Do the poor need less money? Do the rich need more?

 https://www.huffpost.com/entry/house-republican-budget-tax-cut-medicaid_n_67acd43be4b0239406dec54e

 

"Republicans have openly acknowledged that despite their furious opposition to big budget deficits, they themselves are making no effort to fully offset the cost of their tax cuts. Instead, they have said their proposed changes would boost the economy so much that tax receipts from increased business activity will make up the difference."

 So it's screw the poor, give tax cuts to the rich, and explode the deficit.  And this makes sense how? 

Are national borders important anymore?

 

Russia tries to take over Ukraine, and the US says No!

China threatens to take over Taiwan, and the US says No!

Rwanda tries to take over DRC and the US says No!

Now the US wants to take over Panama, Canada, Greenland, and Gaza. Ok?

How one guy can screw up the world

 I mean, we tried. The Constitution divides power into three branches of government so there can be no concentration of power and everybody has a check on their actions.  But now one party under the cultish sway of one man in charge of our Executive Branch is also in charge of the other two branches.  The check and balance system has been turned into accept and promote.  A convicted felon has crowned the richest man on earth Lord of the Bureaucracies, giving him unlimited authority and access to any and all federal government offices.  This is not how things are supposed to work.

But let's not just tamper with the United States government, says the felon.  China might take over Panama, so we need that back.  Greenland has a lot of resources, so we'll have to take that.  Canada shares the longest border with us, so let's make that the 51st state.  Gaza was pummeled into dust by an ally of ours, so we need to take that to straighten it out.  

And rather than being friendly to the world, we're going to punish every country that trades with us by slapping tariffs on their products.  Any international body designed to keep peace and tranquility on the world stage is now an enemy.

Where will this take us and the world?  From now on, the United States will be seen as unreliable, belligerent, crude, and selfish.  Kind of like our current president.  And we voted him in.

A coup has begun in the US

 

This is a Coup

Donald Trump and Elon Musk are engaging in a coup at this time. They are ignoring our Legislative and Judicial branches of government and bypassing bureaucratic rules within federal departments. They are replacing current vetted, nonpartisan, experienced federal employees with sycophants with questionable backgrounds and qualifications. By the time they are done, we will for the first time since before the Revolutionary war be ruled by one person rather than our Constitution.

How are they doing this? It's obvious when you look carefully.

Distraction

Trump has pushed the idea that the United States might take over Panama, Greenland, and Canada, possibly by force (which means, war). There is no logical sense to any of this, since the minor grievances he touts can be handled by negotiation. There is no “emergency” on our borders at this time, but emergency powers Trump declared give him more authority to act unilaterally. These are a distraction from the coup.

Trump created a DEI (Diversity, Equity, Inclusion) boogyman to try to gloss over why he needs to go after federal employees. There is no actual problem with hiring a diverse group of qualified people in our federal government. This is a distraction and an excuse only.

Trump has slapped tariffs on our largest and most reliable trading partners, Canada and Mexico. He offers no reasoning that makes sense. This will harm their economies as well as ours, hurting everybody and helping only to distract from the coup.

Ignore

The Constitution was designed to make sure that governmental power does not reside in the hands of one person or small group. That is why powers are divided between Executive, Legislative, and Judicial branches. Each has the authority to put a check on the other two, using rules and guidelines spelled out within the Constitution and through laws legally passed. President Trump, without placing his hand on the Bible, just pledged during his swearing-in to “preserve, protect and defend” the Constitution. He is not doing any of that. He has for example signed executive orders that go against the Constitution, such as his attempt to end birth citizenship, which is clearly written in the 14^th amendment.

Elon Musk was designated head of a made-up organization called the Department of Governmental Efficiency (DOGE), which is to look for waste within the federal departments. It was subsumed into a real department, the United States Digital Service, which was formed in 2014. The USDS is designed to help federal departments be more efficient in their digital work environment. This means USDS employees are meant to work within the computer systems in many departments of government. Musk has used this authority to at times force his way into the databases that American citizens assume are safe and secure from outside prying eyes. For instance, “Earlier, the New York Times reported Trump’s Treasury secretary Scott Bessent handed Doge department officials access to the payment system which sends out money to the tune of $5 trillion per year on behalf of the entire federal government on Friday, citing anonymous sources. “ [https://www.forbes.com/sites/digital-assets/2025/02/02/this-needs-to-stop-now-elon-musk-confirms-radical-doge-us-treasury-plan/]

The fight for database access has begun: “Over the weekend, two top security officials at USAID were put on administrative leave for refusing members of the Department of Government Efficiency access to systems at the agency, even when DOGE personnel threatened to call law enforcement, multiple sources familiar with the situation told CNN. The DOGE personnel wanted to gain access to USAID security systems and personnel files, three sources said. Two of those sources also said the DOGE personnel wanted access to classified information, which only those with security clearances and a specific need to know are able to access. “ [https://www.cnn.com/2025/02/03/politics/usaid-washington-workers/index.html] This begs the question: why are the USDS employees trying to circumvent established security to access any database they want? And by what authority are the claiming this privilege?

Infiltrate, Replace

So now, with control of a department that can walk into pretty much any federal bureaucracy and demand access to their databases, and by firing current federal employees to replace them with Trump sycophants, what will be left of the federal government but a mass of Trump loyalists with unknown qualifications for their jobs? And what will these people do when their loyalty is not to the Constitution, but to a man?

I feel like we're all on a cruise ship where we voted for which crew we wanted by a small margin. As we're leaving the dock we begin to notice that our crew is methodically dismantling the ship while claiming that everything is fine.

Things to Read

Hiding in Plain Sight: the Invention of Donald Trump and the Erosion of America, by Sarah Kendzior

The Power of the Powerless, by Vaclav Havel

Soft Power: the Means to Success in World Politics, by Joseph S. Nye, Jr.

How Fascism Works: The Politics of Us and Them, by Jason Stanley

How to Lose a Country: the 7 Steps from Democracy to Dictatorship, by Ece Temelkuran

Goodbye acid rain, hello plastic rain

 https://getpocket.com/explore/item/plastic-rain-is-the-new-acid-rain?utm_source=firefox-newtab-en-us

 

It further confirms an increasingly hellish scenario: Microplastics are blowing all over the world, landing in supposedly pure habitats, like the Arctic and the remote French Pyrenees. They’re flowing into the oceans via wastewater and tainting deep-sea ecosystems, and they’re even ejecting out of the water and blowing onto land in sea breezes. And now in the American West, and presumably across the rest of the world given that these are fundamental atmospheric processes, they are falling in the form of plastic rain—the new acid rain. 

 * * * * *

Plastic doesn't go away.  It just breaks up and hangs around.  We are so screwing future generations just for our personal convenience.

 

Soft Power missing from the Trump Administration

 "Soft Power" is defined as "the ability to get what your want through attraction rather than coercion and payments.  It arises from the attractiveness of a country's culture, political ideals, and policies.  When our policies are seen as legitimate in the eyes of others, our soft power is enhanced." [Soft Power, by Joseph S. Nye, Jr., p. X]

President Trump seems to only understand hard power: the demand for compliance with the threat of economic or military reprisal if compliance is not forthcoming.  But soft power is at least equally as powerful as hard power, without any bad side effects like tariff wars or actual wars.  Soft Power is cheaper, safer, and often more lasting.  We should go back to it.

Are mass protests demanding change losing their punch?

 https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/jan/20/trump-activists-mass-protest

 

“The march itself is not the end game,” said Tamika Middleton, Managing Director of Women’s March. “The march itself is a tool, is a mechanism to bring more folks into the movement and get more folks engaged.”

 

* * * * * *

I've been both a participant and an organizer of many protests.  A few years ago I started wondering whether the ways we used to look at protesting might just be outdated.  The Internet, for instance, opened up as a new way to reach people about an issue.  I have had several web sites, for instance, freely giving out information and documentation to anyone with a computer.  There is such a divers and prolific amount of information in the world nowadays, it's difficult to concentrate like-minded people into one day's and one place's activity.  

So for now, this is still something I'm pondering.  If not protests, then what?  Youtube videos?  Lots of blogging?  I don't know.