The America Trump Wants for You & Your Children

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Meidas+ (meidastouch@substack.com) published a list of 200 reasons to vote against Donald Trump. The list was originally created by Mark Jacob, former editor at the Chicago Tribune, author, and writer of the newsletter Stop The Presses. It contains many duplications. I have reorganized and supplemented the list. None of these points is in doubt. None.

Iif this is the country you want to live in and that you want your children and grandchildren to live in, vote for Trump/Vance. You will be doing so knowing that Trump plans to turn the United States into a gulag-ridden hellscape for everyone and particularly for women and children. You will know that the United States will no longer support action to control climate change.

Consider that if Trump attempts to execute his plan for the country, and there is every reason to think he will, can you reasonably expect the Russian government under the thumb of dictator Vladimir Putin to just sit quietly by and send Trump a congratulatory cake? Can you reasonably expect America’s current allies in NATO and elsewhere around the world to just say, “well, OK, no worries, the US is destroyed as a democracy, but we’re still fully aligned?” Historically, isolationist policies have led the United States into wars. If Trump wins, Russia will overrun Ukraine, and the NATO allies will be next.

Consider the implications of the dismantling of the federal system of Cabinet-level departments and administrative agencies responsible for implementing the multitude of laws enacted by Congress. Trump says he going to “shut down,” among others, the Department of Education.

Consider the implications of replacing the federal workforce with people whose primary “skill” is unquestioning obedience to whatever Trump decides he wants any given day. Here is the list of some of Trump’s past conduct showing that he is an existential threat to the nation:

  1. Trump incited a deadly assault on the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021; he has resisted every effort at accountability; the Supreme Court has held that he is above the law when, for example, he tries to compel the Justice Department to support his false claims of a stolen election. Trump will not accept defeat in 2024.
    • Trump pushed the fake-electors scheme to overturn a fair election, knowing the scheme had no lawful basis. He knew it and every Republican who still supports knew and knows it.
    • Trump lied that there were “205,000 more ballots than you had voters” in PA.
    • Trump lied that “the entire Database of Maricopa County in Arizona has been DELETED!”
    • Trump falsely accused 2 Georgia election workers of election fraud – the same allegations that led to a $148M judgment vs. Rudy Giuliani.
    • In late 2020,  Trump delayed transition talks with the Biden team even though the stonewalling hurt public health efforts during a pandemic.
    • Trump’s coup attempt projected such instability that Gen. Mark Milley assured his Chinese counterpart that the U.S. planned no attack. This infuriated Trump, who suggested Milley deserved execution: “In times gone by, the punishment would have been DEATH!”
    • Trump plans to pardon the rioters who beat up police officers at the Capitol.
    • Trump did nothing but watch for 187 minutes as his followers stormed the Capitol.
    • Trump spread false claims that mail-in voting would lead to massive fraud, even though it’s been used safely for decades.
    • Trump repeatedly lied about voter fraud to undermine confidence in the 2020 election.
    • Trump tried to overturn the election results by pressuring Georgia officials to “find” votes in his favor.
    • Trump tried to use the Department of Justice as his personal legal defense team, undermining the rule of law.
    • Trump pushed baseless conspiracy theories about the 2020 election, including claims of rigged voting machines.
    • Trump repeatedly undermined the credibility of U.S. elections, a cornerstone of democracy.
    • Trump attempted to sabotage the U.S. Postal Service ahead of the 2020 election to disrupt mail-in voting.

2. Trump’s extremist justices took away women’s right to control their own bodies.

3. Trump wants more huge tariff increases, which are a tax on American consumers; the Tax Foundation estimates loss of more than 684,000 full-time equivalent jobs as result.

4. Trump stole top secrets, lied about what he had, refused to return them, and left them exposed to unauthorized viewers in a Mar-a-Lago bathroom.

5. Trump bragged about grabbing the private parts of women he’d just met. Trump regards women as property.

6. Trump called for a “day of violence” in which police could do whatever they wanted with no accountability.

7. Trump threatens mass deportation of undocumented immigrants – imagine what will happen when many resist and others come to their aid. Read this: https://open.substack.com/pub/snyder/p/twelve-million-deportations?r=4gbf6r&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=email

8. Trump called his opponents “vermin,” echoing hate speech from the Holocaust and the 1994 Rwanda massacre.

9. Trump pulled the U.S. out of the Paris Agreement on climate change. He means to give the oil companies and others free rein to destroy the climate. Read this: https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2024/10/17/oil-industry-trump-climate-lobbying/?utm_campaign=wp_post_most&utm_medium=email&utm_source=newsletter&wpisrc=nl_most&carta-url=https%3A%2F%2Fs2.washingtonpost.com%2Fcar-ln-tr%2F3f56fd8%2F6712886b1ab9a5507

10. Trump said his next administration would give a major health policy role to anti-vaxxer RFK Jr., a disturbed person who dumped a dead bear cub in Central Park and cut off the head of a dead whale with a chainsaw and strapped it to the roof of his minivan.

    • Trump’s lies and incompetence likely led to hundreds of thousands of avoidable deaths from Covid-19.
    • Trump lied publicly that Covid-19 was “like a regular flu that we have flu shots for” while he privately said it was “more deadly than even your strenuous flu.” He continued lying throughout the worst of the pandemic, claiming repeatedly that COVID “will just go away.”
    • Trump suggested that putting light in people’s bodies and injecting them with disinfectant could kill Covid.
    • After the right demonized Anthony Fauci, Trump claimed not to know who gave Fauci a presidential commendation. It was Trump.
    • Trump secretly shipped Covid test equipment to Putin when it was needed in the U.S.
    • Trump downplayed the importance of wearing masks during the Covid-19 pandemic, leading to unnecessary deaths.
    • Trump undermined pandemic relief efforts by refusing to sign stimulus bills until they included unrelated demands.
    • Trump downplayed the threat of Covid-19 despite knowing how dangerous it was.
    • Trump pressured governors to reopen their states during the Covid-19 pandemic against public health advice.
    • Trump’s administration ignored early warnings about the Covid-19 pandemic, delaying critical responses.

11. Trump helped the Saudis cover up the murder and dismemberment of a U.S.-based journalist.

12. Trump wants to use the military to put down “the enemy from within” – meaning anyone who opposes his agenda.

13. Trump lied that “Dems want to shut your churches down, permanently.”

14. Trump’s administration separated migrant children from their parents and then lost track of the parents. They didn’t and don’t care.

15. Trump increased the national debt by 39% in just 4 years while giving the rich a big tax cut.

16. Trump had to pay $2 million in a lawsuit over the Trump Foundation’s misuse of charity funds.

17. On 9/11, Trump bragged that the fall of the Twin Towers meant his building was NYC’s tallest. That’s all he was concerned about.

18. Trump touted his business acumen but couldn’t make a profit from casinos and filed for bankruptcy six times.

19. Trump threatened to withdraw the U.S. from NATO, a key alliance for global stability. Next time, he’ll do it.

20. Trump made false statements more than 30,000 times as President.

21. rump lied that an “extremely credible source” told him Obama’s birth certificate was fake. After years of pushing the birtherism hoax, Trump admitted it was bunk — and he blamed it on Hillary Clinton.

22. Trump took Putin’s word over the word of U.S. intel agencies regarding Russian interference in the 2016 election.

23. Trump insulted Gold Star parents whose son, a U.S. soldier, had been killed in Iraq. The family was Muslim.

24. A court found Trump and his adult sons liable for business fraud and canceled the Trump Organization’s business certification.

25. After a MAGA supporter massacred Latinos in El Paso, Trump and his wife went to the city and used a newly orphaned baby as a prop for a photo op.

26. Trump lied that “we’re the highest taxed nation in the world.”

27. Trump lied by tweet in 2019: “Today I opened a major Apple Manufacturing plant in Texas.” In fact, the plant had opened nearly 6 years earlier.

28. Trump lied when making the absurd claim that people weren’t allowed to say “Merry Christmas” until he came along.

29. Trump denounced 4 women in Congress who are members of minority groups, telling them to go back where they came from, even though 3 were born here and the 4th immigrated as a child.

30. Former Defense Secretary Mark Esper said Trump wanted to shoot social justice protesters. “We reached that point in the conversation where he looked frankly at Gen. Milley and said, ‘Can’t you just shoot them, just shoot them in the legs or something?'”

31. Trump lied that the strategic oil reserve was “mostly empty” and that he filled it. In fact, the reserve was lower at the end of his term than at the start.

32. Trump overruled experts to give a security clearance to Jared Kushner, who later leveraged his access to get $2B from the Saudis.

33. Trump is a racist bigot. He said in 1991: “I have black guys counting my money. … I hate it. The only guys I want counting my money are short guys that wear yarmulkes all day.”

34. Trump said in 2015 he favored the creation of a database to track all Muslims in the U.S.

35. Trump asked in 2016 if women should be charged with a crime for having an abortion despite a ban, he said: “The answer is that there has to be some form of punishment.”

36. Trump defended Putin in 2015: “Nobody’s proven that he’s killed anybody.”

37. In 2016, he called for not only killing terrorists but killing their family members, too.

38. Trump invited Russians into the Oval Office and shared classified information.

39. Trump’s company, the Trump Organization, was convicted of 17 tax crimes, including conspiracy and falsifying business records.

40. Trump called for government crackdowns on MSNBC and CBS because he didn’t like their coverage of him.

41. Trump’s pardon got Steve Bannon out of federal fraud charges in a “build the wall” scam. Right-wing disinformation is Bannon’s game: “The Democrats don’t matter. The real opposition is the media. And the way to deal with them is to flood the zone with sh*t.”

42. Trump praised Hungarian despot Viktor Orban as “one of the strongest leaders anywhere in the world.”

43. A Trump golf club put up a marker about a “River of Blood” at a Civil War battle that supposedly took place there. But no such battle occurred. It’s a lie.

44. Several Trump golf clubs displayed a Time magazine cover featuring him. You guessed it: It’s fake.

45. Trump pardoned Arizona sheriff Joe Arpaio, who had been convicted of ignoring a court order to stop profiling Latinos.

46. Trump lied about Mika Brzezinski’s husband/co-host: “When will they open a Cold Case on the Psycho Joe Scarborough matter in Florida. Did he get away with murder? Some people think so.”

47. Trump hired Kellyanne Conway as a professional liar, and she fulfilled that role, saying early in the pandemic that Covid was “contained,” calling lies “alternative facts” and referring to a terrorist attack that never happened: the “Bowling Green Massacre.”

48. Trump praised China’s dictator Xi Jinping as “brilliant” and “strong like granite.”

49. Trump quit the Iran nuclear deal, raising the chances of nuclear war.

50. Trump told his Cabinet that the Soviet Union was justified in invading Afghanistan in 1979.

51. After former Klan leader David Duke endorsed him for president, Trump said: “I don’t know David Duke. … I just don’t know anything about him.” But researchers found video clips showing Trump talking about Duke on national TV multiple times.

52. Trump refused to attend his successor’s inauguration, becoming the first president to boycott the transition since Andrew Johnson in 1869.

53. Trump tore up official documents, forcing aides to tape them together to preserve them as required by federal law.

54. Trump endorsed NC gov candidate Mark Robinson, a Holocaust denier who called Obama a “top-ranking demon” and said, “I absolutely want to go back to the America where women couldn’t vote.”

55. Trump’s social-media Christmas wish for his opponents: “May they rot in hell.”

56. Trump used the South Lawn of the White House for a partisan event, ignoring precedent and propriety, when he gave his 2020 Republican National Convention speech there.

57. Trump, asked about QAnon, the conspiracy cult that claims JFK Jr. is still alive and Democrats kidnap children to harvest their blood, said: “I don’t know much about the movement other than I understand that they like me very much, which I appreciate.”

58. Trump lied that U.S. Steel was building 6, 7, 8, or 9 new plants (the number varied). But the company built no new plants.

59. Asked about charges for Ghislaine Maxwell for conspiring with sex predator Jeffrey Epstein, Trump said: “I wish her well, frankly.”

60. Trump lied that he received “the highly honored Bay of Pigs award” from Cuban Americans in Florida. There’s no such award.

61. After a 75-year-old social justice protester in Buffalo, NY, was shoved to the ground by police and suffered a fractured skull, Trump suggested it was a “set-up” by “an antifa provocateur.” Trump tweeted that the activist “fell harder than [he] was pushed.”

62. Trump lied that Obama spied on his campaign.

63. Trump said: “We will be ending the AIDS epidemic shortly in America and curing childhood cancer very shortly.”

64. Trump’s Agriculture Dept. ordered staff to stop referring to “climate change” and call it “weather extremes” instead.

65. Trump is selling watches, crypto, and sneakers. Trump’s “God Bless the USA” Bibles were printed in China.

66. Credible evidence indicates that Egypt gave Trump’s campaign a $10M bribe.

67. Trump opened most of Alaska’s Tongass National Forest to logging and other development, removing protections for a temperate rainforest. Biden reversed the move.

68. He claimed to have built hundreds of miles of new border wall, but most of it was just repairs to existing sections.

69. Trump falsely claimed that the U.S. would lose its energy independence under Biden, even though the U.S. was energy independent before and after his presidency.

70. Trump hosted super-spreader events during the height of the Covid-19 pandemic, which led to multiple outbreaks.

71. Trump tried to block the publication of a book by his niece, Mary Trump, which described his unfit mental state and corrupt behavior.

72. Trump repeatedly attacked the media, calling them the “enemy of the people” and undermining free speech.

73. Trump refused to condemn white supremacist groups like the Proud Boys, telling them instead to “stand back and stand by.”

74. Trump refused to release his tax returns, breaking decades of tradition and transparency.

75. Trump pressured foreign governments, including Ukraine, to investigate his political rivals, leading to his impeachment.

76. Trump mocked a reporter with a disability during a campaign rally, showing a lack of basic decency.

77. Trump refused to support measures to protect against Russian interference in U.S. elections.

78. Trump repeatedly violated the Hatch Act by using government resources for political purposes.

79. He ignored intelligence reports about Russian bounties on U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan.

80. Trump’s administration rolled back environmental protections, contributing to climate change and pollution.

81. Trump lied that U.S. troops voted overwhelmingly for him, when military ballots showed otherwise.

82. Trump endorsed violence against protesters, saying “when the looting starts, the shooting starts.”

83. Trump withdrew from the World Health Organization during a global pandemic, weakening international cooperation.

84. Trump promoted unproven Covid-19 treatments like hydroxychloroquine, which endangered public health.

85. Trump repeatedly lied about his administration’s accomplishments, including jobs created and trade deals made.

86. Trump ordered the violent removal of peaceful protesters from Lafayette Square so he could stage a photo-op with a Bible.

87. Trump insulted John McCain, a decorated war hero, saying he prefers “people who weren’t captured.”

88. Trump downplayed the severity of climate change, reversing policies aimed at reducing carbon emissions.

89. Trump called for imprisoning political rivals, a hallmark of authoritarian regimes.

90. Trump’s reckless foreign policy decisions alienated key allies and damaged the U.S.’s reputation globally.

Book Announcement

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I am delighted to announce the publication of Not to Yield, a two-volume compilation of essays adapted from my blog at http://shiningseausa.com and, to a lesser extent, my retired blog at AutumnInNewYork.net.

This is most important: I do not expect you to buy the book because you know me.

If you are interested, please do buy it, but I will never ask. You owe me no explanation of your decision. Similarly, if you are offended by the contents, I’m sorry for that but the book, in addition to being a political and legal history, is replete with my opinions about many subjects. They are my opinions, and that’s that. I have explained the basis for them in, I hope, every case. If you agree, wonderful. If not, you are entitled to. This is the United States, after all. At least for now. One thing seems certain: if Trump loses the election, he will not accept the loss and just retire quietly to Mar-a-Lago. Many of the essays in this book will remain instructive for some time to come.

How to buy Not to Yield”
 
The books are now available at Barnes & Noble:

For Volume One: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/not-to-yield-paul-m-ruden/1146438480?ean=9798823034661

For Volume Two: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/not-to-yield-paul-m-ruden/1146448160?ean=9798823034685

You may qualify for a Member Discount and Free Shipping.

If you prefer to buy from the publisher, here is the AuthorHouse website:

For Volume One: https://www.authorhouse.com/en/bookstore/bookdetails/863010-not-to-yield
For Volume Two: https://www.authorhouse.com/en/bookstore/bookdetails/863011-not-to-yield

There may be shipping and handling charges.

In the relatively near future, they will be available through Amazon, among others. If you want to know when that occurs, state so in a comment  and I will advise at the appropriate time.

The e-book version of the volumes will also be available in the near future on the AuthorHouse website, as well as Amazon and Barnes & Noble, for a lower price and useable on any e-platform. If e-books are your thing, you may wish to wait. In all events, if you buy it/them, I hope the reading will be stimulating and thought-provoking. Remember that experience (history) keeps a dear school …. [Ben Franklin]

If you think you might want to read some of the essays but not all (each volume is long), you may want to consider buying the book, reading what you like, and donating the books to a local library, perhaps for a tax deduction.

To assist in deciding whether you want to buy one or both volumes, I have set out below a list of the main chapters, each of which usually has multiple essays within it.

From the Back Cover:

“This raw, provocative book of essays adapted from the blog ShiningSeaUSA pulls back the curtain on the Trump presidency, providing a panoramic view of his turbulent time in office, the legal implications of his actions, and the inactions of those surrounding him, enabling him, or standing by. The book includes memoir about life in New York City, legal analyses of major political developments since Donald Trump emerged, deep dives into what went wrong in the Mueller investigation, Trump’s mishandling of the COVID pandemic, and the threat to American democracy from Trump, the Republican Party he has captured, and the “conservative” Supreme Court. Not to Yield exposes the corruption and incompetence that dominated Trump’s presidency, his denial of his 2020 election loss, the January 6 attack on the Capitol and Trump’s attempt to return to power, all observed through a legal lens that spotlights blatant disregard for the law of the land and our democratic system.”

Chapters Volume One: Chapters Volume Two:

 
1 NEW YORK CITY MEMORIES 16 TRUMP’S PRESIDENCY 2017

 
2 PEOPLE 17 TRUMP’S PRESIDENCY 2018
3 CLIMATE, ENVIRONMENT, SCIENCE, & SOCIETY 18 TRUMP’S PRESIDENCY 2019

 
4 CONGRESS 19 TRUMP’S PRESIDENCY 2020
5 DEMOCRACY 20 PANDEMIC 2020
6 LAW & COURTS 21 ELECTION 2020
7 TERRORISM 22 TRUMP IN 2021
8 MEDIA 23 TRUMP IN 2022
9 REPUBLICAN POLICY 24 TRUMP IN 2023

 
10 GUNS IN AMERICA 25 ELECTION 2024

 
11 POLICING IN AMERICA
12 RACISM & MYSOGNY
13 ELECTION 2016
14 MUELLER REPORT
15 TRUMP’S PRESIDENCY 2016

Inflation – Who is Responsible?

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Republicans say it’s President Biden. With their usual remote relationship with “truth,” they blame the current President for gas and grocery prices. They are not much interested in complex explanations of post-pandemic supply chains, the continuing power of the Middle Eastern oil producers, or anything beside the facile narrative that “it’s Biden.” Now, of course, they have to shift targets to Kamala Harris, which is proving difficult.

For those who still have functioning minds, it’s interesting to look at some facts.

GAS PRICES

Reuters reported in February 2024 that Exxon Mobil posted a better-than-expected $36 billion profit for 2023. That same month the Statista Research Department reported that Chevron Corporation’s net income in 2023 was $21.37 billion.

Here are the top 15 in 2023 as reported by the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC):

Exxon Mobil               $36 billion

Chevron                       $21.37

Shell                              $19.36

Total Energies              $21.38

Conoco Phillips            $10.96

Valero Energy                 $9.15

BP                                    $15.24

Phillips 66                        $7.02

EOG Resources              $7.59

Cheniere                         $9.90

Pioneer                            $4.89

Occidental                        $3.77

Diamondback                  $3.34

Marathon                          $1.45

Hess                                   $1.38

TOTAL                       $172,813,000,000

That’s just shy of $173 BILLION in profits in one year.

Source: Natural Resources Defense Council  https://tinyurl.com/h7ku2x9z

Hard as it may be to believe, those numbers represent a decline from 2022. Per the New York Times, “The companies’ earnings were down from the bonanza year of 2022, when a surge in prices pushed up profits, but were otherwise the strongest in recent history.” Oil Giants Pump Their Way to Bumper Profits https://tinyurl.com/38zs2eb2

If you’re also wondering how prices are set at the pump and what explains the variation, often substantial, between gas stations only a block apart, I can’t help you. Most of the online sources I have reviewed argue that the pump price is simply a result of supply and demand. That claim may be true, but it makes no sense to me in casual observation of prices and price changes where I have lived and traveled. Moreover, I have seen almost instant price changes occur at the pump at nearby stations following announcements of OPEC price fixing changes for oil produced in the Middle East. This seems inconsistent with the supply-demand concept since the per-barrel prices set by OPEC do not relate to gas delivered to the pumps the very next day.

DRUG PRICES

Ranking of 20 largest pharmaceutical companies in the world by annual profit and profit per second (31,536,000 seconds in a 365-day year):

    1. Pfizer $31.37 billion ($995)
    2. Johnson & Johnson $17.94 billion ($569)
    3. Merck $14.52 billion ($460)
    4. Roche $13.00 billion ($412)
    5. AbbVie $11.84 billion ($375)
    6. BioNTech $10.34 billion ($328)
    7. Sanofi $8.80 billion ($279)
    8. Novo Nordisk $8.80 billion ($270)
    9. Moderna $8.36 billion ($265)
    10. Novartis $7 billion ($222)
    11. Amgen $6.55 billion ($208)
    12. Bristol-Myers Squibb $6.33 billion ($201)
    13. Eli Lilly $6.25 billion ($198)
    14. Abbott $5.80 billion ($184)
    15. GSK $5.30 billion ($168)
    16. AstraZeneca $4.70 billion ($149)
    17. Gilead Sciences $4.59 billion ($146)
    18. Bayer $4.40 billion ($140)
    19. Regeneron $4.34 billion ($138)
    20. Merck KgaA $3.50 billion ($111)

            TOTAL   $183.73 billion ($5826)

That’s just shy of $184 BILLION in profits in one year [2022, latest I could find] Source: The Biggest Pharmaceutical Companies in the World Ranked by Profit per Second https://tinyurl.com/42cjhjn6

If you’re wondering where all that money went, you get a good idea from reporting by the Senate’s Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) Committee:

https://tinyurl.com/4enwp4dt

One explanation of all this may be read at CorporateWatch.org: VACCINE CAPITALISM: FIVE WAYS BIG PHARMA MAKES SO MUCH MONEY  https://tinyurl.com/3f4fhhpa

I understand the argument that the Pharmas do a lot of research/development that does not lead to marketable outcomes, BUT that money is already accounted for in the final profit figures. Stated differently, research/development costs are in the expense side of the calculus that NETS the profits in the chart. Wouldn’t it be interesting to know in detail what a normal day looks like for managements at, say, Merck that warrants compensation of $60.5 million in one year?

GROCERIES

 According to Forbes, groceries are 30 percent more costly now than four years ago, Why Your Groceries Are Still So Expensive https://tinyurl.com/4245t4kb

While noting that “industry leveraged pandemic-related supply chain crises to raise prices and reap enormous profits, all while selling less food,” Forbes, of course, blames this on an “’ongoing policy failure by the Biden Administration.” I will return to that claim in a bit.

Forbes’ analysis of food price inflation states the following:

The U.S. grocery industry is a $1.03 trillion behemoth. According to data shared … by NIQ, across all grocery categories in all channels of trade, prices are up nearly 30% since 2019, while unit volumes are flat. What does this mean? Average shoppers are spending more money and coming home with less food. And Ozempic has nothing to do with it.

Despite the illusion of variety, most grocery categories are dominated by a handful of consumer packaged goods (CPG) companies that own troves of familiar brand names.

Soft drinks provide a textbook example of CPG domination. The top 3 companies, Coca-Cola, Pepsico and Keurig Dr. Pepper, control around 90% of the soda market. Overall, soda sales are up 56%, unit volumes are down 2% and prices are up 59%. In Q1 2023 for example, Coca-Cola prices were up 9%, and Pepsico prices were up 16%, while unit volumes were down 2%. Pepsico more recently posted a 21% rise in operating profit to $970 million, with a 6% volume decline after double-digit price increases for 7 consecutive quarters – nearly 2 whole years. As an executive bluntly stated, “I still think we’re capable of taking whatever pricing we need.”

Kraft Heinz dominates the packaged cheese category at 65% market share. Category unit volumes are up just 6%, while prices are up 21%. That is exactly the intention. “We are not going to be chasing volume,” according to the Kraft Heinz CEO, “We’re going to be looking to drive profitable volume.”

In 2022-2023 Kraft Heinz profits skyrocketed from $225 million to $887 million, an increase of 448%. Gross profit margins reached 34%, up 400BP over Q3 2022.

Similarly, chocolate candy sales are up 34%, unit volumes are down 8% and prices are up 46%. The top 3 companies, including Hershey’s, Mondelez and Mars, possess over 80% market share. Hershey’s CEO said in 2022, “Pricing will be an important lever for us this year and is expected to drive most of our growth.” Hershey’s saw a 62% increase in profits in 2021. Hershey’s 30 brands control at least 46% of the candy category.

Top 10 price increase and volume trends across all grocery channels, 2019-2023. Data Courtesy of … [+] ERROL SCHWEIZER

Boxed cereal dollar sales are up 17%, unit volumes are down 12% and prices are up 33%. The top 3 brands, General Mills, Kellogg’s, and Post Holdings possess over 70% market share. “It’s been surprising how resilient the consumer really is,” stated Kellogg’s Chief Executive Steve Cahillane in 2022, without a hint of irony.

Beef demand is highly elastic. As prices go up, volumes go down. According to NIQ, beef unit volumes are down 14%. Prices have gone through the roof, up over 50% in just 4 years. The average beef price per pound is now over $7. So it wasn’t Impossible Burger or cultivated lab meat that killed demand. And no wonder. The top 4 meat processors hold around 50% market share. Tyson Foods doubled its profits from 2021-2022, dryly stating in an earnings call, “Our pricing actions, which partially offset the higher input costs, led to higher sales during the quarter.”

Diaper unit volumes are down 11.7% while prices are up 38%, to over $13 a pack. Proctor & Gamble (P&G) and Kimberly Clark control 70% of the domestic diaper industry. P&G prices have stayed high while lower input costs drove 33% of their profits. The brand predicted an $800 million windfall, and an executive recently mentioned, “We continue to believe that the majority of that growth will be price driven with a negative volume component.”

Multiple other product lines show the same pattern of reduced sales volumes accompanied by much larger percentage price increases: milk, yogurt, fresh potatoes, potato chips. The yogurt industry concentration (four firms with aggregate 70 percent of market) resembles the airline industry where four firms have about 70 percent of sales. And, according to Forbes reporting of NielsenIQ data, increases in prices of base ingredients are lower than the increases for processed commodities made from those ingredients.

Price inflation takes other forms than straight-up increases – package sizes are often reduced while price is held constant (called “shrinkflation”). Data also exists showing that corporate profits (income after accounting for expenses) accounted for more than half of inflation.

While media and large companies often assign blame for inflation on consumer demand and workers demanding higher pay, Forbes shows that “corporate profits as a share of the national income are at historic highs, while workers’ share is lower than before the pandemic.” And, “Wall Street profit rates are the highest since World War II and stock buybacks are at record highs.” A good argument exists on the known facts that the largest concentrated industries are taking advantage of the pandemic and its aftermath to extract monopoly profits from consumers.

Instances of suppliers withholding product from uncooperative retailers refusing price pass-throughs are strong evidence of the effects of market concentration. Only firms with market power can successfully withhold product from the market without loss of business.

Finally, for present purposes, energy cost inflation, driven by multiple largely uncontrollable factors, are running persistently higher than general inflation. https://www.vox.com/technology/366885/utility-power-bill-price-clean-energy

Returning to the question whether price inflation is chargeable to the government, the Forbes article suggests Congress could act, along with the USDA and FTC, all targets of Republican angst over government overreach and the “deep state.” There are statutory tools available, for sure, but using them effectively in the face of massive Republican resistance is not a hopeful path to a solution and would in any case consume many years of litigation. Recall the hysterical Republican response to the budgeted increase in IRS staffing which, properly understood, would have resulted in hiring more staff over several years and largely made up for historical reductions in staff that have impaired collection work and return processing. And it certainly would not have led, as Republicans claimed, to armed IRS agents shooting people over tax obligations.

The Congress as currently constituted is not going to cooperate in any legislative efforts to further regulate large American businesses. And the Supreme Court has eviscerated one of the main supportive legal principles (“Chevron deference”) that enabled federal agencies to act aggressively under general legislative authorities to regulate highly-concentrated industries that are responsible for most of the inflation.

Nothing Has Changed – Don’t Be Misled by the Republican Political Theater

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Make no mistake Someone apparently tried to shoot Trump. I say ‘apparently’ because based on the evidence disclosed thus far, it is equally possible that the shooter intended only to frighten him or that the real target was the audience. While the shooter has much in common with the typical mass-murderer of school children (a youngish white male, a loner bullied in school), he was reportedly a registered Republican. His father also an avid Republican, Trump supporter and, of course, deep fan of guns – it was reportedly his gun that his son used.

In saying that, I do not subscribe to the conspiracy theories unsurprisingly circulating on social media that the entire event was staged in light of the imminent Republican National Convention, etc. One man, a father and firefighter, was killed in the incident and two other spectators were severely injured. An AR-15 bullet will do that, as we have learned to our deep sorrow from the many school shootings in which such weapons were used.

Not that Trump cared about anyone but himself. Reports indicate he has never reached out to the families of the man killed or of those wounded. President Biden did and was rebuffed by the widow who claimed her husband was so devoted to Trump that he would not have wanted her to accept the President’s condolences. That’s where we are.

Trump played golf, apparently not much unnerved by his alleged brush with death. Curious but given his past, not altogether surprising. To repeat, on the basis of known evidence so far, I do not subscribe to the claim that the entire affair was staged. The shooter was also killed. On the other hand, many mass shooters fully expect to die in the process.

I understand there are many unanswered questions. In time I expect there will be more clarity around why there has been no medical report on the nature and extent of the injury to Trump’s ear, and there are no authentic medical reports on the treatment he received. Why did Trump finally appear with a very large white bandage over the affected ear? There are reports indicating that he may not have been hit by a bullet at all but that his ear was damaged by a piece of the teleprompter that was shattered by a bullet. Strange but … not proof of the staging argument.

Also, there is no proof that this was in fact an “attempted assassination,” as the press has universally accepted without evidence of anything but an alleged nicked ear. There will be investigations and reports. Perhaps then there will be clarity about these and other questions begging for answers. Other than glorying in the additional attention he is receiving, and constantly craves, there is little if any real evidence that he came within an inch of being killed.

Meanwhile, everyone should calm down. A man is dead. The shooter is dead. Two people are hospitalized with undetailed but likely devastating wounds from the AR-15 bullets.

That said, the Republicans reacted true to form, blaming Democrats for “demonizing” Trump and thus inviting disaster. Naturally, those Republican sycophants ignored their consistent refusal to consider any meaningful restraints on ownership of automatic weapons. The NRA and their devotion to a strained interpretation of the Second Amendment were also ignored. Typical. One Republican claimed that President Biden had ordered the “hit” on Trump. Thoughts and prayers on that one. Republican Trump-worshippers remain among the worst, the most appalling Americans alive today.

Meanwhile, the Democrats were busy decrying violence in our political affairs and urging “unity.” Of course. Thoughts and prayers on that one too. The media also have been hysterical in their response to the incident, reporting as fact numerous matters about which they have no reliable evidence. It’s déjà vu all over again.

The reality is that Trump demonized himself. Here is a very brief sample of how he did that:

Trump’s immigration “policy” led to separating hundreds of children from their parents, in some cases apparently permanently, and locking them in cages. A perfect prescription for creating future terrorists who will never forget what was done to their families in the name of the United States of America. [See Who Will Punish Trump Administration Crimes Against Humanity?

Trump lied grotesquely and repeatedly about the COVID pandemic, promoting quack-sourced non-scientific remedies, repeatedly reassuring the country that the pandemic would end shortly with little impact. In fact, more than a million Americans died from COVID, and the damage continues. [See The Triumph of Hope Over Experience?]

Trump tried to use a foreign government to undermine his 2020 political opponent’s campaign, was impeached (twice) and acquitted only because his Republican sycophants in the Senate refused to hear the evidence and did not care what he did. Trump committed many other crimes in office. [See … A Man Unacquainted With Honor, Courage, And Character …. and Donald Trump — A Gangster in the White House]

When he left the White House, Trump took top secret documents with him and when this was discovered and the Archives demanded they be returned, he lied about them, refused to return them, hid them and engaged in other clear acts of obstruction of justice, adding to the ten that Robert Mueller’s investigation uncovered.

Trump has been found guilty by a criminal jury of fraud – 34 felonies. Not to mention the judicial determinations that he raped at least one woman.

There are dozens, likely hundreds of other examples, including many not revealed because Trump routinely destroyed documents that were supposed to be retained as official records of the Office of the President. But Trump never cared about that Office or his oath. His presidency was an occasion only to further enrich himself.

The mainstream media have apparently lost their minds entirely. The New York Times decided Joe Biden should drop out of the 2024 race solely due to his terrible debate performance, without mentioning anything about Trump. Meanwhile, the Supreme Court has conferred upon the President the absolute and unchallengeable power to commit crimes in office, even to the point of purloining the Department of Justice, among other agencies, to overthrow the presidential election of the very government the Court claimed it was protecting. In a bizarre twist of logic, the Court, claiming to prevent inter-presidential revenge-taking, gave the President the power to remain “king of America” for life and to appoint his successor. If the Biden administration doesn’t do something drastic about the Trump immunity decision, democracy in America will end with the next election if Trump wins. Imagine thereafter Trump’s son, Donald Junior, as President. It’s no joke.

The perfidy of the Supreme Court is not limited to the immunity question. Justice Thomas, bought and paid for by secret gifts from a billionaire Republican “friend,” wrote a concurring opinion on an issue not before the Court in the Trump immunity case. Thomas declared that the appointment of Special Prosecutor, Jack Smith, had been unconstitutional and therefore that the criminal cases against Trump at Smith’s behest could not stand. And, dutifully attendant to Trump’s needs as always, after endless delaying tactics but in practically no time after the filing of the then-inevitable motions to dismiss the stolen secret documents case, Trump’s judge-in-his-pocket, Aileen Cannon produced a 93-page opinion dismissing the document theft charges.

Now the New York Times apparently has awakened, at least partially, and produced in the last Sunday Times a special section entitled:  He Failed the Tests of Leadership and Betrayed America. Voters Must Reject Him in November: Donald Trump is Unfit to Lead.

So obviously true and yet, maybe too little too late. This was before the shooting. Trump has now selected one of the most despicable human beings in America to run with his as his Vice President: J.D. Vance. And while the Times on the same day recounts in detail the efforts of Republican functionaries around the country to suppress the votes of Democrats, it still plays the both-sides game in giving uncritical attention to the views of Trump’s most dedicated supporters in Congress and elsewhere.

The Supreme Court has unleashed the dogs of war by purporting to empower the President to violate the law with impunity. Joe Biden has many critical decisions to make if democracy is to be save from the very brink of destruction. The media also must choose now. There is no question left about the intention of the Republican Party to promote Donald Trump’s fascism until it has destroyed American democracy as it has existed since 1787.

I have read suggestions that Arabs and Muslims in Michigan, for one example, will not vote for Biden because of his support of Israel in the ongoing conflict with Hamas. I asked whether those single-issue voters have forgotten that Trump, immediately after taking office, imposed a ban on Muslims coming into the United States, labeling them all as potential terrorists. How many times must the lesson be learned that Donald Trump is no one’s friend, no one’s ally – he’s in politics for himself and his family alone. How many times?

The countdown clock is ticking to doomsday. Everything is on the line.

Sources: Who Will Punish Trump Administration Crimes Against Humanity? https://shiningseausa.com/2020/02/23/who-will-punish-trump-administration-crimes-against-humanity/

    The Triumph of Hope Over Experience?  https://shiningseausa.com/2022/02/26/triumph-hope-over-experience/

    … A Man Unacquainted With Honor, Courage, And Character …. https://shiningseausa.com/2024/02/06/man-unacquainted-with-honor-courage-and-character/

    Donald Trump — A Gangster in the White House https://shiningseausa.com/2022/04/11/donald-trump-a-gangster-in-the-white-house/

Another Day That Will Live In Infamy

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The day after the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, President Roosevelt addressed the nation and the world in a speech delivered to a joint session of Congress. The opening line was:

Yesterday, December 7th, 1941 — a date which will live in infamy — the United States of America was suddenly and deliberately attacked by naval and air forces of the Empire of Japan.

The attack was surely one of the lowest points in the country’s history. Thereafter, the country resumed its belief that it was immune from foreign attack, a belief shattered again on September 11, 2001. Our government took steps to assure the country and the world that such an event could never happen again. In many ways the upending of our way of life, driven by the response to that day, continues some 23 years later.

During the anti-communist hysteria of the post-World War II period, Americans were terrified that the “enemy within” would destroy our democracy. That fear spawned and nourished Senator Joe McCarthy’s campaign to find and remove the communists he believed had infiltrated American institutions. You know the story, I’m sure.

You also know that on January 6, 2021, the United States Capitol was attacked, not by foreign troops or foreign terrorists but by Americans inspired by the lies of then President Donald Trump. Trump was desperate to stay in power and was prepared to use any means at his disposal to accomplish his goal. Recall that Trump said many times, and believed,

I have an Article II, where I have to the right to do whatever I want as president … But I don’t even talk about that.

The proof that he believed that can be found, among many other places, in his conduct following the 2020 election. The indictment alleging his crimes related to staying in power says:

70. In late December 2020, [Trump] attempted to use the Justice Department to make knowingly false claims of election fraud to officials in the targeted states through a formal letter under the Acting Attorney General’s signature, thus giving [Trump’s] lies the backing of the federal government and attempting to improperly influence the targeted states to replace legitimate Biden electors with [Trump’s]….

74. That afternoon, [Trump] called the Acting Attorney General and Acting Deputy Attorney General and said, among other things, “People tell me [Co-Conspirator 4] is great. I should put him in.” [Trump] also raised multiple false claims of election fraud, which the Acting Attorney General and Acting Deputy Attorney General refuted. When the Acting Attorney General told the Defendant that the Justice Department could not and would not change the outcome of the election, [Trump] responded, “Just say that the election was corrupt and leave the rest to me and the Republican congressmen.”

75. On December 28, Co-Conspirator 4 sent a draft letter to the Acting Attorney General and Acting Deputy Attorney General, which he proposed they all sign. The draft was addressed to state officials in Georgia, and Co-Conspirator 4 proposed sending versions of the letter to elected officials in other targeted states. The proposed letter contained numerous knowingly false claims about the election and the Justice Department ….CoConspirator 4’s letter sought to advance [Trump’s] fraudulent elector plan by using the authority of the Justice Department to falsely present the fraudulent electors as a valid alternative to the legitimate electors.  The Justice Department urged that the state legislature convene a special legislative session to create the opportunity to, among other things, choose the fraudulent electors over the legitimate electors….

76. The Acting Deputy Attorney General promptly responded to Co-Conspirator 4 by email and told him that his proposed letter was false, writing, “Despite dramatic claims to the contrary, we have not seen the type of fraud that calls into question the reported (and certified) results of the election.” ….

77. On December 31, [Trump] summoned to the Oval Office the Acting Attorney General, Acting Deputy Attorney General, and other advisors. In the meeting, [Trump] again raised claims about election fraud that Justice Department officials already had told him were not true—and that the senior Justice Department officials reiterated were false—and suggested he might change the leadership in the Justice Department.

78. On January 2, 2021, just four days before Congress’s certification proceeding, CoConspirator 4 tried to coerce the Acting Attorney General and Acting Deputy Attorney General to sign and send Co-Conspirator 4’s draft letter, which contained false statements, to state officials. He told them that [Trump] was considering making Co-Conspirator 4 the new Acting Attorney General, but that Co-Conspirator 4 would decline [Trump’s] offer if the Acting Attorney General and Acting Deputy Attorney General would agree to send the proposed letter to the targeted states. The Justice Department officials refused.

79. The next morning, on January 3, despite having uncovered no additional evidence of election fraud, Co-Conspirator 4 sent to a Justice Department colleague an edited version of his draft letter to the states, which included a change from its previous claim that the Justice Department had “concerns” to a stronger false claim that “[a]s of today, there is evidence of … significant irregularities that may have impacted the outcome of the election in multiple States.”

80. Also on the morning of January 3, Co-Conspirator 4 met with [Trump] at the White House—again without having informed senior Justice Department officials—and accepted [Trump’s] offer that he become Acting Attorney General.

81. On the afternoon of January 3, Co-Conspirator 4 spoke with a Deputy White House Counsel. The previous month, the Deputy White House Counsel had informed [Trump] that “there is no world, there is no option in which you do not leave the White House [o]n January 20th.” Now, the same Deputy White House Counsel tried to dissuade Co-Conspirator 4 from assuming the role of Acting Attorney General. The Deputy White House Counsel reiterated to Co-Conspirator 4 that there had not been outcome-determinative fraud in the election and that if the Defendant remained in office nonetheless, there would be “riots in every major city in the United States.” Co-Conspirator 4 responded, “Well, [Deputy White House Counsel], that’s why there’s an Insurrection Act.”

82. Also that afternoon, Co-Conspirator 4 met with the Acting Attorney General and told him that [Trump] had decided to put Co-Conspirator 4 in charge of the Justice Department. The Acting Attorney General responded that he would not accept being fired by a subordinate and immediately scheduled a meeting with [Trump] for that evening….

84. [Trump] moved immediately from this national security briefing to the meeting that the Acting Attorney General had requested earlier that day, which included CoConspirator 4, the Acting Attorney General, the Acting Deputy Attorney General, the Justice Department’s Assistant Attorney General for the Office of Legal Counsel, the White House Counsel, a Deputy White House Counsel, and a Senior Advisor. At the meeting, [Trump] expressed frustration with the Acting Attorney General for failing to do anything to overturn the election results, and the group discussed Co-Conspirator 4’s plans to investigate purported election fraud and to send his proposed letter to state officials—a copy of which was provided to [Trump] during the meeting. [Trump] relented in his plan to replace the Acting Attorney General with Co-Conspirator 4 only when he was told that it would result in mass resignations at the Justice Department and of his own White House Counsel.

The foregoing detailed allegations, chapter-and-verse, showing Donald Trump’s attempt to use the Justice Department to support his knowingly false claims of election fraud were described by the Supreme Court this way:

In dividing official from unofficial conduct, courts may not inquire into the President’s motives….

The allegations in fact plainly implicate Trump’s “conclusive and preclusive” authority. “[I]nvestigation and prosecution of crimes is a quintessentially executive function….”

… the Executive Branch has “exclusive authority and absolute discretion” to decide which crimes to investigate and prosecute, including with respect to allegations of election crime….

The President may discuss potential investigations and prosecutions with his Attorney General and other Justice Department officials to carry out his constitutional duty to “take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed.” Art. II, §3. And the Attorney General, as head of the Justice Department, acts as the President’s “chief law enforcement officer” who “provides vital assistance to [him] in the performance of [his] constitutional duty to ‘preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution….’”

Trump’s threatened removal of the Acting Attorney General likewise implicates “conclusive and preclusive” Presidential authority. As we have explained, the President’s power to remove “executive officers of the United States whom he has appointed” may not be regulated by Congress or reviewed by the courts….

Trump is therefore absolutely immune from prosecution for the alleged conduct involving his discussions with Justice Department officials.

The Court thus saw no conflict or inconsistency in describing Trump’s attempts to force the Justice Department to support his knowingly false claims of election fraud as mere “discussions” implicating the DOJ’s authority to investigate “allegations of election crime” and the President’s duty to “take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed.”

The intellectual dishonesty underlying this treatment of the constitutional allocation of powers is blatant and undeniable. Pandora’s Box has now been opened. Ignoring the facts alleged in the indictment, the Court has adopted Trump’s view of Article II of the Constitution: the President can do whatever he wants. He is indeed above the law. Recall that in the end, the only thing stopping Trump’s plans to use DOJ to subvert the election was the threat of the DOJ leadership to resign if he persisted. If they had knuckled under to his unlawful demands, Trump might well have succeeded in overthrowing the election and restoring himself to power, thereby ending American democracy.

What the Court’s opinion did not acknowledge is that Joe Biden, not Donald Trump, is President of the United States. What is true of Trump as President is true of Biden as well. The Sword of Damocles has been unsheathed and it has two edges.

*****

It is not hyperbole to observe that July 1, 2024, will now rank alongside December 7, 1941, and January 6, 2021, as another day of infamy. July 1, 2024, was the day the American Constitution was destroyed by the United States Supreme Court.

The President of the United States is now free to use the Department of Justice to subvert American elections. But that’s not all. The Trump indictment addresses the Justice Department issues and concludes that absolute immunity attaches to attempts to use the Department to subvert elections

But remember, the President is the Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces of the United States, the largest and most powerful military force on the planet. The President is also the directive force behind all the federal agencies. He oversees the Cabinet — the people appointed by the President and who supervise those agencies.

What the Supreme Court has said about the power of the President over the Justice Department applies to the other federal departments and, indirectly, the agencies under them. If there are differences now between the U.S. President and a dictator, they are not apparent. If the President is absolutely immune from criminal responsibility for trying to or actually suborning the Justice Department to commit crimes, what prevents him from doing the same with the military?

The Court’s decision in Trump v. United States ranks alongside the Court’s worst opinions in history and may be the worst of all. Raising the President to imperial status is a graver threat to democracy than the decisions holding that “separate but equal” in education was adequate and that it was in the national interest and consistent with the Constitution to relocate into detention camps Japanese-Americans during World War II

Ben Franklin famously was asked, “”Well, Doctor, what have we got, a republic or a monarchy?” His response: “A republic, if you can keep it.”

 Turns out, we can’t.

Supreme Court Creates First American King

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The Supreme Court by a 6-3 vote has decided that the President of the United States enjoys absolute immunity for some criminal conduct, presumptive immunity for other criminal conduct and, for an indeterminate array of other criminal conduct, very difficult to identify, no immunity. However, the decision does not address the real question that was before the Court. Instead, it sends the case back to the lower courts for further consideration which will, of course, prevent the trial of any elements of the pending indictment before the November election and will likely lead to years of further litigation. If Trump wins the 2024 election, that litigation will undoubtedly include the question whether a President can pardon himself so that he can never be prosecuted for crimes committed while in office.

And, of course, if Trump loses and instigates another insurrection like January 6, 2021, designed to overturn the election result, there will be years more of litigation to address the extent of the crimes he would be committing as the Supreme Court continues to equivocate about basic constitutional principles. Meanwhile, Trump will have pardoned the loons who executed his direction to stop the certification of Biden’s win in 2020 by attacking the Capitol. The Court may well regret the perfidy of its craven decision to immunize the presidency from the consequences of blatantly criminal behavior.

I will leave to others the detailed parsing of the opinions in the case, with a few exceptions.

I would have thought, and did think, that the question before the Court was straightforward, especially following the oral argument in which Trump’s counsel claimed that the President could order the murder of a political opponent with complete immunity from prosecution.

This was, after all, a criminal prosecution that led to a very detailed indictment containing 130 numbered paragraphs recounting the events leading up to, through, and after January 6. The immunity issues needing elucidation were apparent from the indictment. There was no need for further lower court proceedings to determine what the central issues were. And absent motive to kick the can down the electoral road and prevent the trial of Donald Trump before the election, there is no apparent reason the Supreme Court could not have decided which acts alleged were immune, why they were immune and the result of that immunity for the prosecution of the indictment through trial.

The conduct alleged to have constituted crimes was described in extreme detail. If that conduct, as described, was immune from criminal prosecution, it is not apparent why the Supreme Court could not have decided and explained without having further time-consuming proceedings in the lower courts and the inevitable appeals back to the Supreme Court in, perhaps, 2026 or even 2027.

Perhaps the clearest example is the conclusion that the President’s “discussions” with the Department of Justice and threats to replace DOJ personnel for not complying with the President’s “discussion” (that was in fact not merely discussion but “demands” to engage in blatantly untrue and unlawful efforts to overturn the 2020 election) are unreachable by criminal prosecution. This must be understood in connection with the prior finding that in the realm of executive powers, the President’s motives may not be questioned. Thus, the Court concludes:

Trump’s threatened removal of the Acting Attorney General likewise implicates “conclusive and preclusive” Presidential authority. As we have explained, the President’s power to remove “executive officers of the United States whom he has appointed” may not be regulated by Congress or reviewed by the courts.

In short, according to the Supreme Court, a President may for entirely corrupt purposes, as was alleged here, threaten and remove personnel who refuse to comply with his directives to violate the law, without being accountable for his actions.

… the President cannot be prosecuted for conduct within his exclusive constitutional authority. Trump is therefore absolutely immune from prosecution for the al­leged conduct involving his discussions with Justice De­partment officials.

Similarly, while purporting to need lower court input on some questions, the Court categorically rules out prosecution of Trump for trying to pressure Vice President Pence to violate his constitutional duties in connection with certification of the election result. The rationale for this astonishing outcome does not support it, but the Court is blind to the implications of its ruling:

It is thus important for the President to discuss official matters with the Vice President to ensure continuity within the Executive Branch and to advance the President’s agenda in Congress and beyond.

The Court is indifferent to the consideration that the President’s agenda might be, as it clearly was in this case, to undermine the electoral process, void the votes of millions of Americans, and install the defeated candidate as the winner of the election.

Whenever the President and Vice President discuss their official responsibilities, they engage in official conduct.

The Court’s view is that Trump’s demands were “just talk.” After reciting a list of irrelevant matters in which the coordination of the President and Vice President are required, the Court simply writes off the allegation that the President, for entirely other and blatantly corrupt reasons, was pressuring the Vice President to violate the Constitution.

The indictment’s allegations that Trump attempted to pressure the Vice President to take particular acts in connection with his role at the certification proceeding thus involve official conduct, and Trump is at least presumptively immune from prosecution for such conduct.

 In simple English, under the Court’s decision, the President is free to demand his Number Two federal officer to violate the Constitution without little concern for being held criminally responsible. The rationale for this bizarre outcome is that the “President may need to rely on the Vice President in his capacity as President of the Senate to advance the President’s agenda in Congress.” Thus,

It is ultimately the Government’s burden to rebut the presumption of immunity. We therefore remand to the District Court to assess in the first instance, with appropriate input from the parties, whether a prosecution involving Trump’s alleged attempts to influence the Vice President’s oversight of the certification proceeding in his capacity as President of the Senate would pose any dangers of intrusion on the authority and functions of the Executive Branch.

 It was and is plain on the face of the indictment that the charges related to Trump’s attempt to pressure the Vice President into violating what virtually every credible legal authority understands is the limit on the VP’s authority have nothing whatever to do with the President’s “agenda in Congress.” The corruption of the majority opinion in this respect is blatantly obvious as a partisan gift to Trump to create yet another obstacle to his being timely tried for a clear and obvious crime.

Regarding the allegations of Trump’s attempts to interfere with state electoral slates, the Court finds the issues just too complicated for it to address:

The necessary analysis is … fact specific, requiring assessment of numerous alleged interactions with a wide variety of state officials and private persons.

The Court remands those issues for further fact finding as well. Why these questions could not be resolved at trial through evidence, which is the normal practice, is not apparent. The indictment’s allegations are very specific and precise about what Trump attempted to do in Georgia, for example. There is no plausible basis for concluding that Trump’s demands that the Secretary of State for George “find” just enough votes to give him Georgia’s electoral votes were merely policy discussions. Trump could argue that in the trial, of course, as a “defense,” but to hold that more fact finding at the District Court level is essential to even holding a trial is beyond the pale.

If the trial court made material mistakes in admitting evidence and instructing the jury, those issues could be addressed through appeals in the normal course. The Court’s remand games the normal judicial process for Trump to aid his effort to prevent any trial before the election.

Finally, and perhaps most remarkably, the Court finds that the indictment’s charges related to Trump’s incitement speech on January 6 requires remand as well:

Whether the Tweets, that speech, and Trump’s other communications on January 6 involve official conduct may depend on the content and context of each…. We therefore remand to the District Court to determine in the first instance whether this alleged conduct is official or unofficial.

In these conclusions the Supreme Court pretends it knows nothing about, and ignores the specific allegations of the indictment, what Trump actually said on January 6., 2021.

The Court then indicates that evidence of the President’s knowledge of the falsity of his election fraud claims is not admissible at trial. It thus completes the gaming of its decision to protect the President from allegations of blatantly criminal conduct that has nothing whatever to do with the official duties of the President and belies entirely his obligation to “take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed.” The Court’s decision cannot be squared with the President’s responsibility to the Constitution and the law. It is a travesty of the most serious kind that the country will long regret. The Court has opened the door to a repeat of January 6, 2021 ignoring, among other things, that this time the government will be prepared for the attack.

More to come.

Project 2025 – The Republican Doomsday Scenario – Part 2

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The core premise of Project 2025 is that the federal government is the enemy of the American people:

The federal government is a behemoth, weaponized against American citizens and conservative values, with freedom and liberty under siege as never before. The task at hand to reverse this tide and restore our Republic to its original moorings is too great for any one conservative policy shop to spearhead.

The authors of these concepts are very bright people with impressive credentials, but they are wedded to the idea that since the Great Depression, the population has lost its moorings by electing federal political leaders who have betrayed the country’s original values, at least the values they fantasize were the founding principles.

Curiously, the manifesto declares that the situation is so fraught that:

Contemporary elites have even repurposed the worst ingredients of 1970s “radical chic” to build the totalitarian cult known today as “The Great Awokening.” And now, as then, the Republican Party seems to have little understanding about what to do. Most alarming of all, the very moral foundations of our society are in peril.

The first expressed goal of Project 2025 is thus to “Restore the family as the centerpiece of American life and protect our children,” defined by the Project as “the true priority of politics.” Based on the conduct of the Republican Party, they consider Donald Trump and his family of entitled grifters the model for the American family. I am not making this up.

The Project’s hyperventilation over the “carnage” that Trump referenced in his 2016 inauguration speech continues with this pithy observation:

In many ways, the entire point of centralizing political power is to subvert the family. Its purpose is to replace people’s natural loves and loyalties with unnatu­ral ones.

I have observed in other writings the curious condition that permits Republicans to keep multiple inconsistent ideas actively working in their minds at the same time without experiencing devastating cognitive dissonance. Here is another example from Project 2025 wherein it observes that Republicans have had long-terms goals of “eliminating marriage penalties in federal welfare programs and the tax code and installing work requirements for food stamps.” Then,

 But we must go further. It’s time for policymakers to elevate family authority, formation, and cohesion as their top priority and even use government power, including through the tax code, to restore the American family. [emphasis added for … emphasis]

Sooo, it seems that big government is evil BUT we should use government power to reshape society by establishing government-enforced cultural rules that control the private behavior of adults.

The Republicans’ concern for the welfare of the American family is touching, until you recall this:

Shooting Deaths Shooting Injuries Elementary Schools Middle/Jr High High schools Other2
2000-01 1,676 515 1,305 320 162 777
thru 2021-22
2000-01 47 18 30 4 3 23
2001-02 18 5 17 2 1 14
2002-03 29 13 24 2 6 16
2003-04 45 16 34 5 3 26
2004-05 63 22 44 9 1 32
2005-06 55 13 50 5 6 39
2006-07 91 28 64 9 12 42
2007-08 23 10 16 2 2 11
2008-09 61 19 52 11 6 31
2009-10 15 5 15 1 2 12
2010-11 32 8 18 4 2 12
2011-12 21 9 16 3 3 9
2012-13 55 42 26 7 5 13
2013-14 55 19 46 7 3 32
2014-15 65 20 43 13 4 24
2015-16 45 9 38 7 4 25
2016-17 61 14 48 8 9 31
2017-18 185 52 89 14 8 64
2018-19 116 34 113 35 14 60
2019-20 126 32 116 33 11 70
2020-21 118 46 145 59 21 57
2021-22 350 81 319 82 37 189

And this:

It seems that Republicans are fine with the “acceptable losses” of children due to school shootings, since they resist virtually every attempt to limit access to guns. And we have just learned that the Supreme Court, ruled by a “conservative majority” of six (half appointed by Trump), thinks automatic weapons, or their functional equivalent, are just fine too. Garland v Cargill decided June 14, 2024.

Project 2025 provides many examples of what it would change by government edict. I will address many of them in subsequent posts.

Meanwhile, women of America and everyone who believes in science and the principles of individual liberty, separation of church and state, among others, try on for size these pieces of Project 2025 about the American “family”:

The next conservative President must make the institutions of American civil society hard targets for woke culture warriors. This starts with deleting the terms sexual orientation and gender identity (“SOGI”), diversity, equity, and inclusion (“DEI”), gender, gender equality, gender equity, gender awareness, gender-sensi­tive, abortion, reproductive health, reproductive rights, and any other term used to deprive Americans of their First Amendment rights out of every federal rule, agency regulation, contract, grant, regulation, and piece of legislation that exists.

Pornography, manifested today in the omnipresent propagation of transgender ideology and sexualization of children, for instance, is not a political Gordian knot inextricably binding up disparate claims about free speech, property rights, sexual liberation, and child welfare. It has no claim to First Amendment protection. Its purveyors are child predators and misogynistic exploiters of women. Their product is as addictive as any illicit drug and as psychologically destructive as any crime. Pornography should be outlawed. The people who produce and distribute it should be imprisoned. Educators and public librarians who purvey it should be classed as registered sex offenders. And telecommunications and technology firms that facilitate its spread should be shuttered.

In our schools, the question of parental authority over their children’s education is a simple one: Schools serve parents, not the other way around. That is, of course, the best argument for universal school choice—a goal all conservatives and con­servative Presidents must pursue. But even before we achieve that long-term goal, parents’ rights as their children’s primary educators should be non-negotiable in American schools. States, cities and counties, school boards, union bosses, princi­pals, and teachers who disagree should be immediately cut off from federal funds.

Every threat to family stability must be confronted. This resolve should color each of our policies. Consider our approach to Big Tech. The worst of these companies prey on children, like drug dealers, to get them addicted to their mobile apps. Many Silicon Valley executives famously don’t let their own kids have smart phones.2 They nevertheless make billions of dollars addicting other people’s children to theirs. TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and other social media platforms are specifically designed to create the digital dependencies that fuel mental illness and anxiety, to fray children’s bonds with their parents and siblings. Federal policy cannot allow this industrial-scale child abuse to continue.

In particular, the next conservative President should work with Congress to enact the most robust protections for the unborn that Congress will support while deploying existing federal powers to protect innocent life and vigorously complying with statutory bans on the federal funding of abortion. Conservatives should ardently pursue these pro-life and pro-family policies while recognizing the many women who find themselves in immensely difficult and often tragic situations and the hero­ism of every choice to become a mother. Alternative options to abortion, especially adoption, should receive federal and state support.

Recall that this part is just about the first prong of Project 2025. These people are deadly serious about using the power of the federal government to reshape the United States into a Christian Nationalist version of Gilead.

Project 2025 – The Republican Doomsday Scenario – Part 1

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Departing from their practice in 2020 when the Republican Party declined to publish a platform other than “whatever Trump wants,” the Party of No is working from a massive 887-page document entitled, “Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise,” also known as Project 2025, Presidential Transition Project.

While the document goes to some lengths to share the “credit” for its creation with multiple “conservative” sources, make no mistake: the Heritage Foundation is the root of this poisonous tree. The copyright to the document is owned by the Heritage Foundation alone. Out of 36 authors and editors listed, 28 have Heritage or Trump administration credentials, as do many of the “contributors.” The Advisory Board is a Who’s Who of right-wing groups with misleading names like Alliance Defending Freedom, American Center for Law and Justice, Center for Equal Opportunity, and Foundation for Defense of Democracies.

The silliest part of this document is the claim that “Indeed, one set of eyes reading these passages will be those of the 47th President of the United States” an obvious reference to Donald Trump. It is widely known that Trump doesn’t read much of anything, certainly not a dense 887-page treatise on the details of government. And don’t forget that Trump believes that as President under Article II of the Constitution, “I can do whatever I want.”

But if Trump could write more than just his name, he might well have produced much of this “plan.” It’s full of hysterical and anti-historical rhetorical nonsense about government “dishonesty and corruption,” a mythical “ruling and cultural elite,” “toxic normalization of transgender­ism with drag queens and pornography invading their school libraries,” and “globalist elites in Washington” ignoring the looming threat of China and the imminent peril to the “very moral foundations of our society.” Oh, and the conservative concerns are also based on the claim that “The long march of cultural Marxism through our institutions has come to pass.”

The proverbial pot has called the proverbial kettle black.

We somehow missed the descent of the United States into a roiling hellscape while distracted by these “inconvenient facts:”

  1. Airports are mobbed with travelers taking trips for pleasure and business. For past three months, travel agency sold-passenger trips are up 6.53% year-over-year; domestic trips are up 9.58% YOY and international trips up 1.71% YOY;
  2. The U.S. enjoys a “roaring economy with an unemployment rate that has just last month ticked up to 4% after 27 months below that number, with wages growing faster than the inflation that plagued the U.S.—and the world—after the pandemic eased. The highest wage growth has gone to the lowest earners, helping to cut the nation’s extreme wealth inequality;”
  3. “… the Bureau of Labor Statistics … released another blockbuster jobs report. The country added 272,000 jobs in May, far higher than the 180,000 jobs economists predicted. A widespread range of sectors added new jobs, including health care, government, leisure and hospitality, and professional, scientific, and technical services. Wages are also up. Over the past year, average hourly earnings have grown 4.1%, higher than the rate of inflation, which was 3.4% over the same period.” “ the FBI … released a report showing that violent crime in fact dropped by more than 15% in the U.S. during the first three months of 2024;”
  4. “In November 2021, Biden signed into law the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, also known as the Bipartisan Infrastructure Act. In June 2022 … the Safer Communities Act, a gun safety law. In August 2022 he signed into law the CHIPS and Science Act that invested billions in semiconductor manufacturing and science, and the Inflation Reduction Act that provided record funding for addressing climate change and permitted Medicare to negotiate with pharmaceutical companies over drug prices.”
  5. “Total U.S. vehicle sales of 6,548,694 units for the first five months of 2024 represent a5% increase from the same period in 2023.”
  6. “The restaurant and foodservice industry will continue to grow in 2024. Sales are forecast to top $1 trillion for the first time in history, and the nation’s second-largest private sector employer is on track to add 200,000 jobs, pushing total employment to 15.7 million people …. 45% of operators need more employees to meet customer demand.”

I could go on with many other citations to facts about the bustling U.S. economy but the point is made. Project 2025, like most of Trump’s and Republicans’ indictments of the United States is based on a fantasy, a gross distortion of reality by a political party with nothing constructive to say.

Unfortunately for the country, including the people being fooled by the Trump/Republican scam, the results of the Project 2025 agenda will be catastrophic. Details in the follow-up posts in this series.

Sources: https://www2.arccorp.com/articles-trends/sales-statistics?utm_source=homepage-card

   Heather Cox Richardson Letters from an American: June 7, 10 & 11, 2024

   https://www.marklines.com/en/statistics/flash_sales/automotive-sales-in-usa-by- month

https://restaurant.org/research-and-media/research/research-reports/state-of-the-industry/#:~:text=Sales%20are%20up%3A%20The%20foodservice,employees%20to%20meet%20customer%20demand

President Biden Should Address the Nation

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I write to urge Joe Biden, President of the United States, to appear on national television and address the nation regarding the collapse of the House of Representatives as a functioning legislative body.

The House of Representatives is essential to the development and passage of legislation that is essential to national security, financing the government, and a multitude of political, economic, and social services on which the country, and many parts of the world, depend. It is now clear that the House as a functional half of the Legislative third of the Constitution’s three central elements is no longer functional as a small minority of elected officials, most of whom supported the overthrow of the government on January 6, 2021, now answer to an unelected person who has made clear his determination to return to the presidency and dismantle the federal government.

Most “educated” Americans are aware that the U.S. Constitution sets up a tripartite arrangement of government authority such that each of the three parts operates as a check against the others. The constitutional Framers did not, however, understand the role that political parties would come to play within that system.

As best we can tell from the historical records, the Framers believed the checks and balances established in the Constitution among the Executive, Legislative and Judicial branches would over the long haul produce outcomes that reflected the ‘will of the people.’ The basic idea was that the will of the majority would control outcomes, but protections for the minority position were built in as well, especially through the series of amendments in the Bill of Rights and others later.

Part of the success was dependent upon the Fourth Estate – the free press that was watching everything and sharing factual information (including information the politicians wanted to keep secret) to help the voters to exercise their ultimate control over who was placed in positions of power in the tripartite system.

It was in many ways a brilliant arrangement that has stood the test of time most of the time, including even the development of political parties. It has withstood demagoguery, treachery, treason, and, yes, even ignorance. It has so far withstood the emergence of the Fifth Estate, defined roughly as “groupings of outlier viewpoints in contemporary society … most associated with bloggers, journalists publishing in non-mainstream media outlets, and the social media.”https://tinyurl.com/4e7bsxjv

To be sure there are cracks in the edifice, but cracks have appeared, and been filled, many times since the ratification in 1787. The Civil War comes to mind, among others. The system has flaws, of course; it is a complex and novel system created by humans who had limited knowledge of science and who were focused on creating a national legal regime that would never again depend upon an autocrat, a king or king-like person, as ruler. The resulting government “of the people, by the people, and for the people” has performed miracles and also perpetrated outrages such as the near-extermination of the Indigenous Tribes that occupied the contingent for centuries before Europeans discovered it. The new system also failed to deal effectively with slavery and paid a dear price for that mistake. Again, the Civil War leaps to mind. We are still plagued with the consequences of the powerful tribalism that determines so much of our national and local policy today. Whether and how we can resolve those issues is beyond my understanding.

Now, however, a new and existentially dangerous phenomenon has emerged. The evidence is everywhere, all day every day, as the news media perpetuate through breathless coverage every inane and insane utterance from the mouth of Donald Trump and the politicians who sustain him. The evidence also may be found in the stunning reality of Trump’s indictments in four cases:

As of March 2024, Donald Trump has been personally charged with 88 criminal offenses in four criminal cases. This total reflects charges related to Trump’s attempts to overturn the results of the 2020 election, election interference in Georgia, falsifying business records in New York, and mishandling classified records after leaving the presidency. Donald Trump is the first former president in U.S. history to be criminally indicted.https://tinyurl.com/5ekhak9c

Trump is now acting as dictator to the House of Representatives whose far-right wing members actively support his every wish. The current Speaker has decided that obeying Trump is his most important responsibility. Thus, matters of national security such as aid to Ukraine will not be voted on because Trump wants to help Vladimir Putin subjugate Ukraine in preparation for Russia’s moving against NATO countries whom Trump will also undermine.

It is the privilege, of course, for every member of Congress to vote as he/she chooses, if the constituents are willing to accept those decisions. But voting against something is far different than refusing to hold a vote at all. Speaker Johnson, doing the expressed will of Donald Trump, has refused to bring Ukraine aid legislation to a vote despite the opinion of all responsible U.S. national security and military authorities that such aid is now critical to Ukraine’s ability to withstand the Russian onslaught.

I am reminded of the decisions made by the United States during the early phases of World War II when Jewish refugees were turned away from our shores, sent back to be slaughtered by the Germans.

Donald Trump has never been elected to the House of Representatives but is now essentially in charge of its agenda. Action of the U.S. Congress to pass legislation requires the participation of the House as well as the Senate. Speaker Johnson has subordinated himself and the rest of the House to the will of Donald Trump, which is, I suggest, a blatant violation of Johnson’s oath of office:

I, AB, do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter. So help me God.

And there is this:

5 U.S. Code § 7311 – Loyalty and striking.

An individual may not accept or hold a position in the Government of the United States … if he—

(1) advocates the overthrow of our constitutional form of government;

(2) is a member of an organization that he knows advocates the overthrow of our constitutional form of government;

(3) participates in a strike, or asserts the right to strike, against the Government of the United States ….

There can be no serious argument that Russia is not an enemy of the United States. The actions, or inactions, of the Speaker and those who support him are, in my judgment, clear acts of treason against the United States.

In researching this post, I also found this:

The Speaker’s role as presiding officer is an impartial one, and his rulings serve to protect the rights of the minority.

[House Practice: A Guide to the Rules, Precedents and Procedures of the House; Chapter 34. Office of the Speaker, U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]

That Guide [citations omitted] also contains these commands:

Many matters have been held to be beyond the scope of the Speaker’s responsibility under the rules. The Speaker does not:

Construe the legislative or legal effect of a pending measure   or comment on the merits thereof.

 Respond to hypothetical questions, render anticipatory rulings, or decide a question not directly presented by the  proceedings.

 Pass on the constitutional powers of the House, the constitutionality of House rules, or the constitutionality of  amendments offered to pending bills.

 Resolve questions on the consistency of an amendment with the measure to which it is offered, or with an amendment that already has been adopted, or on the consistency of proposed action with other acts of the House.

 Rule on the sufficiency or effect of committee reports or whether the committee has followed instructions.

 Rule on the propriety or expediency of a proposed course of action.  Construe the consequences of a pending vote.

You can form your own judgment whether the refusal to permit votes, and thereby deprive the House of its constitutional role in the government, is consistent with all those directives. No doubt Republicans will bellow that Democratic speakers have also violated these rules. If so, they were wrong too, but right now the problem is Speaker Johnson and his lord and master, Donald Trump.

It is time for President Biden to address this treachery to the nation. The government of the United States cannot function if the House simply refuses to take up critical legislation at the will of an unelected former president and a small minority of extremist legislators. It is time, past time, to call the question on these traitors.

Supreme Court Sells Out to Trump in Insurrection Case

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Earlier today, the United States Supreme Court denied Trump’s request to stay the judgment of the DC Circuit that his claim of absolute immunity from criminal prosecution be stayed, while still taking review of the case through a procedural maneuver suggested as a fall-back by Special Counsel Jack Smith.

The Court’s schedule for briefing and argument of the case is ludicrous in light of what has gone before. The case has been briefed and argued to death in the lower courts, and thoroughly developed decisions rendered. There is no justification for a briefing and argument schedule taking the case to the week of April 22, 2024, almost two months further into the presidential election schedule.

Trump has until March 19, to file his brief, which will almost certainly be a mere reprise of arguments and citations already presented to and rejected by the DC District Court and the DC Circuit Court of Appeals. The Special Counsel is given three weeks (to respond, a period vastly longer that he is likely to require, given what has gone before, but a faster reply will not change the argument date. Oral argument will occur, if the schedule holds, a week after Trump’s reply brief.

Trump likely will find some excuse to whine about the schedule and seek to extend it.

The Court may then take weeks more, perhaps longer, to decide the case. The order is not signed and there is no indication that any justice dissented.

Unbelievable.