared with Trump’s avalanche of corruption,” Charen concedes, however, “… Trump’s corruption is so off the charts (a Qatari luxury jet, hundreds of millions in memecoins and tokens, bidding wars to dine with him as his club) that it defies comparison.”

Charen ticks down a list of the president’s worst: “Through the memecoin, anyone anywhere for any reason can put hundreds, or thousands, or millions of dollars directly into Trump’s pocket. Not into a campaign fund, not into a political party, but into the hands of the president. And as we witnessed on his Middle East trip, eager foreign leaders and businessmen are lining up to do so. Vietnam, hoping for relief from tariffs, is in talks to help Trump build a luxury golf course. Due almost entirely to his crypto holdings, Trump has, by one estimate, doubled his net worth in just four months.”

The Bulwark podaster says the Constitution could not be clearer that “no person holding any Office of Profit or Trust under them shall, without the Consent of the Congress, accept of any present, Emolument, Office, or Title of any kind whatever, from any King, Prince, or foreign state.” But that doesn’t appear to be preventing the administration from disbanding the Justice Department unit devoted to ferreting out crypto crime just in time for the Securities and Exchange Commission to drop an investigation into one of Trump’s largest donors “—the one who donated top dollar (or memecoin) to have dinner with Trump at his country club outside D.C.,” she said.

If Americans do treasure honesty, integrity, the rule of law and decency, Charen said they must be prepared to reject whataboutism and risk mockery by insisting that no, not everybody does it, and we don’t want to accept the kind of society in which that is assumed.

“We must disenthrall ourselves from the whataboutism mindset,” she said. “There are honorable politicians. There are honest businessmen. There are police and soldiers and teachers and programmers and athletes and judges of integrity. Millions of Americans are appalled and deeply embarrassed by the kakistocracy we’ve elevated. Hold on to that outrage. It’s the road back from this disaster.”

Read the full Bulwark report here.

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an 6 25

Conservative Peter Wehner, now 64, was a speechwriter in the administrations of three Republican presidents: Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush and George W. Bush. But Wehner's relationship with the Republican Party started to go sour when, in January 2016, he wrote a New York Times op-ed headlined, "Why I Will Never Vote for Donald Trump." And unlike all the prominent Republicans who were major Trump critics in 2016 but went on to become strong supporters — a group that includes now-Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-New York) and now-Vice President JD Vance — Wehner has remained firmly in the Never Trump camp.

In a scathing article published by The Atlantic on May 31, Wehner describes Trump's second administration as a "thugocracy" that defies "constitutional conservatism."

"Not too long ago," Wehner explains, "many Republicans proudly referred to themselves as 'constitutional conservatives.' They believed in the rule of law; in limiting the power of government, especially the federal government; in protecting individual liberty; and in checks and balances and the separation of powers…. One of the reasons Roe v. Wade was viewed as a travesty by conservatives is that they believed the 1973 Supreme Court decision twisted the Constitution to invent a 'right to privacy' in order to legalize abortion. The decision, they felt, was driven by a desired outcome rather than a rigorous analysis of legal precedent or constitutional text, which is why it’s hard to think of a more anti-conservative figure than President Donald Trump or a more anti-conservative movement than MAGA."

Wehner adds, "Trump and his supporters evince a disdain for laws, procedures, and the Constitution. They want to empower the federal government in order to turn it into an instrument of brute force that can be used to reward allies and destroy opponents."

IFrame Content

The Never Trump conservative cites a variety of ways in which Trump is rejecting "constitutional conservatism" during his second presidency.

"Trump and his administration have abolished agencies and imposed sweeping tariffs even when they don't have the legal authority to do so," Wehner observes. "They are deporting people without due process. Top aides are floating the idea of suspending the writ of habeas corpus, one of the most important constitutional protections against unlawful detention. Judges, who are the target of threats from the president, fear for their safety. So do the very few Republicans who are willing to assert their independence from Trump."

Wehner continues, "In one of his first official acts, Trump granted clemency to more than 1500 people charged in connection with the violent attack on the Capitol on January 6, 2021, including those convicted of seditious conspiracy. The president and his family are engaging in a level of corruption that was previously unfathomable. And he and his administration have shown no qualms about using the federal government to target private companies, law firms, and universities; suing news organizations for baseless reasons; and ordering criminal probes into former administration officials who criticized Trump. The Trump Administration is a thugocracy, and the Republican Party he controls supports him each step of the way. Almost every principle to which Republicans once professed fealty has been jettisoned. The party is now devoted to the abuse of power and to vengeance."

*Peter Wehner's full article is available at this link (subscription required).

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theological branch patron saint:

an 2 25

Trump appointed Pastor Paula White-Cain as head of his “Faith Office” last week, a controversial figure due to her belief that faith is transactional. She has had a long relationship with Trump, helping him appeal to the religious right throughout his political career. Daniel N. Gullotta outlines what her leadership looks like in a piece at the Bulwark published Wednesday.

“While I’m in the White House, we will protect Christians in our schools, in our military, in our government, in our workplaces, in our hospitals, and in our public squares,. “And we will bring our country back together as one nation under God, with liberty and justice for all.”

“White-Cain has long held that Trump was divinely chosen to lead the nation and that he is engaged in an ongoing battle against demonic forces,” Gullotta writes. In 2019, she said that Christians who voted against Trump would have to “stand accountable before God one day.” In 2020, she said "demonic confederacies" were trying to steal the election.

Gullotta is a Postdoctoral Research Associate at the Declaration of Independence Center for the Study of American Freedom at the University of Mississippi.

“She advocates a kind of “hard”prosperity gospel that makes the case for faith in explicitly transactional terms, with material rewards for personal fidelity sometimes quite clearly enumerated,” Gullotta writes. “Befitting her spiritual theme, her ministry fuses entertainment, self-help, and economic empowerment, making her a singular figure in the American religious landscape.

Like Trump, White-Cain -- who is married to Jonathan Cain of the band Journey -- believes that wealth is a measure of success.

Gullotta points out that the prosperity gospel is not popular among mainstream Christianity. “Most Christian traditionsreject andcondemn the prosperity gospel on theological, ethical, and biblical grounds; within mainstream evangelicalism, it is often labeled a heresy. Where is the room for essential Christian doctrines such as suffering, grace, and God’s sovereignty in a paradigm that puts success above all? The movement White-Cain represents has a reputation for corruption and the exploitation of the vulnerable, who are promised divine rewards in exchange for financial contributions.”

Indeed, theologian Michael Horton wrote in the *Washington Post* last month that “Evangelicals should be deeply troubled by Donald Trump’s attempt to mainstream heresy,” naming White-Cain in the article.

Trump and White-Cain met in 2002 after Trump saw her on television. Soon, she was giving him guidance and helping him curry favor with the religious right. “When Trump announced his candidacy in 2015, White-Cain helped him navigate his relationship with religious voters, a bloc initially skeptical of the celebrity playboy,” Gullotta writes.

Mixed reactions to her appointment, Gullotta writes, show that Trump’s Christian base is not monolithic. “The reality is that Donald Trump’s Christian supporters are an uneasy alliance of factions that often disagree with one another and that each support him for different reasons and in pursuit of different goals,” he writes.

“It is maximally fitting for Paula White to be the chosen religious representative of a regime fueled by a naked pursuit of profit,” Malcolm Foley, a special adviser to the president of Baylor University and the author of The Anti-Greed Gospel, told the Bulwark.

:{“This is without question Trump's worst appointment. There's no defending this. Virtually any Protestant minister would be better,” podcaster and academic Anthony Stine, who is Catholic, posted on X.

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an 1 25

Trump has placed 'For Sale' sign on White House with chief of staff pick: watchdog

Jake Johnson Common Dreams

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an 1 25

After defeating Vice President Kamala Harris in the 2024 presidential race, President-elect Donald Trump didn't back down from his promise to impose stiff new tariffs. Trump, in fact, doubled down, vowing to charge 25 percent across-the-board tariffs on all goods coming into the United States from Canada and Mexico.

Many Trump critics have been warning that those tariffs, if implemented, will make inflation much worse. Some companies are already raising their prices.

According to The Guardian's Callum Jones, however, some companies that donated to Trump's 2016 campaign dodged tariffs during his first term as president.

"With Donald Trump threatening to impose steep tariffs upon his return to office this month," Jones explains in an article published on January 6. "U.S. firms are bracing for impact. But an analysis of Trump's last presidency identified one way to boost their chances of avoiding the levies: donating to the Republican Party."

Jones continues, "While the initial stage of the president-elect's tariff agenda is designed to hit America's largest trading partners — Canada, Mexico and China — it is U.S. firms that pick up the bill, paying duties imposed on the goods they buy from these markets. Such additional costs can prove devastating."

The Guardian reporter cites a study published on July 29, 2024. The study names some of the companies that dodged tariffs during Trump's first term.

"The federal government typically allows a carefully selected group of businesses from paying such levies," Jones notes. "Thousands of companies applied for exemptions, and permission to import items without paying a new tariff, during Trump's first presidency."

Jesus Salas, an associate finance professor at Lehigh University in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, anticipates that the same thing will happen during Trump's second term and finds it "shocking" that companies that supported Democrats in 2016 were, according to the study, less likely to avoid tariffs.

Jones quotes Salas as saying, "(There are) many reasons to think some of this behavior is going to continue…. It's going to be the same staff, probably the same ideas, so we'd assume it's going to be the same behavior."

READ MORE:['Sickening!' Trump slammed over comments at mysterious Mar-a-Lago party

*Read The Guardian's full article at this link.

==---

12/11/2024 RWW

Kyle Mantyla

Diana Falzone @ Mediaite: ‘Will Result in Termination’: Newsmax Bans Criticism of Pete Hegseth After Trump Fumed Over Host’s Attack

Newsmax instructed staff to lay off Pete Hegseth, the Fox News host Donald Trump nominated to serve as his secretary of defense, after a segment bashing the pick sparked the ire of Trump himself.

Alexander C. Kaufman @ HuffPost: Trump Names Price For Avoiding All Environment Regulations: $1 Billion Or More

President-elect Donald Trump said Tuesday he planned to expedite federal regulatory approvals, including all environmental permits, for any company or individual proposing to invest $1 billion or more in a construction project.

Sean Craig @ The Daily Beast: Mel Gibson Threatens ‘to Kill Someone’ While Fearmongering at Mar-a-Lago

A cavalcade of supporting characters in the MAGA universe, and President-elect Donald Trump, showed up at Mar-a-Lago on Tuesday to attend a soirée for the conspiratorial, QAnon-adjacent conservative nonprofit America’s Future.

Nikki McCann Ramírez @ Rolling Stone: Advocacy Group Calls B.S. on Nancy Mace’s Claim That She Was Assaulted in Capitol

A man has been arrested, and Nancy Mace is wearing a wrist brace and shoulder sling after the South Carolina congresswoman said she was “physically accosted” in a Capitol office building on Tuesday afternoon.

Peter Drier @ Talking Points Memo: Trump Does Not Have Mandate

Newspaper headlines have called Donald Trump’s victory “decisive,” “massive,” “resounding,” “historic,” and “sweeping.” Trump himself has described his win as a “landslide.” On election night, he claimed that “America has given us an unprecedented and powerful mandate.” None of those things are true.

===

omg kaki-

AN 11 24

President-elect Donald Trump’s decision to nominate as the U.S. Secretary of the Navy a financier, art collector, and MAGA megadonor with no military experience is coming under fire.

“It is my great honor to announce John Phelan as our next United States Secretary of the Navy!” declared Trump in a statement, deviating from his usual habit of acknowledging their status as a nominee. “John will be a tremendous force for our Naval Servicemembers, and a steadfast leader in advancing my America First vision. He will put the business of the U.S. Navy above all else.”

Trump claimed, “John has excelled in every endeavor, from founding and leading Rugger Management LLC, to co-founding MSD Capital, LP, the Private Investment Firm for Michael Dell, CEO of Dell Technologies. His Record of Success speaks for itself – A true Champion of American Enterprise and Ingenuity!”

The Independent noted, “According to the U.S. Code,the secretary of the Navy shall be appointed ‘from among persons most highly qualified for the position by reason of background and experience.'”

Phelan “donated $834,600 to Trump’s joint fundraising committee, Trump 47,” back in April, according to The Hill. In August, at his $38 million Aspen estate, Phelan hosted a “$25,000 to $500,000 a couple” fundraiser that reportedly generated $12 million for Trump.

“The dinner, which Trump reportedly flew in for on a private jet once owned by disgraced financier and convicted pedophile Jeffrey Epstein, was held at the $38 million home of art collectors and investors John and Amy Phelan, with Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-CO), gambling mogul Steve Wynn, and billionaire Thomas Peterffy also in attendance,” The Daily Beast reported. “There were about 100 attendees at the event, which required couples to pony up $500,000 to serve on the host committee or at least $25,000 to attend at all.”

“If confirmed,” The Military Times reports, “Phelan would be the first permanent Navy secretary without military experience since 2009, when Donald Winter finished up his three-year term in the role. Unlike Winter, who previously had worked within the Pentagon and on Navy contracts at major defense firms, Phelan has little public connection to the sea service.”

Winter was nominated by Republican President George W. Bush.

“Of the 26 men to be confirmed as Navy secretary over the last 70 years, all but six have been veterans,” The Military Times also noted.

Critics are pointing to Phelan’s lack of relevant experience.

Paul Rieckhoff, the veterans’ activist and founder of Independent Veterans of America, Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America (IAVA), and Righteous Media, blasted Trump’s pick.

He warned, “of course, Phelan has not served in the Navy. Or any other branch of military service. But he is a big Trump donor. The least qualified and most overtly political cabinet in American history continues to expand. And #OurEnemiesAreCelebrating.”

Veteran foreign policy journalist Laura Rozen, pointing to Phelan’s bio at the nonprofit Spirit of America and the London School of Economics and Political Science, writes, “Harvard MBA, art collector, manages fund of Michael Dell’s money. dont see anything in his bio that has any national security.”

Kevin Baron, the award-winning military journalist and former executive editor of Defense One, responding to a report on Phelan’s nomination, wrote, “Who?”

---

YiKES OMG SEE FAscism see pluto

an 10 24

Former Washington Post editor-at-large, Robert Kagan, revealed to The Daily Beast on Saturday that the newspaper's owner — Amazon's Jeff Bezos — and 2024 GOP nominee Donald Trump, allegedly agreed on a plan to "kill" thePost's endorsement of 2024 Democratic nominee, Kamala Harris, the news outlet reports.

The Beast notes:

Bezos knows first hand the consequences of criticizing the former president. The Post’s 2016 endorsement of Hillary Clinton is widely thought to have led to him losing out on a $10 billion cloud computing defense contract awarded by the Trump administration.

Following his Friday resignation from thePost,Kagan told the Beast "that Trump’s meeting with executives of Bezos’ Blue Origin space company the same day that the Amazonfounder killed a plan to support Harris was proof of the backroom deal."

READ MORE:['Bit of a panic': Trump adviser’s attack on bombshell WaPo report fact-checked by expert

The ex-Post editor said, "Trump waited to make sure that Bezos did what he said he was going to do, and then met with the Blue Origin people. Which tells us that there was an actual deal made, meaning that Bezos communicated, or through his people, communicated directly with Trump, and they set up this quid pro quo.”

Per the report, Kagan warned that this kind of "alleged collusion between" the billionaire tech founder and Trump "is just the beginning," and emphasized there will be "a lot of self censorship [in the media] and a lot of changing course just to be sure that they’re not going to be punished," if the MAGA leader wins the White House.

"This is what we have to look forward to," Kagan told the Post. "All Trump has to do is threaten the corporate chiefs who run these organizations with real financial loss, and they will bend the knee."

-----

accusations are confession/ projection:

an 1 24

Trump took millions from China, Saudi Arabia, other foreign governments as POTUS: report - Alternet.org

badash

while serving as President of the United States, Donald Trump’s businesses accepted millions of dollars from numerous foreign governments, including China and Saudi Arabia – the very acts House Republicans have baselessly alleged Joe Biden performed as Vice President and as a private citizen before being elected President, despite having provided no actual proof.

“Donald J. Trump’s businesses received at least $7.8 million from 20 foreign governments during his presidency, according to new documents released by House Democrats on Thursday that show how much he received from overseas transactions while he was in the White House, most of it from China,” The New York Times reported Thursday. The paper calls it “concrete evidence that the former president engaged in the kind of conduct that House Republicans have labored, so far unsuccessfully, to prove that President Biden did as they work to build an impeachment case against him.”

The Wall Street Journal adds that the “report, underpinned by documents provided to House investigators by the accounting firm Mazars USA, offers a fuller picture of how Trump’s businesses benefited during his presidency as foreign officials may have tried to curry favor with Trump.”

In a break with tradition, as President, Donald Trump’s first foreign trip was to Saudi Arabia (video below), in May of 2017. One month earlier, Trump met with China’s President Xi at Mar-a-Lago. Ivanka Trump received patents from China that same day.

The 156-page report, “White House for Sale: How Princes, Prime Ministers, and Premiers Paid Off President Trump,” was produced by the House Democrats on the Oversight Committee under Ranking Member Jamie Raskin (D-MD), a former constitutional law professor. He calls the findings and conclusions in the report “astounding,” and says “they demand urgent action by the Congress and by the American people.”

The Journal offers staggering details from the report.

“Hundreds of pages of expenses seen by the Journal include at least $210,000 in real estate and lodging fees by Saudi Arabia in 2018, the same year Trump publicly doubted U.S. intelligence assessments that Saudi Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman ordered the murder and dismemberment of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi,” the WSJ writes. “And a few months earlier, a Saudi delegation paid $2,000 for coffee table flowers and towers of cookies at the same hotel.”

“Newly disclosed receipts also show that Hainan Airlines Holding, which then had connections to China’s leadership, incurred $195,662 in charges at the Trump International Hotel in Las Vegas during a 14-month period beginning days before Trump was elected in 2016,” the Journal adds. “Malaysia paid for a $10,000-per-night suite in Trump’s Washington hotel in September 2017 for then-Prime Minister Najib Razak while he was under a U.S. investigation for his role in a multibillion-dollar corruption scandal that ultimately helped topple his government. Malaysia’s spending caused a 70% jump in average nightly room revenue at Trump’s Washington hotel compared with other nights that month, the report said.”

Ranking Member Raskin writes in the report: “By elevating his personal financial interests and the policy priorities of corrupt foreign powers over the American public interest, former President Trump violated both the clear commands of the Constitution and the careful precedent set and observed by every previous Commander-in-Chief.”

“Article I, Section 9, Clause 8 of the Constitution forbids the President to accept money payments or gifts ‘of any kind whatever’ from foreign governments and monarchs unless he obtains ‘the Consent of the Congress’ to do so,” he observes. “Yet Donald Trump, while holding the office of president, used his business entities to pocket millions of dollars from foreign states and royalty and never once went to Congress to seek its consent. This report sets forth the records showing foreign government money—and all the spoils from royals we can find—pouring into hotels and buildings that the President continued to own during his presidency, all in direct violation of the Constitutional prohibition.”

Watch video of Trump being honored by Saudi Arabia during his first foreign trip below or at this link.

---

https://www.alternet.org/2021/04/trump-jr/

lie under oath inaug $

[[[aha root of all evil:

capitalism built on myth/story /schema of spot transaction/barter, not found in real world?

aha: trump is just apotheosis: invis hand me vs we short vs long term: $ = winner, vs losers who deserve poverty, corruption/crony capitalism is natural inevitable outcome

// metaphor; immune sys digestive sys goes on overdrive?

aha: reduction = retaliation = transaction [extraction is just a more extreme form where other has no power]

terministic screen/tunnel vision limits to small number of visible things right here and now self-ish vs larger complex system/ long term; also zero sum

long term means more entities, more events thus more complexity (tho a story can simplify/screen/ change emphasis, make a pattern (even where none exists, eg qanon) thus meaning, which then acts as term screen filter to repell conflicting/anomalous/dissonance info ); but fills vacuum need, that previously would have been filled by experts/textbooks/teachers/leaders/pastors?

aha: reduction = retaliation = transaction

terministic screen/tunnel vision limits to small number of visible things right here and now vs larger complex system/ long term

https://www.alternet.org/2020/09/americas-enemies-perceive-weakness-in-donald-trump-foreign-policy-expert-explains-how-the-president-squandered-us-exceptionalism/

no lnx audio

c de v]]]

an 1020 alex h

bunch of grifters’: Ronald Reagan’s son slams modern GOP for ‘degrading’ the values it once espoused

https://www.rferl.org/a/putinfellas-russia-putin-mafia/27713771.html

5/16

as deputy mayor of St. Petersburg in the 1990s, Vladimir Putin spent a lot of time with gangsters.

He collaborated with the infamous Tambov and Malyshev organized crime groups to gain control of St. Petersburg's gambling industry.

He used his office to help launder mafia money and to arrange foreign travel for known mobsters.

And security for the Ozero dacha cooperative he co-founded with some of his former KGB pals was provided by a company run by the Tambov gang, whom Putin also helped secure a monopoly over the city's fuel distribution network.

Putin was, in fact, an important liaison between the local government and the criminal underworld, Karen Dawisha writes in her highly acclaimed book Putin's Kleptocracy.

And when he moved into the Kremlin, Putin put his old mafia contacts to use as key tools of Russian statecraft.

"A significant part of Russian organised crime is organised directly from the offices of the Kremlin," the International Business Times quoted Ben Emmerson, a prominent British attorney who represents the family of slain Russian defector Aleksandr Litvinenko,as saying.

Likewise, Russian organized crime expert Mark Galeotti noted* at the Hudson Institute that Putin's Russia is "not so much a mafia state as a state with a nationalized mafia."

Putin's Kremlin has used organized crime to carry out the tasks it wants to keep its fingerprints off, be it arms smuggling, assassinations, raising funds for black ops, or stirring up trouble in the former Soviet space.

Moscow relied heavily on local organized crime structures in its support for separatist movements in Transdniester, Abkhazia, South Ossetia, Crimea, and the Donbas.

In the conflict in eastern Ukraine, organized crime groups served as agents for the Kremlin, fomenting pro-Russia unrest and funneling arms to rebel groups.

Putin's weaponization of the mafia stems from his political education in the gangsters' paradise that was St. Petersburg.

"In genealogical terms, Putin is the product of the KGB. But in sociological terms, he is the product of the new class that emerged in the Darwinian conditions of the 1990s: business-minded, ambitious, nationalistic, and coldly utilitarian about norms and rules," veteran Russia-watcher James Sherr of Chatham House wrote in a recent report.

But now, thanks to Spanish Judge Jose de la Mata, the mask is coming off Putin's mafia statecraft in a big way.

Judge de la Mata hasissued international arrest warrants for a dozen reputed Russian gangsters from the Tambov and Malyshev gangs, including current and former Russian government officials.

On the wanted list are Interior Ministry official Nikolai Aulov, VladislavReznik, a member of the ruling United Russia party who is deputy head of the State Duma's Finance Committee, and former Deputy Prime Minister Igor Sobolevsky.

Other officials linked to the gangs, but not subject to warrants, include two longtime Putin confidants: former Prime Minister Viktor Zubkov and current Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Kozak.

Also named are former Defense Minister Anatoly Serdyukov and former Information Technology Minister Leonid Reiman.

The charges -- which include complicity in assassinations, weapons trafficking, extortion, fraud, forgery, bribery, drug smuggling, and money laundering -- are based on a decade-long investigation and stem from a 488-page complaintfiled by Spanish prosecutors Juan Carrau and Jose Grinda in May 2015.

In 2010, Grinda briefed U.S. officials in Madrid about the investigation, informing them that the Kremlin used "organised crime groups to do whatever the government of Russia cannot acceptably do as a government."

According to a classified cable from the U.S. embassy that was published by Wikileaks, the prosecutor told the American officials that Putin's Russia was a "virtual mafia" state where it was impossible to distinguish between the government's activities and those of organized crime groups.

In terms of countering the threat Putin's Russia poses to the West, the Spanish investigation is no less important than NATO's moves to rotate four brigades through the alliance's frontline states in Eastern Europe.

The alliance's decision to beef up defenses on its eastern flank should create a credible deterrent to the kinetic threat from Moscow.

But dealing with the more insidious non-kinetic threat, the one stemming from Moscow's weaponization of organized crime, is a job for law-enforcement.

NOTE:This post has been updated to reflect correct and clarify information regarding the arrest warrants.

to be fair, WH sez will colect and pt out inaccuracies, which is SOP fair, but they haven't yet?

https://www.alternet.org/2020/08/white-house-threatens-journalist-with-a-dossier-over-report-exposing-trumps-self-dealing/

no lnx twt

white House threatens journalist with a ‘dossier’ over report exposing Trump’s self-dealing

Written by Alex Henderson August 27, 2020

During his 2016 campaign, Donald Trump promised that he would “completely isolate” himself from the Trump Organization if elected president. But the Washington Post and other media outlets have done a great deal of reporting on the many ways in which Trump’s properties — from Mar-a-Lago in South Florida to his hotels and golf resorts around the world — have profited from his presidency. Some of that reporting can be found in an article that was written by reporters David A. Fahrenthold, Josh Dawsey and Joshua Partlow and published by the Post on Thursday morning, and one of the article’s revelations is thata White House spokesman resented the Post’s investigation so much that he was willing to threaten Fahrenthold with a “dossier.”

In a written statement to the Post, the journalists report, Deere said: “The Washington Post is blatantly interfering with the business relationships of the Trump Organization, and it must stop. Please be advised that we are building up a very large ‘dossier’ on the many false David Fahrenthold and others stories as they are a disgrace to journalism and the American people.”

[[Manuel Roig-Franzia

@RoigFranzia

Here are the only 3 lines needed for the @Fahrenthold dossier: “One of America’s greatest journalists. Irreproachable ethics and scrupulously fair. End of dossier.”

David Fahrenthold

@Fahrenthold

Sadly, the White House is exempt from FOIA (I wish it wasn't -- i'd like to see what the White House has paid to Trump properties from its own budget).

But if you know anything about a dossier the White House has supposedly compiled on me, let me know (or send me a copy)! https://twitter.com/htsuka/status/1299039276085075970]]

In that statement, Deere insisted that Trump has “turned over the day-to-day responsibilities of running the company, though he was not required to, (and) has sacrificed billions of dollars.” But Fahrenthold, Dawsey and Partlow, in their article, make it abundantly clear how much Trump’s businesses have profited from Trump’s presidency.

“Trump has now visited his own properties 270 times as president, according to a Washington Post tally — with another visit planned for Thursday, when he is scheduled to meet GOP donors at his Washington hotel,” the Post reporters explain. “Through these trips, Trump has brought the Trump Organization a stream of private revenue from federal agencies and GOP campaign groups. Federal spending records show that taxpayers have paid Trump’s businesses more than $900,000 since he took office. At least $570,000 came as a result of the president’s travel, according to a Post analysis.”

One of the Trump Organization’s profitable customers, according to Fahrenthold, Dawsey and Partlow, has been the U.S. Secret Service.

“New federal spending documents obtained by the Post via a public-records lawsuit give more detail about how the Trump Organization charged the Secret Service — a kind of captive customer, required to follow Trump everywhere,” the reporters note. “In addition to the rentals at Mar-a-Lago, the documents show that the Trump Organization charged daily ‘resort fees’ to Secret Service agents guarding Vice President Pence in Las Vegas and, in another instance, asked agents to pay a $1300 ‘furniture removal charge’ during a presidential visit to a Trump resort in Scotland.”

The Post journalists observe that Trump can cause his businesses to profit — at the expense of U.S. taxpayers — merely by setting foot in them.

“The most frequent way Trump is known to have helped his properties has been just to visit them, with the vast, big-spending presidential entourage in tow,” they explain.

Noah Bookbinder, executive director of the watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, told the Post, “One would think that if he was trying to completely isolate himself from his businesses, he wouldn’t talk about his business — he wouldn’t promote his business, he wouldn’t go to his businesses…. (But) his businesses have been a constant presence in his presidency. No, the idea that he was going to isolate himself completely — it’s been quite the opposite.”

https://www.alternet.org/2020/08/americas-march-even-beating-trump-wont-stop-the-empires-terminal-decline

the terminal decline of the United States will not be solved by elections. The political rot and depravity will continue to eat away at the soul of the nation, spawning what anthropologists call crisis cults — movements led by demagogues that prey on an unbearable psychological and financial distress. These crisis cults, already well established among followers of the Christian Right and Donald Trump, peddle magical thinking and an infantilism that promises — in exchange for all autonomy — prosperity, a return to a mythical past, order and security. The dark yearnings among the white working class for vengeance and moral renewal through violence, the unchecked greed and corruption of the corporate oligarchs and billionaires who manage our failed democracy,which has already instituted wholesale government surveillance and revoked most civil liberties, are part of the twisted pathologies that infect all civilizations sputtering towards oblivion. I witnessed the deaths of other nations during the collapse of the communist regimes in Eastern Europe and later in the former Yugoslavia. I have smelled this stench before....

It is up to us to abolish the American kleptocracy. It is up to us to mount sustained acts of mass civil disobedience to bring down the empire. It poisons the world as it poisons us. If we mobilize to build an open society, we hold out the possibility of beating back these crisis cults as well as slowing and disrupting the march towards ecocide. This requires us to acknowledge, like those protesting in the streets of Beirut, that our kleptocracy, like Lebanon’s, is incapable of being salvaged. The American system of inverted totalitarianism, as the political philosopher Sheldon Wolin called it, must be eradicated if we are to wrest back our democracy and save ourselves from mass extinction. We need to echo the chants by the crowds in Lebanoncalling for the wholesale removal of its ruling class — kulyan-yani-kulyan— everyone means everyone.

head of $ for convention, gave 1.2m$ and raised more? rnc

wife nom for amb cda!

https://www.alternet.org/2020/08/lawmakers-demand-removal-of-postmaster-general-dejoy-over-nefarious-efforts-to-destroy-the-postal-service

https://www.alternet.org/2020/08/friday-night-massacre-at-us-postal-service-as-postmaster-general-a-major-trump-donor-ousts-top-officials

https://www.alternet.org/2020/08/trumps-s-on-the-postal-service-are-hurting-democracy-and-thats-the-point/

https://www.salon.com/2020/05/07/top-trump-donor-who-gave-more-than-2-million-to-the-gop-picked-to-run-postal-service/

A major donor to President Donald Trump's campaign and the Republican National Committee was selected as the new head of the US Postal Service on Wednesday.

Louis DeJoy, a North Carolina businessman who is heading up fundraising for the 2020 Republican National Convention, was approved by the USPS Board of Governors to become "the first postmaster general in two decades who did not rise through the agency's ranks," The Washington Post reported.

DeJoy has given more than $2 million to the Trump campaign and Republican causes since 2016, according to the report, including $1 million to the Republican National Committee and $650,000 to the Trump Victory Fund.

DeJoy's wife, Aldona Wos, has also risen through the ranks of Trumpworld. Trump nominated Wos to be ambassador to Canada earlier this year, replacing Kelly Craft, another top donor who has since been promoted to U.S. ambassador to the United Nations. Wos is also the vice chair of the president's Commission on White House Fellowships. She previously served as ambassador to Estonia under former President George W. Bush.

https://www.alternet.org/2020/04/jared-kushner-gets-the-scorched-earth-treatment-on-msnbc-as-the-man-whos-failed-at-everything/

no lnx

Jared Kushner gets the scorched earth treatment on MSNBC as the ‘man who’s failed at everything’

Written by Matthew Chapman / Raw Story April 4, 2020

On MSNBC Saturday, Intercept reporter Mehdi Hasan slammed President Donald Trump for mismanaging the coronavirus pandemic — and particularly for putting his son-in-law Jared Kushner at the forefront of the effort.

“I think it’s very unified leadership. They’re all unified in their ignorance and their denialism and their callousness,” said Hasan, speaking with host Ali Velshi. “They all have the same approach, which is just to play it down, which is to pretend things are getting better, which is to turn this into a partisan political crisis where states like Florida that voted for Donald Trump get resources and states that didn’t vote for him like New York or Colorado or Maine don’t get the same level of resources.”

“What we’re seeing right now, real time, is a kakistocracy,” continued Hasan. “Government by the worst people. Kakistocrats. Led from the top by Donald J. Trump and his son-in-law Jared Kushner. On what planet is Jared Kushner put in charge of the White House’s response to the coronavirus? This is a man who’s failed at everything he’s touched … he’s failed to run a New York newspaper, he’s failed in the property business his criminal father gifted to him, failed at trying to bring peace to the Middle East. And now failing at trying to handle this major public health crisis which he’s not qualified to handle.”

“You mentioned the quote from him and Donald Trump saying, these are our ventilators, this is the federal government’s stockpile, this is for ourselves,” added Hasan. “Who are the ours? Who are the ourselves? If the federal government doesn’t stand up for the 50 states of the United States, who does it stand up for? It’s bizarre, the level of incompetence, the indifference — it’s completely crazy!”

Watch below:

“What we’re seeing right now in real time is a kakistocracy. Government by the worst people! Kakistocrats…on what planet is Jared Kushner put in charge of the White House response to the coronavirus? This is a man who has failed at everything he’s touched” – me on @MSNBC today: pic.twitter.com/V1FniQ0uaQ

— Mehdi Hasan (@mehdirhasan) April 4, 202

https://www.alternet.org/2020/04/pure-retaliation-trump-fires-inspector-general-who-sounded-alarm-about-ukraine-whistleblower-complaint/

no lnx

‘Pure retaliation’: Trump fires inspector general who sounded alarm about Ukraine whistleblower complaint

Written by Julia Conley / Common Dreams April 5, 2020

Democratic lawmakers and government watchdogs on Saturday condemned President Donald Trump’s abrupt dismissal of Michael Atkinson, the intelligence community inspector general who informed Congress last year of the whistleblower complaint which kicked off Trump’s eventual impeachment proceedings.

Two months after being acquitted by the Senate, Trump on Friday night told lawmakers in a letter to the House and Senate Intelligence Committees that he no longer had confidence in Atkinson.

“It is vital that I have the fullest confidence in the appointees serving as inspectors general,” the president wrote (pdf). “That is no longer the case with regard to this inspector general.”

Atkinson’s firing will be in effect in early May, 30 days from Trump’s announcement.

Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), chair of the House Intelligence Committee, condemned Trump’s decision, which he viewed as retaliation against Atkinson for informing Congress of the White House communications with Ukraine last year which were at the center of the impeachment hearings.

Trump’s dead of night decision to fire ICIG Michael Atkinson is another blatant attempt to gut the independence of the Intelligence Community and retaliate against those who dare to expose presidential wrongdoing.

It puts our country and national security at even greater risk. pic.twitter.com/Pnm7chdIkl

— Adam Schiff (@RepAdamSchiff) April 4, 2020

Disagreeing with then-acting Director of National Intelligence Joseph Maguire’s decision to take the whistleblower complaint to Trump’s Justice Department, Atkinson alerted Congress about the complaint regarding Trump’s conversations with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky,in which he asked Zelensky to publicly launch a corruption investigation into former Vice President Joe Biden and his son, Hunter.

Daniel Goldman, who served as counsel to the House Democrats during the impeachment hearings, said Atkinson “followed the law with the utmost integrity” and accused Trump of seeking “pure retaliation, retribution, and reprisal.”

I saw Michael Atkinson up close. He followed the law with the utmost integrity. He did nothing to lose Trump’s confidence other than lawfully and properly expose Trump’s misconduct and the ensuing efforts to cover it up. This is pure retaliation, retribution and reprisal. https://t.co/GStcTOJn4J

— Daniel Goldman (@danielsgoldman) April 4, 2020

Trump was also rebuked by the Council of the Inspectors General on Integrity and Efficiency.

“Inspector General Atkinson is known throughout the Inspector General community for his integrity, professionalism, and commitment to the rule of law and independent oversight,” said council chairman Michael Horowitz. “That includes his actions in handling the Ukraine whistleblower complaint, which the then Acting Director of National Intelligence stated in congressional testimony was done ‘by the book’ and consistent with the law.”

National security analyst Clint Watts wrote that Trump chose to fire Atkinson while Americans are focused on the coronavirus pandemic, which has spread to more than 278,000 Americans and has killed more than 7,000.

“While the world is rightly distracted by COVID19, we see leaders around the world with authoritarian tendencies subverting democracy. U.S. is no different,” Watts tweeted, suggesting a comparison between Trump and far-right Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, who secured dictatorial powers this week through an emergency law passed by Parliament.

Death of American democracy, one Friday firing at a time, people are usually fired for not doing their job, Atkinson was literally fired for doing his job and following the law. https://t.co/o1X719iEox

— Clint Watts (@selectedwisdom) April 4, 2020

At the Center for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW), deputy director Donald K. Sherman suggested the American public could soon learn that Atkinson’s firing may have been brought about by actions unrelated to last year’s whistleblower complaint and Trump’s impeachment.

Everyone is assuming this move is retaliation for something we know #Atkinson Atkinson did — sounding the alarm on the Ukraine whistleblower complaint— but what if it’s for launching an investigation into something we don’t yet know about? https://t.co/oF1TF60Tk4

— Donald K. Sherman (@donaldonethics) April 4, 2020

“The question we need to ask right now is what investigations or audits did Atkinson start in the last few months,” Sherman wrote. “Were any related to intelligence failures around coronavirus? Why would he be fired so abruptly AND placed on administrative leave?”