Trump's Agenda Has Shrunk To Two Items - Getting Richer And Getting Revenge

Trump had big plans for his second term. On the campaign trail, he promised voters that he would do two things on Day One - lower prices and stop the Russia/Ukraine war. He said it would be easy. He has failed at both.

Inflation was falling when he took office, but his ridiculous placing of tariffs on nearly every nation took care of that. Now prices are going up, and with his on again-off again tariffs, nobody can predict how far or fast prices will rise - but they will continue to rise.

And the Russian invasion of Ukraine continues and actually intensifies. Trump thought he had a buddy in Putin and all he had to do was ask and Russia would stop the war. He is starting to realize, as most Americans already knew, that Putin was just playing him for a fool.

Trump also promised to deport a million immigrants a year. He has engaged in a cruel campaign to deport people without due process. But the courts have stopped him, and most of his cruelest efforts remain tied up in court. As a result, he is actually deporting fewer immigrants than in either of the past two Democratic administrations.

Trump seemed to believe in the right-wing's Project 2025 - that he could seize much more power for himself as president and override the wishes of Congress and the courts. That hasn't worked out so well either.  His efforts to seize power the Constitution doesn't give him is also being stymied by a myriad of court cases.

In short, while his actions have created a lot of chaos and concern, they have not succeeded as he had hoped. But they have turned public opinion against him. Every poll now shows voters don't approve of how he's doing the job of being president.

Trump is learning that being president is a hard job. It requires diplomacy, access and understanding of intelligence, the ability to listen, the ability to compromise, and the ability to do the right thing even when supporters don't like it. None of those are qualities that Trump has. His only tool is bullying, and it's not working.

Hard is not something Trump can deal with. That's why he is growing tired of the job. Instead of being president for the people, he is curtailing his efforts to only two things - making himself much richer and getting revenge of those he perceives as enemies. 

His corruption is massive - accepting gifts, selling meme coins, selling access to the Oval Office, selling pardons, and making deals for his own personal profit (and his family's). And he seems unconcerned about the law, the Constitution, or ethics and morality. And that corruption includes using government agencies to punish those he doesn't like.

So, who is actually doing the job of the presidency while he focuses of getting richer and getting revenge? That is what's really scary. That falls to the people he chose to fill his cabinet with - mostly incompetent and inexperienced sycophants. That's not good.

I don't know which was worse - Trump trying to be president or Trump leaving that to his flunkies while he pursues a personal agenda. Neither is good for the nation.

L.A. Fires Give Trump Fuel For His Revenge Agenda

 

The following is part of a post written by former Republican Steve Schmidt:

Like the Great Fire of London in 1666, the Great Fire of Los Angeles will be recalled for 500 years.

The scale of the conflagration is biblical. These epochal fires will join Chicago and San Francisco atop an infamous registry of American destruction.

The fires are still spreading, still growing. There is no precedent, and no similar event by scale, cost or damage that has ever occurred in America. None.

The “Big One” came, but it wasn’t an earthquake that triggered the inferno, it was January winds that brought with it a storm surge of fire.

Donald Trump has talked at length about his revenge.

It has begun. It is underway. It is happening. Right now. It’s not in my head, and not in my imagination.

During the greatest crisis in the history of California en route to becoming the costliest natural disaster in American history, Donald Trump has offered snarling insults, veiled threats, misinformation and unrestrained malice.

He has used the disaster to attack the California governor, and has said nothing that matters of any consequence to the multitudes who are terrified and have lost everything.

Instead, like always, he has debased, inflamed and manipulated when he should have done the exact opposite. He seeks to gain from suffering, and incredibly, he doesn’t even bother to hide it anymore. More than anything else, it is this revelation from his chaotic transition that is most bone-chilling.

Our president is Arthur Fleck deep down.

Somehow he has concluded that a firestorm that has devoured a geography larger than Manhattan, and is only six per cent contained, is good for him. Donald has decided it proves him right about something — if only any of us could know what that might be. It certainly has nothing to do with his idiocies around the Delta smelt, a small fish that is the subject of controversy hundreds of miles away, as it has been for more than 30 years.

The capitulant Wall Street media should cover the dishonesty and incoherence of Trump’s inanity and insanity like the evil it is. Have no doubt, malice masks predation, and it is premeditated and purposeful. Trump looks at this disaster, and he sees one thing, and one thing only.

Opportunity.

He sees an opportunity to attack and weaken the enemy, which in his sick mind, is California.

The enemy is us.

Trump is happy today. Do you doubt it?

Over and over again, he has made clear what he wants to happen.

Trump despises California. He has made that clear enough.

Ten days from now, he will take command. What better way to pay back “Shifty Schiff” than by making his constituents suffer?

Why would anyone think anything else would happen?

In fact, just when California needs a mass deportation least, it’s going to get one.

It’s going to get it because common sense is in short supply around Donald Trump. Up in the thin air, where the stupid never takes a break, there will be no let up.

Delivering on this promise — long discounted by the media, which constantly asserts that he doesn’t really mean it and can’t possibly do it — he has been playing like Lucy does Charlie Brown for the last 10 years.

Voters Should Be Be Worried About A Second Trump Term

 

Robert Reich explains why we should be worried about a second term for Donald Trump:

When I read a few days ago in The Washington Post that Trump and his allies have specific plans in a second Trump term to use the Justice Department to target Trump’s enemies, I was doubtful. Trump doesn’t plan. He reacts. He condemns. He lashes out. But he does not carefully think through anything in advance.

 

Then I checked in with my circle of Washington political operatives, several of whom are familiar with the people who are doing the “planning” for Trump’s second term — a group of bottom-feeding, power-hungry, right-wing opportunists who know that the way to build influence with Trump is to give him and tell him exactly what he wants to hear. 

There’s no question that planning is underway. Trump isn’t doing it, but he has given it his blessing. 

The difference between the first Trump administration-in-waiting and this second one is this: The first was ready to help Trump navigate the shoals of official Washington. The second is ready to help Trump destroy official Washington. 

If Trump learned one thing during his four years as president, it’s that he doesn’t want anyone to tell him what he cannot do. All he wants are people to help him do what he wants to do. 

And what he wants to do is sow enough chaos that he can take over. 

According to a Times story last week, the plan is to install more aggressive and loyal lawyers committed to Trump’s agenda — people “willing to endure the personal and professional risks of association with Mr. Trump” and “willing to use theories that more establishment lawyers would reject.”

Among their goals is to pursue criminal cases against President Biden and high-profile former Trump allies who have turned critical of Trump (including ex-attorney general William P. Barr, ex-Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman Gen. Mark A. Milley, and ex-White House chief of staff John F. Kelly).

While punishing opponents, the plan is also to reward those who have fought for Trump (sometimes quite literally). 

Trump and his allies are planning to pardon many January 6 defendants, whose conduct he has not only excused but lionized. “I mean full pardons with an apology to many,” he said last year. He added in a CNN town hall this year that he is inclined to pardon a “large portion” of the hundreds of defendants, while exempting “a couple of them” who perhaps “got out of control.”

He will also pardon himself from any and all federal criminal charges, even though it’s far from clear that the Constitution permits it. 

Trump and his allies are also planning to invoke the Insurrection Act to quell any demonstrations on Trump’s first day.

The more chaos, the better. This is part of what I’ve referred to as Trump’s “chaos agenda.” The more chaos Trump and his allies can create, the more pessimistic Americans will feel about the capacities of our democratic institutions to govern the nation — which advances their authoritarian agenda.

That chaos agenda has already been activated inside the GOP. Shut down the government! Impeach Biden! Investigate the judges and prosecutors in Trump’s civil and criminal trials! Stop funding Ukraine! Don’t trust the intelligence community!

“How do Americans feel about politics?” The New York Times asked a few weeks ago, answering in the same headline: “Disgust isn’t a strong enough word.”

Trump and his allies want us to be disgusted. They want us to believe that America is ungovernable – and is becoming more so, as long as power remains diffused. They want us to think we need an authoritarian strongman — Trump — to concentrate power and take over everything.

That’s part of the plan. They’re aiming to reclassify as many as 50,000 federal employees now in charge of national security, intelligence, the State Department, law enforcement, and the military — so that they would lose employment protections and could more easily be replaced (presidents usually get to replace only about 4,000 political appointees).

As Trump said at a speech in June, “This is the final battle. With you at my side we will demolish the deep state. We will expel the warmongers from our government. We will drive out the globalists, we will cast out the communists, we will throw off the sick political class that hates our country.”

They want to consolidate Trump’s authority over virtually every part of the federal government, including such independent agencies as the Federal Communications Commission and the Federal Trade Commission, and even the Fed. “What we’re trying to do is identify the pockets of independence and seize them,” former Trump budget director Russ Vought told the Times.

Finally, Trump and his allies are planning a far more aggressive immigration policy. He has promised to ramp up his controversial travel ban targeting majority-Muslim countries, “halt all of the refugee settlements to the United States,” and embark on the “largest deportation operation” in U.S. history. 

This would involve expanding the powers of National Guard and state officials to arrest and deport people — despite long-standing limits on the military conducting law enforcement activities.

As I said, I’m skeptical of any “planning” going on inside Trump’s head. But I’ve become convinced that a small band of Trump sycophants (likely including the lapdog authoritarian trio of Roger Stone, Mike Flynn, and Steve Bannon) is right now clearing the runway for an even more neofascist regime than was Trump 1. 

As I said, I don’t believe he’ll be reelected. But if he is, there’s reason to be worried. Very worried.

Trump Is Plotting The Death Of Democracy If Re-Elected

The following is from The Washington Post: 

Donald Trump and his allies have begun mapping out specific plans for using the federal government to punish critics and opponents should he win a second term, with the former president naming individuals he wants to investigate or prosecute and his associates drafting plans to potentially invoke the Insurrection Act on his first day in office to allow him to deploy the military against civil demonstrations.

In private, Trump has told advisers and friends in recent months that he wants the Justice Department to investigate onetime officials and allies who have become critical of his time in office, including his former chief of staff, John F. Kelly, and former attorney general William P. Barr, as well as his ex-attorney Ty Cobb and former Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman Gen. Mark A. Milley, according to people who have talked to him, who, like others, spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe private conversations. Trump has also talked of prosecuting officials at the FBI and Justice Department, a person familiar with the matter said.

In public, Trump has vowed to appoint a special prosecutor to “go after” President Biden and his family. The former president has frequently made corruption accusations against them that are not supported by available evidence.

To facilitate Trump’s ability to direct Justice Department actions, his associates have been drafting plans to dispense with 50 years of policy and practice intended to shield criminal prosecutions from political considerations. Critics have called such ideas dangerous and unconstitutional. . . .

Much of the planning for a second term has been unofficially outsourced to a partnership of right-wing think tanks in Washington. Dubbed “Project 2025,” the group is developing a plan, to include draft executive orders, that would deploy the military domestically under the Insurrection Act, according to a person involved in those conversations and internal communications reviewed by The Washington Post. The law, last updated in 1871, authorizes the president to deploy the military for domestic law enforcement.

The proposal was identified in internal discussions as an immediate priority, the communications showed. In the final year of his presidency, some of Trump’s supporters urged him to invoke the Insurrection Act to put down unrest after the murder of George Floyd in the summer of 2020, but he never did it. Trump has publicly expressed regret about not deploying more federal force and said he would not hesitate to do so in the future.

It's Tough Being A Player

It's tough these days trying to be a "player". Especially if you live in Wisconsin, have a wife, and are dating three other women on the side. That's what this rather unlucky man found out the other day.

You see the wife and the three girlfriends found out they were all being triple-timed, and they did not take it well. They decided a little revenge was in order. One of them lured the man to a motel, and then the others showed up (including the wife).

They tied the man up, and then one of the girlfriends punched him in the face and glued his penis to his stomach (ouch!).

They were all arrested by local police, and were charged false imprisonment. That's a felony punishable by up to six years in prison. I know these "ladies" shouldn't have done this, but I don't think I could convict them if I was on the jury. Personally, I think the jerk had it coming. He's lucky they didn't do some serious damage.

I imagine there's a divorce coming his way, too.