QOTD -- Trump's Looting And Republican Policies

 

"... [C]uts to regulation and taxes helped money—more than $50 trillion—move upward to the richest 1% of Americans. With it moved political power. Republican-dominated states suppressed voting by likely Democratic constituencies until we are now, in 2026, seeing people having to wait for hours to vote or having to march to distant polling places while billionaire Elon Musk pumps at least $446 million into the midterms to buy Republican control of Congress.

"Still worried about losing, the administration is trying to rig the midterm election. After losing repeatedly in the courts over their demands to segregate 20,000 California ballots they insist might have been cast by noncitizens, it today appealed the question to the United States Supreme Court. California officials have said the list was haphazard and inaccurate, and today, in a different case, a Department of Justice lawyer told a judge it was “fair” to say the list has a 'high' error rate.

"This evening, the Supreme Court denied the administration’s emergency appeal to require California officials to set aside those 20,000 ballots.

"The Republicans’ fear comes from the fact that the open looting of the government in Trump’s second term appears to have revealed to a majority of the American people that the policies the Republican Party has enacted since 1981 benefit only a few. Once again, it seems, Americans are coming together, ready to follow the pattern of the past and rebuild a government that works not just for the wealthy, but for everyone."  (our emphasis) -- historian Heather Cox Richardson, concluding a valuable Substack essay yesterday on how this moment is far bigger than the Malignant Fascist -- it represents one of the times in our history when people awoke to the looting of our government by the rich and powerful supporters of the Republican Party.  A really fine historical perspective on how we got to where we are today (and how we might be getting out of there).

QOTD -- Destroying Things He Can't Possess Or Control

 

"... Although the Kennedy Center board insisted that only Trump’s name on the building would restore donations, in fact, the Washington Post reports that ticket sales and fundraising plunged when Trump added his name to the building in the first place.

"Nonetheless, Trump posted that he is the only one who can save it, 'because I have the ability to raise the money, and the ability to construct—that few others have. I also have the strength and power of the Presidency, which will be needed [to] do what must be done, and give it a strong shot at Greatness again!'

"As George Conway of the Bulwark noted, 'To destroy things he can’t possess or control is his essential nature.'

"It is also as if Trump is self-soothing by celebrating his core identity even as his incompetence and greed have driven the United States, and the world, into crisis..." -- Heather Cox Richardson, in her "Letters from an American" Substack yesterday, quoting in part George Conway.  That we have to deal with this petty vindictiveness as the Malignant Fascist's war on Iran causes pain throughout the world, and his ongoing threats to democracy quicken as the mid-term elections approach is beyond mind-numbing.

 

Looting America And The World: The Second Trump Presidency

 

The convicted felon and adjudicated sexual abuser Malignant Fascist has been busy enriching himself as his "Justice" Department continues to cover up the crimes of America's elitist "Epstein class," of which he's the most prominent member.  This is a good a summary of the grand theft being perpetrated by the MF while his crimes go unpunished, courtesy of Heather Cox Richardson:

On February 13 and 14, President Donald J. Trump’s representatives filed three applications with the United States Patent and Trademark Office to trademark his name for future use on an airport. As trademark lawyer Josh Gerben of Gerben IP noted, the application also covers merchandise branded “President Donald J. Trump International Airport,” “Donald J. Trump International Airport,” and “DJT,” including “clothing, handbags, luggage, jewelry, watches, and tie clips.”

Because of the trademark filing, Gerben notes, any airport adopting the Trump name would have to get a license to use the name, potentially paying a licensing fee. Gerben emphasizes that while it is common for public officials to have landmarks named after them, “never in the history of the United States” has “a sitting president’s private company…sought trademark rights” before such a naming.

In October, Office of Management and Budget director Russell Vought withheld billions of dollars Congress appropriated for a tunnel between New York and New Jersey under the Hudson River, saying he wanted “to ensure funding is not flowing based on unconstitutional DEI principles.” Trump told Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) that he would release the funds if Schumer would agree to name Dulles Airport outside Washington, D.C., and New York City’s Penn Station after him.

After a Florida state lawmaker proposed putting Trump’s name on the Palm Beach International Airport, Jason Garcia of Seeking Rents today reported that the Florida legislature is currently pushing through measures to change the name of that airport to the “Donald J. Trump International Airport.” The amount of money proposed in Florida’s budget to make the change is $2,750,000, but Garcia notes this is likely a placeholder: the budget request is for $5.5 million.

The Trump grab for an airport named after him is just the latest grift in a presidential term that experts so far estimate has enriched the Trump family by at least $4 billion. That windfall includes merch, political contributions, and multiple cryptocurrency deals that have led, for example, to Sheikh Tahnoon bin Zayed Al Nahyan, who manages the United Arab Emirates’ sovereign wealth fund, buying a 49% stake in the Trump family’s World Liberty Financial crypto company for $500 million days before Trump took office. This deal put $187 million immediately into Trump family entities and at least $31 million into entities owned by the family of Steve Witkoff, whom Trump had just named his Middle East envoy.  [snip]

Earlier this month, Trump, his sons Don Jr. and Eric, and the Trump Organization sued the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) and the Treasury Department for $10 billion in damages after an IRS contractor during Trump’s own first term was convicted of leaking their tax information, along with that of thousands of other Americans who are not suing, to news outlets. Trump has control over the IRS, and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent says he will write whatever check he is told to cut. This move advances Trump’s use of the presidency to enrich himself into the realm of autocratic rulers who move their country’s money to their own accounts.  [snip]

Jonathan Landay and Douglas Gillison of Reuters reported yesterday that Office of Management and Budget director Russell Vought took $15 million in unlawfully impounded money that Congress had appropriated for the U.S. Agency for International Development, which fed starving children, for his own security detail. Michelle Hackman, Josh Dawsey, and Tarini Parti of the Wall Street Journal reported that Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and her affair partner Corey Lewandowski travel in a $70 million luxury 737 MAX jet with a private cabin in the back.

Over all are the horrors of the Epstein files, in which Trump’s name appears so often observers have suggested it is the one place that could legitimately be rebranded with Trump’s name as the Trump-Epstein files.  [snip]

Profiting off his name is only part of why Trump appears to want to splash it anywhere he can: so far, the U.S. Institute of Peace, the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, a new class of battleships, and perhaps “The President Donald J. Trump Ballroom” where the East Wing of the White House used to be.

It’s also about his legacy. In a tour of George Washington’s Virginia home, Mount Vernon, in April 2019, Trump expressed surprise that the first president hadn’t named any of his property after himself. “If he was smart, he would’ve put his name on it,” Trump said. “You’ve got to put your name on stuff or no one remembers you.”  [snip]

Trump has made no secret of wanting his image carved onto Mount Rushmore in South Dakota, where sculptor Gutzon Borglum carved the busts of Presidents George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Theodore Roosevelt, and Abraham Lincoln in the Black Hills of the Lakotas. Beginning his sculpture in 1927, Borglum chose President Washington because he had founded the nation, Jefferson because he had launched westward expansion, Lincoln because he had saved the United States from destruction, and Roosevelt because he had protected working men and helped fit democracy to industrial development.

But Trump’s interest in being added to Mount Rushmore does not appear to be related to a desire to advance the interests of the American people. In September 2025 the IRS granted tax-exempt status to the Donald Trump Mount Rushmore Memorial Legacy, making it a charity that can accept tax-free donations.  (our emphasis)

Nothing the MF does is related to advancing the interests of the American people, either domestically or in foreign policy.  Other corrupt, hubristic tyrants in history sought to be remembered through monuments dedicated to themselves, but our moron madman has no claim to anything of a truly historical nature except his historically corrupt, racist, destructive, un-American terms in office, with his despicable cover up of the Trump-Epstein files at the foundation of that steaming pile of excrement.  

The day can't come too soon when we can obliterate his name from every public place and consign him to his proper place under the ash heap of history.

BONUS:  More looting here, here, here, and here, as if more evidence was needed.

(Image:  illustration by Oliver Munday;  photo by Skynesher/ Getty)

QOTD -- Dementia Don At Davos

 

"At the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, this morning, a visibly exhausted president of the United States of America rambled in angry free association in a speech before the world’s leaders. At one point, speaking of North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) dignitaries, he told the audience: 'Until the last few days when I told them about Iceland, they loved me. They called me daddy, right, last time. Very smart man said, "He’s our daddy. He’s running it.”

"He meant Greenland.

"The president of the United States went on to give a virulently racist, insulting, rambling speech in which he complained that people call him a dictator but that 'sometimes you need a dictator.' More than anything, though, the speech demonstrated his mental unfitness for his position. Tom Nichols of The Atlantic wrote: 'No one can be watching this Davos speech and reach any conclusion but that the President of the United States is mentally disturbed and that something is deeply wrong with him. This is both embarrassing and extremely dangerous.'”... -- Heather Cox Richardson at her "Letters from an American" Substack, yesterday.  Tom Nichols would be a bit imprecise in his comment, because you'd be hard pressed to find any of this truthful analysis in our craven news media.  While the world and a growing number of Americans observe and react with horror at the ravings of our mad moron president, you'd think all was normal and well if you had the slightest exposure to "mainstream media" news reporting.  Of all the institutions that have failed us over the past 10 years, U.S. media stands at the forefront.

Oh, and sclerotic Democratic leadership is up there too.

QOTD: "The Story Underlying All Others"

Heather Cox Richardson writes in her Substack "Letters from an American" about the fast-moving developments last week from the ICE murder in Minneapolis, to the kidnapping of Venezuela's Maduro, to the Malignant Fascist's threats to seize Greenland and to prosecute Fed Chair Powell to extort interest rate reductions. But it all revolves around the MF's fear of the Epstein-Trump files getting out, and exposing his probable criminal predation:

"The story underlying all others is that the United States Congress passed a law requiring the Department of Justice to release all the Epstein files—the files from the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s investigation into the activities of sex offender Jeffrey Epstein—no later than December 19, and it has not done so. [snip]

Despite the clear requirement of the Epstein Files Transparency Act that they release all the files by December 19, to date they have released less than 1% of the material. 

Another part of the backstory of the past week is that the Supreme Court on December 23, 2025, rejected the Trump administration’s argument that it had the power to deploy federalized National Guard troops in and around Chicago, a decision that seemed to limit Trump’s power to use military forces within the United States.

Yet another part of the backstory is that on New Year’s Eve, Republicans on the House Judiciary Committee released a 255-page transcript of former special counsel Jack Smith’s December 17 closed-door testimony before the committee. In that testimony—under oath—Smith said that his office had 'developed proof beyond a reasonable doubt that President Trump engaged in a criminal scheme to overturn the results of the 2020 election and to prevent the lawful transfer of power. Our investigation also developed powerful evidence that showed that President Trump willfully retained highly classified documents after he left office in January of 2021, storing them at his social club, including in a ballroom and a bathroom. He then repeatedly tried to obstruct justice to conceal his continued retention of those documents.'

With pressure building over the Epstein files and Jack Smith’s testimony, and with the Supreme Court having taken away Trump’s ability to use troops within the United States, the administration went on the offensive." (our emphasis)

The wild flailing by the MF on immigration and other fronts, and his belligerent actions internationally are the result of his mortal fear of the public finding out about his crimes with Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell.  "Flooding the zone" with international crises and masked thugs in the streets of America causes the broken media to look away from the Epstein-Trump files, what Richardson correctly identifies as the "story underlying all others."

(photo: Redacted Epstein files. DOJ)

 

QOTD -- The Beatings Will Continue Until Morale Improves

 

"... Concerned about control of Congress after 2026, Trump and members of his administration are pressuring state legislatures to redraw their congressional districts in order to favor Republicans. In Indiana, Republican state senators have resisted their pressure, along with death threats, to pass a map that would give Republicans two districts currently dominated by Democrats, giving Republicans the entire congressional delegation.

"Vice President J.D. Vance and Don Trump Jr. have jumped into the struggle, and today the lobbying arm of the right-wing Heritage Institute, Heritage Action, posted on social media that 'President Trump has made it clear to Indiana leaders: if the Indiana Senate fails to pass the map, all federal funding will be stripped from the state. Roads will not be paved. Guard bases will close. Major projects will stop. These are the stakes and every NO vote will be to blame.' Indiana Lieutenant Governor Micah Beckwith confirmed that '[t]he Trump admin[istration] was VERY clear about this.'

"Political observer John Collins commented: 'Nothing shows confidence like threatening your own party.' Another Hoosier seemed unconcerned with the threat that Trump would illegally withhold federal funding, posting: 'We know how to roll with potholes better than any other state,' with a laughing emoji.

"This evening, the Indiana senate rejected the new gerrymandered congressional map by a vote of 31 to 19. The vote wasn’t close: Twenty-one Republicans—that is, a majority of the Republican senators—joined the 10 Democratic senators in voting no..."  (our emphasis) -- Heather Cox Richardson, in her "Letters from an American" Substack.  Not only does it not show confidence to threaten members of your own party (and this treatment from the Malignant Fascist and his goons is no longer unusual), it clearly backfired badly in Indiana.  This is more evidence, if any were needed, of a cult leader in panic mode, as some of his cultists start heading for the exit doors and more and more voters see that he's a self-aggrandizing fraud who's never been interested in their well- being, a cowardly bully who uses threats of force to get his way.

QOTD -- We Dare Call It Treason

 

Heather Cox Richardson traces back the origins of the Malignant Fascist/ Putin "peace plan" for Ukraine:

According to Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s 2019 report on Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election, in summer 2016, Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort discussed with his business partner, Russian operative Konstantin Kilimnik, “a ‘backdoor’ means for Russia to control eastern Ukraine.” According to the Republican-dominated Senate Intelligence Committee, the plan was for Trump to say he wanted peace in Ukraine and for him to appoint Manafort to be a “special representative” to manage the process. With the cooperation of Russian and Russian-backed Ukrainian officials, Manafort would help create

“an autonomous republic” in Ukraine’s industrialized eastern region and would work to have Russian-backed Yanukovych, for whom Manafort had worked previously, “elected to head that republic.”

According to the Senate Intelligence Committee, the men continued to work on what they called the “Mariupol Plan” at least until 2018. Putin has been determined to control that land ever since. And now it appears Russia is pushing Trump to deliver it.

This plan, complete with its suggestion that the U.S. is no longer truly a part of NATO but can broker between NATO and Russia, would replace the post–World War II rules-based international order with a new version of an older order. In the world before NATO and the other international institutions that were created after World War II, powerful countries dominated smaller countries, which had to do as their powerful neighbors demanded in order to survive.  (our emphasis)

If that doesn't equate to collusion with Russia (hell the plan was poorly translated from Russian to English!), to the point of treason against the interests of the United States, we don't know what does. It's past time to stand up and make the MF stand down.

The Changing Narrative

 

Heather Cox Richardson writes in her "Letters from an American" Substack on how the right changed the narrative of the Charlie Kirk shooter after first making some hasty assumptions:

... Trump announced on the Fox News Channel’s Fox & Friends that he had just heard “they have the person that they wanted.” That person turned out to be 22-year-old Utah native Tyler Robinson, who turned himself in to authorities after his father urged him to. Robinson’s parents are registered Republicans; he was not affiliated with a political party and was an inactive voter. Over the past years, Robinson’s mother posted a number of pictures of him and his brothers posing with guns.

Robinson had recently had a conversation with a family member about why they didn’t like Kirk’s viewpoints. Robinson appears to have admired the “Groypers,” led by Nick Fuentes, who complain that more mainstream organizations like Kirk’s Turning Point USA are not “pro-white” enough and have publicly harassed Kirk in the past.

Allison Gill of The Breakdown explained that the rumors the shooter had engraved anti-fascist rhetoric on some of the bullet casings found at the scene turned out to be a misunderstanding of terms from the video game Helldivers2. The claim that he had used “transgender ideology” was apparently a misreading of the headstamp “TRN” that marks ammunition as the product of Turkish manufacturer Turan.

Almost as soon as Robinson was identified, the tone of MAGA leader’s conversation about the shooting changed. Representative Nancy Mace (R-SC), who had used a slur to refer to the shooter as pro-transgender, posted on social media: “We know Charlie Kirk would want us to pray for such an evil, and lost individual like Tyler Robinson to find Jesus Christ. We will try to do the same.”

Now, emboldened by the Malignant Fascist's continual lying about "the lunatic left,"  MAGAts (and some in the media who should know better) seem to be getting back on the same page, ignoring the nuances of the shooter's background:  the conservative gun culture, the gaming obsession, the (at least) Groyper- curious signs, to point to a common enemy that the right always has to have:  the marginalized, the "other," liberals, "Demoncrats".  It's so much less of an intellectual effort than to look in a mirror.

But, the whole point, of course, is to establish that narrative so that it becomes fact in the minds of the MAGAts, and seeps into the mainstream through a lazy, cowed media.  That's where we are, and have been for some time, in America.

BONUS:  No More Mister Nice Blog on "Charlie Kirk and the presumption of right -wing decency."

QOTD -- Projecting Confusion

 

"...Trump’s political success has stemmed in large part from his projection of dominance, and perhaps part of supporters’ willingness to cut ties to him comes from his recent behavior, which projects confusion. On Saturday, at the FIFA Club World Cup trophy ceremony, Trump seemed to miss the signal that he should leave the stage as the winning team celebrated, and had to be maneuvered behind the players.

"Yesterday he fell asleep on stage at the Pennsylvania Energy and Innovation Summit. At the same event, Trump told what CNN fact-checker Daniel Dale called “an especially odd imaginary tale,” claiming that his uncle, a MIT professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, had taught Ted Kaczynski, better known as the Unabomber. Trump recounted a conversation with his uncle about Kaczynski, but in fact Kaczynski didn’t go to MIT, and Trump’s uncle John died more than a decade before Kaczynski became famous, so Trump and his uncle could not have identified him as the Unabomber. Today, Trump called chair of the Federal Reserve Jerome Powell a 'terrible Fed chair' and added: 'I was surprised he was appointed.'

"Trump was the president who appointed him..." -- Heather Cox Richardson in her "Letters from an American" Substack on Wednesday.  There's no question the Epstein files case has rattled the Malignant Fascist and his MAGA cult to the core, and the Malignant Fascist's distractions don't seem to have the legs that the Epstein files case does.  As more and more see the Epstein-compromised, increasingly demented, physically diminished, old orange blob behind the curtain, the illusion of strength and dominance that's been the Malignant Fascist's (incomprehensible to us) secret weapon begins to evaporate. 

It's been said that democracy can die more quickly than we can imagine.  So, too, can a 79-year-old authoritarian's grip on power.

The Trump/Musk Coup And The Tariffs Bungle

 

Heather Cox Richardson, in her "Letters from an American" substack, summarizing the ongoing Musk/ Trump coup and tariff bungle:

I’m going to start tonight by stating the obvious: the Republicans control both chambers of Congress: the House of Representatives and the Senate. They also control the White House and the Supreme Court. If they wanted to get rid of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), for example, they could introduce a bill, debate it, pass it, and send it on to President Trump for his signature. And there would be very little the Democrats could do to stop that change.

But they are not doing that.

Instead, they are permitting unelected billionaire Elon Musk, whose investment of $290 million in Trump and other Republican candidates in the 2024 election apparently has bought him freedom to run the government, to override Congress and enact whatever his own policies are by rooting around in government agencies and cancelling those programs that he, personally, dislikes.

The replacement of our constitutional system of government with the whims of an unelected private citizen is a coup. The U.S. president has no authority to cut programs created and funded by Congress, and a private citizen tapped by a president has even less standing to try anything so radical...

The time for Democrats to have gamed out this worst case scenario was last November.  There is no time now for largely symbolic legislative moves that the lawless fascist regime would ignore just as it's ignoring the U.S. Constitution and established law.  Now that we've all been punched in the face, we'd like to know what's their new plan.  Maybe someone's learned you don't bring norms to a Trump fight?*

____________________

... As soon as [White House Spokesliar Karoline] Leavitt announced the upcoming tariffs, the stock market began to fall, and by last night, stock market futures had fallen 450 points on the expectation of tariffs hitting at midnight tonight. Today, the stock market continued to fall. Even reliable Trump allies began to complain that the tariffs would raise prices. The Wall Street Journal editorial board called Trump’s tariffs “the dumbest trade war in history.”

Today, the president of Mexico, Claudia Sheinbaum, announced that she and Trump had “reached a series of agreements” that would pause the threatened tariffs for a month. Mexico agreed to “reinforce the northern border with 10,000 elements of the National Guard immediately, to prevent drug trafficking from Mexico to the United States,” while the U.S. “commits to work to prevent the trafficking of high-powered weapons to Mexico.”

When Trump announced their conversation shortly afterward, he omitted the part of the agreement that committed the U.S. to try to stop the flow of guns to Mexico. He also did not mention that, in fact, Mexico committed to putting 10,000 troops at the border in 2021. As Catherine Rampell of the Washington Post commented above a record of Mexican troop deployments: “Any news outlet reporting Mexico conceded anything to Trump to get him to delay tariffs has not done its homework. Trump boasts he got Mexico to commit to stationing 10K troops at our border. Apparently he didn’t realize Mexico already has 15K troops deployed there[.]”

The crisis at the northern border worked out in a similar fashion. After conferring, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Trump announced a 30-day pause in the implementation of tariffs. Trudeau agreed to appoint a border czar and to implement a $1.3 billion border plan that Canada had announced in December.

In other words, while Musk was causing a constitutional crisis, Trump created an economic crisis that threatened both domestic and global chaos, then claimed Biden administration achievements as his own and declared victory...

Unlike the real life coup taking place, a lot of us are thinking that the Malignant Fascist's tariffs gambit is prototypical MF:  as a performative exercise to thrill those parts of the MAGAt base that love the faux strongman image, while simply using the threat of tariffs to make bogus advances and then claim victory.  While he has had a lifelong love affair with tariffs, the MF may have been feeling the heat from other parts of his MAGAt base -- i.e., the USCofC and NAM -- and decided now was not the right time to stick it to our friends, allies and, of course, to his mouth- breathing base (if we could only read his mind ... it would be a very short story).  Of course, with this klepto-kakistocracy, chaos is the point.

*h/t Marc Elias.

QOTD -- What Side Of History Are You On?

 

"...In our era the same struggle has resurfaced. A small group of leaders has rejected the idea that all people are created equal and seeks to destroy our democracy in order to install themselves into permanent power. 

"And just as our forebears did, Americans have reached for whatever tools we have at hand to build new coalitions across the nation to push back. After decades in which ordinary people had come to believe they had little political power, they have mobilized to defend American democracy and—with an electorate that now includes women and Black Americans and Brown Americans—have discovered they are strong. 

"On November 5 we will find out just how strong we are. We will each choose on which side of the historical ledger to record our names. On the one hand, we can stand with those throughout our history who maintained that some people were better than others and had the right to rule; on the other, we can list our names on the side of those from our past who defended democracy and, by doing so, guarantee that American democracy reaches into the future." -- Heather Cox Richardson, professor of history at Boston College, in her Substack "Letters from an American," "November 3, 2024." 

QOTD -- Logical Conclusion

 

"...Trump’s false and dystopian portrait of the nation takes to its logical conclusion the narrative Republicans have pushed since the 1980s. Since the days of Reagan, Republicans have argued that people who believe that the government should regulate business, provide a basic social safety net, protect civil rights, and promote infrastructure are destroying the country by trying to redistribute wealth from hardworking white Americans to undeserving minorities and women. Now Trump has taken that argument to its logical conclusion: the country has been destroyed by women, Black Americans, Indigenous people, and people of color, who have taken it over and are persecuting people like him.

"This old Republican narrative created a false image of the nation and of its politics, an image pushed to a generation of Americans by right-wing media, a vision that MAGA Republicans have now absorbed as part of their identity. It reflects a manipulation of politics that Russian political theorists called 'political technology...'”  -- Heather Cox Richardson, in her "Letters from an American" Substack.  The similarity of Republican tactics to autocratic Russian manipulation of politics through "political technology" (which Richardson goes on to explain) isn't coincidental.  It's how parties that want to pervert democracy gain and hold power.  Trump's "they're not after me, they're after you" is the final call to the Republican cult that's been curated for more than 40 years to "take back the country."  Forewarned is forearmed.