It's coming, refers to the recession Trump is potentially bringing about in this country. The man is an ass, he has absolutely no idea of what he's doing. His cabinet is a bunch of head nodding stooges who can't figure out how to put on Sketchers since the laces are missing. They take one step forward and two steps back, in an effort to fix the problems created by their blind foolishness. We have a drunk in charge of our military, his choice for director of national intelligence can't even say Snowden was a traitor, and the new director of the FBI is a flaming moron. As a bullet travels through the air it creates a vortex in its wake. After the initial destruction caused by the flight of the projectile, the following vortex will bring nothing but further destruction and carnage. What devastation will Trump's vortex cause once he is spent?
And this chaos is deliberate. tRump is being manipulated and directed by Putin and Musk. The willful destruction of the US Government and its institutions as well as the economy is an act of terrorism, treason, and war.
There is no way Trump came up with any of these ideas. I would like to include the Heritage Foundation (Project 2025) and the Thiel Foundation as two huge manipulators of Trump. These organizations have steadfastly been workin on the chaos that we are seeing today. Thank you Peter for the toxic influence you have on Musk and J D Vance.
the relationship between Peter Thiel and DJ Vance merits close scrutiny and publicity. MAGA may not mind their racism, but might find interesting their financial connection.
Give them a seat in the cargo bay of a C-130 and two new parachutes. They can spend their travel time reading the instructions and trying them on for fit.
The Cargo bay of that plane has a big tilt down door/ramp in the aft end.
When they arrive over their South Africa home land a wounded veteran of the war in Ukriane enters the bay with a loaded weapon and the door is opened. And says "who wants to go first?"
tRump doesn't have a single original thought in his head - he is just too damned stupid. He has always been manipulated by people whom he admires for their ability to corrupt a system. Putin got his hooks into the Donald back in the 80s. He has been reported to have an interest in Cold War novels, and as a former KGB agent, he would have been fluent in English. I am sure he can recite 'The Manchurian Candidate' - chapter and verse.
It's also the prelude to the "private spending" Bessent blurted out last week, those words being euphemistic code for privatization or oligarchic takeover of heretofore public systems and institutions. Going hand in hand with that is the liberation from any sort of regulation or oversight, and of course taxation. And who among all the oligarchs stands to benefit enormously from that? (Hint: he's South African and is in the news a lot lately.)
Totally agree, and Bessent showed his cards with those two words! Musk has, I've read, citizenship in three countries: ours, Canada, and South Africa. Is this legit?
Being born in South Africa, he may have dual citizenship if South Africa, like Britain, considers you a citizen if you were born there even if you became a citizen of the U.S. I can’t speak to his citizenship in Canada though!
Musk has Canadian Citizenship because his Mother is Canadian... He traveled there to Study before applying for a Faux Student Visa to study at Stanford...
Here’s what I found online about Musk’s Canadian citizenship… “ The Tesla CEO obtained Canadian citizenship at birth through his mother, Maye Musk, who was born in Saskatchewan, Canada. According to CIC News, Musk automatically inherited Canadian citizenship by descent despite being born in South Africa. Musk moved to Canada at the age of 18 before emigrating to the United States.”
America, formerly known as the United States of America, will be run by United Health Care, the United Atmospheric Care, the United Forest Care, the United Mining Care, the United Fisheries Care, the United Parks Care, the United Water Resources Care, the United Law Enforcement and Interpretation Care, the United Catholic and Evangelical Soul Care. We will be united as never before..
We don't have the votes in Congress yet. Getting the votes is our job as citizens. Talk to your Congress person(s).
The President raised his hand and swore an oath to faithfully execute the laws of the United States. He is clearly unable and unwilling to do that job. He may even be a paid Russian operative. Now it falls to the Congress to do their job.
True, but that could change as failures pile up and constituents demand action to address the problem. It might take electing a new Congress or some event to trigger a more rapid shift. At this point I see impeachment and removal as one of our better options.
I agree, Peter. That is also why Bernie Sanders is on the road speaking to huge crowds in mostly Republican districts. He is telling people they need to let their Reps know how they feel--they want democracy not oligarchy.
We only need 3 or 4 Reps in the House to turn against tRump and then the harder part is to get about 20 Senators to join the Dems to convict.
Many R's said they voted in the last impeachment against conviction out of fear of retaliatory violence against them and their families. After the J6 pardons that fear will now be hugely magnified. They don't fear their constituents
The morning before the election I posted the following on selected replies to two Joe Rogan interviews with J.D. Vance and John Fetterman. Once I got thrown off that site for 'spamming' I moved on to Robert Reich and Micheal Moore's sites, finishing the night on the Republican Voters Against Trump's Facebook page:
Thom Hartmann 11-1-24
America’s billionaires would love to have a recession, particularly a really severe one.
In a recent “town hall,” billionaire Elon Musk acknowledged what 23 Nobel Prize-winning economists across the country have predicted: If Trump is elected and he and Elon undertake their project to gut government spending, it will provoke a severe recession.
Thom goes on to give the reason Why Billionaires Would Actively Force A Stock Market Crash: Buy Cheap, Sell High. It won't be a mere recession, it will be a full blown Depression that can only Begin to End when another Democrat Enters Their Office As President on January 20 2029, one hundred years after the 1929 Stock Market Crash!
Those economists said that the National Debt would rise by 4.5 trillion $s as Tax Cuts for the .1% while increasing inflation by $2000 per household a year by the added tariff fees!
I think he's incapable of direction or manipulation. His own cabinet ministers don't know what he's going to say or do next, never mind Putin. Seth Myers has described him as an "intellectual Roomba". He will proceed happily along in one direction until he bumps into something (usually something he's seen on cable TV or the internet) whereupon he will set off again in a completely different direction. What he calls 'The Weave' (his increasing tendency to ramble at rallies) is a product of his disordered mind and that's reflected also in his erratic and impulsive policy decisions. I know that it's been suggested that he has a sinister and carefully thought out plan dsecribed in detail in Project 2025, but I'm pretty sure none of what we're actually seeing (the foreign policy volte face, the vacillations on tariffs, the bungling attempts to reduce the federal state leading to nearly 50 court challenges and the looming recession) were part of the plan.
As the stock markets were plummeting yesterday, Kevin Hassett, head of the national economic council, was spreading the good news on CNBC. He told them that the president's policies were "starting to have the intended effect of onshoring in the US," He was referring to a 0.08% increase in the number of manufacturing jobs in February. On Sunday, Howard Lutnick, commerce secretary, told NBC’s Meet the Press: “There’s going to be no recession in America. You are going to see over the next two years the greatest set of growth coming from America," A few days ago, Scott Bessant, Treasury secretary, was claiming that buying cheap goods was not "an essential part of the American Dream." This is tactics?!!!!
Trump is a classic malignant narcissist. Read about malignant narcissism in psychiatrist M. Scott's "People of the Lie . . . Peck wrote that, if pure evil could be diagnosed, it would be malignant narcissism.
And we made a malignant narcissist our President. Twice. What is wrong with us? I hate to say it, but we brought this current turmoil on ourselves. We are already paying dearly for those mistakes, and we have years more of penance ahead of us.
There is a silver lining though: Trump is so far gone that he may not be able to finish this term.
I am not generally in favour of remote diagnostics. Psychiatrists certainly seem to have a name for everything, which is I suppose why new editions of the Diagnostic Manual of Mental Disorders always generates a lot of heated discussion. There are many descriptions one could fairly apply to Trump's behaviour - vindictive, capricious, mendacious etc. A NYT columnist recently chose 'magnanimous' as a descriptor (which I confess would never have made it onto my list) and in my opinion there's way too many comparisons between his administration and the nazis. To quote an American writer "he's muddled and he's through, but he's not through muddling." I agree with you that four years of this is a form of purgatory that Americans must somehow endure as best they can.
Trump is being directed by the GOP.. They are the ones who gain the most if Trump overturns the Constitution and destroys our democracy. They have long wanted control so they can line their pockets at the expense of American citizens.
Why are We Surprised? DJT is the Supreme Wealth Destroyer... DJT is Simple-Minded, and his Dementia is getting Worse... DJT has squandered Billions of $, and has filed for Bankruptcy 6-Times... In the year 2000, the USA had a Balanced Budget, and was slated to payoff the National Debt by 2010... Then came GWB, and his Forever-Wars, and DJT's Tax-Cuts for the Wealthy... The Wealthy own the Corporations thru their Funds, and Stock Holdings... DJT was a 'Successful Businessman' only in a Simple-Minded Fantasy Reality Show.... DJT is the Perfect Orange Puppet for Putin, and Musk... Putin wants to Destroy the U.S. led Western-Order, Musk wants to Pillage the USG for his own Ends... Note which Agencies have been Crushed by Musk... Keep an Eye on China... The Chinese play an extremely Long-Game, and they are are starting to Fight Back...
The morning before the election I posted the following on selected replies to two Joe Rogan interviews with J.D. Vance and John Fetterman. Once I got thrown off that site for 'spamming' I moved on to Robert Reich and Micheal Moore's sites, finishing the night on the Republican Voters Against Trump's Facebook page:
Thom Hartmann 11-1-24
America’s billionaires would love to have a recession, particularly a really severe one.
In a recent “town hall,” billionaire Elon Musk acknowledged what 23 Nobel Prize-winning economists across the country have predicted: If Trump is elected and he and Elon undertake their project to gut government spending, it will provoke a severe recession.
Thom goes on to give the reason Why Billionaires Would Actively Force A Stock Market Crash: Buy Cheap, Sell High. It won't be a mere recession, it will be a full blown Depression that can only Begin to End when another Democrat Enters Their Office As President on January 20 2029, one hundred years after the 1929 Stock Market Crash!
Those economists said that the National Debt would rise by 4.5 trillion $s as Tax Cuts for the .1% while increasing inflation by $2000 per household a year by the added tariff fees!
I agree that the .01% want a full blown Depression. That would certainly make Trump's handler (Putin) very happy. He wants us to end up just like Russia. He's playing a dangerous game with Trump. He's so unstable that he could start a war with Putin as not.
Apache - Just read this morning that Netflix was going to be airing reruns of the apprentice…made me throw up in my mouth at the thought of the next round of simpletons being subjected to this onslaught of stupidity.
My hope is the devil takes trump down to hell for his eternal punishment, Elon overdoses and Vance and the rest of the Republicans face the wrath and overturn from those of us who saw this shit show coming and never voted for such bafoonery in the first place.
In the infamous words of Jim Carrey as the Riddler said..."Batman you say? Coming for you? I'M COUNTING ON IT.
That's how I have go get through the day sometimes, thinking about just that. Sorry if it's not appropriate to this thread.
Camille, I too find myself with heinous, hateful, murderous thoughts. I channel them into attending protests. We are the good people. And you know what happens when good people do nothing.
And yet I see interviews, an ordinary Trump supporter who owns a lumberyard and is losing money and business but still has "CONfidence in his idol. Sadly, all of the poor/middle/working class will hit rock bottom before most of the Trump/Republican voters realize their idiocy. The control of our government is so much more complicated than just the antics displayed by it’s figurehead.
I hope he doesn’t cause another global recession. With the complete chaos he’s playing cat and mouse with the global economy. He is more globally dangerous than Putin or Xi. They have two neuron’s to connect occasionally. Trump has completely checked out. If Vance won’t initiate the 25 Amendment, then Vance is guilty of reckless endangerment. I hope Ukraine doesn’t turn over its natural resources. He’s just changing dictators.
I don't think the members of the cabinet are stooges, as much as they are enablers that help open the regulatory doors for them to loot and pillage our country. they may not even be morons, as they are billionaires after all, and some rudimentary lizard brain must obtain for them to be able to prey on those lower on the economic food chain. not for a second do I believe they have the capacity to feel empathy, guilt, compassion, or shame. which i supposen suggests psychotic sociopathy, or is it sociopathic psychopathy, i never can remember.
If I was to characterize Mr. Trump, I would equate the idiot to a rubber ball with zero bounce. What does the guy have to offer besides a maladjusted view on a society he never understood in the first place. Because he can't come to terms with the significance our freedoms enshrine, he is determined to reduce what we enjoy into something his shallow thinking can comprehend. This is why he endeavors to destroy what we've built into something out of a Mid-1950's monster movie starring Dana Andrews. Time is Trump's main advisory; the man is succumbing to the whims of his advancing years. He has weakened in recent months due to the rigors of the job, and the copy of the 25th amendment JD keeps in his lapel packet shows signs of wear from being read so often. As Puck would say, "What fools these mortals be." Both Mickey and Puck were Democrats. Trump will become ensnared in his own sticky webbing. I'm not looking forward to Mr. Vance stepping into Trump's shoes.
One of the biggest complaints the Republicans posted was their objection to mandatory vaccinations as a means of preventing the covid virus. How stupid can they be? There may arise a time when our government will enact policies that seem unwelcome among the population, however people must realize they are a part of a whole as such are subject to rules and regulations that are beyond their ability to argue with. When people are to stupid to see the importance of everyone falling in line in order to face a problem, we must force them to accept the realities of the situation. I don't want to hear the peanut gallery complaining about how the government is infringing upon their personal rights and freedoms, more stupidity. RFK Jr. is a mindless moron who doesn't understand how he got here, let alone what powers promote his life forces. People are ignorant, that's a given, just look at our President. School closings and stay at home orders were all directed in an effort to help stave off the pandemic Trump totally ignored, because the warm weather would make it go away and a little disinfectant injected into our bodies would kill what ails us. The man is an uneducated fool. Ranking Republicans brag about the graduation of Trump from an ivy league college in the East. What they don't tell you is his transcripts are locked away in a safe beyond the view of anyone interested in seeing them. Fred had to pay for Donnie's sheep skin due to his failing grades in virtually every class. Trump graduated from nothing. Public ignorance is something that at times the powers that be must deal with. Take seat belts as an example. People don't see the logic in having public compliance with issues they simply either don't understand or don't want to follow. When you get in your car it's a law you fasten your seat belt because people were to stupid to see the relevance in doing it on their own volition. Our government will force dumb people to protect themselves whether they like it or not. Mr. Trump is a solipsistic individual.
The morning before the election I posted the following on selected replies to two Joe Rogan interviews with J.D. Vance and John Fetterman. Once I got thrown off that site for 'spamming' I moved on to Robert Reich and Micheal Moore's sites, finishing the night on the Republican Voters Against Trump's Facebook page:
Thom Hartmann 11-1-24
America’s billionaires would love to have a recession, particularly a really severe one.
In a recent “town hall,” billionaire Elon Musk acknowledged what 23 Nobel Prize-winning economists across the country have predicted: If Trump is elected and he and Elon undertake their project to gut government spending, it will provoke a severe recession.
Thom goes on to give the reason Why Billionaires Would Actively Force A Stock Market Crash: Buy Cheap, Sell High. It won't be a mere recession, it will be a full blown Depression that can only Begin to End when another Democrat Enters Their Office As President on January 20 2029, one hundred years after the 1929 Stock Market Crash!
Those economists said that the National Debt would rise by 4.5 trillion $s as Tax Cuts for the .1% while increasing inflation by $2000 per household a year by the added tariff fees!
Antonia Hitchens in the London Review of Books points out that after National Park Service cuts, the only locksmith who could free people stuck in bathrooms at Yosemite was gone. An image the Enola Gay was among the 26,000 images flagged for deletion by the Pentagon in Trump's DEI purge -https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/mar/07/military-images-trump-dei. These and countless other inanities are not the result of some devious plan hatched by a cabal of billionaires but rather the capricious behaviour of the most catastrophically stupid and impulsive president that Americans have ever elected.
I’m convinced this is all by design. Tank the stock market so the 1% can buy more stock at bargain prices. Destroy farms so corporations own all the farming in the country. People lose their houses to foreclosure? Sold below market value. No one in charge cares about their popularity. They certainly don’t care about the lives of the poor or middle class. There’s money to be made and that’s all that matters.
I’m afraid your remarks are right on, especially about scooping up assets at bargain prices. Not caring about poor people is a requirement for membership in the “I like Elon” fan club, and Trump thinks that the middle class are just useful marks and suckers for his hare-brained marketing shtick (think, Trump U, crypto and schlock MAGA merch).
The morning before the election I posted the following on selected replies to two Joe Rogan interviews with J.D. Vance and John Fetterman. Once I got thrown off that site for 'spamming' I moved on to Robert Reich and Micheal Moore's sites, finishing the night on the Republican Voters Against Trump's Facebook page:
Thom Hartmann 11-1-24
America’s billionaires would love to have a recession, particularly a really severe one.
In a recent “town hall,” billionaire Elon Musk acknowledged what 23 Nobel Prize-winning economists across the country have predicted: If Trump is elected and he and Elon undertake their project to gut government spending, it will provoke a severe recession.
Thom goes on to give the reason Why Billionaires Would Actively Force A Stock Market Crash: Buy Cheap, Sell High. It won't be a mere recession, it will be a full blown Depression that can only Begin to End when another Democrat Enters Their Office As President on January 20 2029, one hundred years after the 1929 Stock Market Crash!
Those economists said that the National Debt would rise by 4.5 trillion $s as Tax Cuts for the .1% while increasing inflation by $2000 per household a year by the added tariff fees!
I am in your camp. It is a modern-day Nazism and these people are so entrenched with holding us under their thrall while they stash away as much wealth as possible. Remember the Nazis were stealing art and other treasures from the onset of WW11. I knew we had a population with a lot of dolts, dopes and clowns, but the trumpers are outdoing "stupid" in ways most of us never imagined. I don't know how others here feel, but there seems to be lots of talk on the internet about insurrection complete with weapons. Putin and Trump = an alignment of evil. Slava Ukraini. Once and again, Hell is Empty and all the devils are here - Shakespeare
Robert,glad you're calling this precisely what it is" Modern day Nazism." Trouble is 75% of Americans don't know what Nazism is and don't seem to be interested in finding out.I have alluded to Trump as a Nazi for yrs and people just look @ me like" What is a Nazi" . I have implored them to check out the history of Nazi Germany,but they don't. If its not their phone,its too inconvenient. Just keep using the word as I will.
I'm with you. The rumor was that Trump before he became exactly what he wanted to be, had Mein Kampf next to his bed. It was to dense for him to actually read, but perhaps it was a reminder of where he wanted to go. Not long ago Trump said, and I paraphrase, I don't want American Generals I want German Generals, specifically "I need the kind of Generals that Hitler had." It is on the Internet. I have spent a lot of time working in Ukraine and to watch what Trump is allowing an unfettered Putin to do is beyond tragic. Stay in the light, brother
I believe that he only meant that he wanted to be surrounded by flunkies, The idea of Trump reading any book, let alone one as mind-bogglingly prolix as Mein Kampf really doesn't bear any serious consideration. Trump's foreign policy volte face has been foreshadowed by other isolationist American presidents like Woodrow Wilson. His eagerness to pursue peace negotiations in Israel and Ukraine is principally motivated by his burning desire to be awarded the Nobel Peace prize, an award made to Obama in 2009 that has generated an awful lot of grumbling from Trump who has always resented Obama's lofty urbanity and intellect. Trump has an insatiable need for adulation - he turned his recent inauguration speech into something that resembled one of his rallies - and that was no part of the character of Adolf Hitler.
I don't believe I wrote that he read Mein Kampf. I have no idea whether he read it. Someone who lived in Trump Tower, and I knew, said that to me. But certainly, as near as I can see, Trump always looked to have power and do precisely as he pleased. (When he decided to take down buildings with architectural details from another time, he didn't do what the City asked him; he took the buildings down.) In fact, here we are and it sure looks Trump and company has a lot of power. We democrats have been shunted aside. To quibble whether he read something doesn't stop it. And, frankly, the democrats, of which I am one, did a horrible job of mounting any kind of campaign to win the day and the future. Trump and Company, like the Nazis told lies, big bold lies, and they got the votes and now they are moving fast down a super highway to the land of TAKEOVER and consolidate power. If that ain't Nazi-like nothing is. And to argue over minutia is an exercise in absurdity. The real question is what are we going to do to stop it?
I beg to differ. He's never been able to do precisely as he pleases.That's why he's been forced to declare bankruptcy so many times. It's also why he was twice impeached during his first term in office and is a convicted criminal fraudster today. It seems to me that Godwin's law has gone out the window in discussions about Trump. He's not a nazi, he's an idiot and like an idiot he's making a terrible mess of everything. The Democrats ran a very poor campaign. Biden was clearly too old and frail to run again and he left the race far too late to allow Harris to make an impact. Despite this, Trump offered little that was new in his campaign - it was just Make America Great Again (Again). He won the popular vote against the Democrats but more Americans voted for someone else rather than for him and he ended with the smallest majority since Nixon in 1968 (and second-smallest of all time). His approval rating now is the worst of any president at this stage of their presidency. He's undoubtedly causing great harm to ordinary Americans and I completely agree with you that there is a need to mobilise effective opposition to his policies. As a Democrat, I hope you are suitably mortified about the absurd paddle-waving antics in the House during Trump's recent speech to the Congress. I have also read that ten Democrat representatives voted with the Republicans to censure Al Green for calling out Trump's lies during his speech and that later on minority leader Hakeem Jeffries hauled several other vociferous House members over the coals in a private meeting. My advice is to forget about the nazis and instead focus on meaningful opposition to Trump because you're clearly not doing it now.
Here is a clarification. In the quote as you shared it, it states what must have been intended, “I want the kind of generals…”, not generals from that country. He wanted people he could control thoroughly.
Nancy,maybe they will.For too many Americans who are sitting idly by watching this tragedy unfold,it is just to much work to get involved.They are not going to rallies,not to the streets,its just too much work. They will regret they did not get involved,when its too late.
The morning before the election I posted the following on selected replies to two Joe Rogan interviews with J.D. Vance and John Fetterman. Once I got thrown off that site for 'spamming' I moved on to Robert Reich and Micheal Moore's sites, finishing the night on the Republican Voters Against Trump's Facebook page:
Thom Hartmann 11-1-24
America’s billionaires would love to have a recession, particularly a really severe one.
In a recent “town hall,” billionaire Elon Musk acknowledged what 23 Nobel Prize-winning economists across the country have predicted: If Trump is elected and he and Elon undertake their project to gut government spending, it will provoke a severe recession.
Thom goes on to give the reason Why Billionaires Would Actively Force A Stock Market Crash: Buy Cheap, Sell High. It won't be a mere recession, it will be a full blown Depression that can only Begin to End when another Democrat Enters Their Office As President on January 20 2029, one hundred years after the 1929 Stock Market Crash!
Those economists said that the National Debt would rise by 4.5 trillion $s as Tax Cuts for the .1% while increasing inflation by $2000 per household a year by the added tariff fees!
It is absolutely by design. We are witnessing an oligarchic takeover, and Congress is letting it happen. It's still too early to tell whether SCOTUS will in the end uphold the law and the Constitution, but history does not offer much reason for optimism.
The desired outcome is oligarchic control of every sector of the economy, every governmental financial and regulatory system, and every branch of government. Coming in on the coattails of that will be the imposition of an extreme fundamentalist faux-christian theocracy, which will complement the governmental and economic takeover with suppression of any form of education, the arts, lifestyle individuality, and any other cultural expression it deems unacceptable, with attendant persecution of adherents or practitioners.
Pts,It is and we're letting it happen. When Dems like John Fetterman voted for for 14 of the Trump Nominees,Slotkin 11,Ossoff 13,Warnock 14,it became evident that the Dems were surrendering.The nominees were the worse possible choices,and the Dems voted for them, They showed up in large #s for the North Korean Parlimentary meeting last Tuesday night,they could have boycotted,but did not. The Dems are a disgrace.
Not all Democrats. Martin O’Malley was at three town halls in Florida over the weekend explaining what is happening with Social Security. He said the Republican House had already reduced funding for Social Security staff and now more employees will be cut making it dysfunctional. Low information people will lose confidence in Social Security not realizing who is to blame. Then it will be privatized. Private equity has been waiting in the wings, lusting over the trust fund we all paid into.
Jonni,if Martin O'Malley was @town halls in Florida talking about how SS is being unraveled,are the seniors going to speak up,or just wait for the whole program to collapse. Since Musk believes"Old people should just die" ,I expect that benefits will be reduced or ended.
The morning before the election I posted the following on selected replies to two Joe Rogan interviews with J.D. Vance and John Fetterman. Once I got thrown off that site for 'spamming' I moved on to Robert Reich and Micheal Moore's sites, finishing the night on the Republican Voters Against Trump's Facebook page:
Thom Hartmann 11-1-24
America’s billionaires would love to have a recession, particularly a really severe one.
In a recent “town hall,” billionaire Elon Musk acknowledged what 23 Nobel Prize-winning economists across the country have predicted: If Trump is elected and he and Elon undertake their project to gut government spending, it will provoke a severe recession.
Thom goes on to give the reason Why Billionaires Would Actively Force A Stock Market Crash: Buy Cheap, Sell High. It won't be a mere recession, it will be a full blown Depression that can only Begin to End when another Democrat Enters Their Office As President on January 20 2029, one hundred years after the 1929 Stock Market Crash!
Those economists said that the National Debt would rise by 4.5 trillion $s as Tax Cuts for the .1% while increasing inflation by $2000 per household a year by the added tariff fees!
I differ with Thom Hartmann's 2024 post in only two respects, and he might well have updated his post since then.
I agree completely that the oligarchs are waiting in the wings to buy parts of the smouldering economic and governmental wreckage at bargain-basement prices. I'd argue, though, that they won't sell high but rather put together monopolies and cartels that will allow them to plunder the country continually over time. Think of it as endless uncontrolled, unsupervised, untaxed, unlimited, unchallenged profits. Maximum recurring revenue will beat big one-off gains every time.
And that's my second point: it will be endless because the oligarchs now own all three branches of government (yes, including SCOTUS) and the DOGE wrecking crew has already set upon several departments and agencies whose primary function is ensuring election integrity. So what expectation can we reasonably have that elections in 2026 and onward will reflect the people's will and not just be a charade with predetermined outcomes?
Post was perfectly Timed. 1: Musk has already set up multiple Monopolies Sans Government Oversight, largely controlled by him. 2. The only way elections won't be held in 2028 is that Putin shuts down all US infrastructure by the following Cyber Attack and Appoints Trusk Co-Dictators!
Tonight is Trump‘s first State of the Union speech of his second term. Observers all around the world are wondering how differential he will be toward Putin.
Already, there are ominous signs that he and Musk intend to bring America to its knees on behalf of the Russian dictator and to destroy our defenses against a possible Russian attack, should Trump lose Putin’s love or the next American president directly challenge Russia.
Yesterday I wrote:
Defense Secretary Hegseth ordered our federal operations to detect and stop Vladimir Putin‘s infiltration of American cyber security — from our nuclear facilities and dams to our news and social media spaces — to cease. As Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer noted yesterday afternoon:
“Donald Trump is so desperate to earn the affection of a thug like Vladimir Putin he appears to be giving him a free pass as Russia continues to launch cyber operations and ransomware attacks against critical American infrastructure, threatening our economic and national security. It is a critical strategic mistake for Donald Trump to unilaterally disarm against Putin.“
As an intelligence insider told the media: “Putin is on the inside now.” As in, “Inside our government and inside our most sensitive computer systems that defend America.”
So, how could this play out? Is it possible Russia could win a war against the United States without ever firing a shot?
New York Times reporter Nicole Perlroth, in her vital and brilliant book This Is How They Tell Me The World Ends: The Cyberweapons Arms Race, wrote that from 2012 to 2014:
“Russian hackers made their way inside more than a thousand companies, in more than eighty-four countries, the vast majority of them American.”
While the Chinese have hacked American companies for decades and stolen what Perlroth documents as trillions of dollars’ worth of intellectual property, product designs, manufacturing techniques, and drug formulas, this Russian hack seemed to have a different purpose.
They “made their way into hundreds of industrial control systems across the country,” Perlroth wrote, using systems and strategies similar to the way Stuxnet had penetrated Iranian nuclear enrichment facilities.
“It wasn’t just US oil and gas companies anymore,” she said. “Russian hackers infected the software updates that reached the industrial controllers inside hydroelectric dams, nuclear power plants, pipelines, and the grid, and were now inside the very computers that could unleash the locks at the dams, trigger an explosion, or shut down power to the grid.”
This action “was not Chinese-style industrial espionage,” Perlroth wrote. “Moscow was preparing the battlefield.”
She quotes cybersecurity expert John Hultquist, who told her, “This was the first stage in long-term preparation for an attack. There’s no other plausible explanation.”
While a handful of nations with nuclear weapons have spent much of the past 70 years both preparing for and trying to avoid a nuclear war, cyberwar has emerged as a far more likely way the next major international conflict will go down.
And Trump just forced America to abandon that battlefield.
A few decades ago, neutron bombs were all the rage in the press — weapons that would kill all the people through a massive radiation pulse but leave the infrastructure standing and waiting to be occupied and used or looted by victorious foreign troops.
Cyberwar is sort of the opposite of neutron bombs. Instead of killing the people, it takes out the infrastructure with the goal being to disrupt society so severely as to bring down governments (the ultimate goal of most warfare).
Like a previously unknown and still largely invisible fourth dimension, digital cyberspace has gone from being nonexistent when I was born to having interpenetrated almost every home, business, and government agency in the developed world and most of the developing world.
Today everything from our water/power/sewer utilities to our cellular telephone systems to our home information and entertainment systems runs on digital ones and zeros that flow through cyberspace.
Rather than the next war starting with a flash from a nuclear explosion over New York or Moscow or Beijing, it’s more likely that today the first step would be multiple major cities browning out as the electrical grid is fried the way the United States and Israel took out Iran’s centrifuges a decade ago with the Stuxnet worm.
Electronically force open a few big dams to kill millions with flooding, melt down a dozen nuclear reactors creating mass panic and death, and shut down communications systems for first responders: The country would be thrown into a chaos not unlike the firebombing of Dresden or Tokyo in 1944, but without the expense, hassle, or waste of building, fueling, and flying bombers or missiles.
With no power, no telecommunications, and no water, American cities would descend into chaos in days and become unlivable hellscapes within a week; drain the big banks and vanish their depositors’ records, and Putin has hit our nation at all levels from the top government/corporate to infrastructure to the individual and personal.
The risk/reward calculation for cyberwar is so much better than for nuclear war that it’s probable nuclear warfare has become an anachronism and cyberwar is the real new military frontier.
And Trump and Hegseth just eliminated most of our defenses against Russia doing this to us.
If they were to digitally infiltrate them, America’s own nuclear arsenal could even be used against us by Russians programming nuclear bombs and missiles to explode in place. And Trump just dropped our defenses against this scenario.
Right after taking office in 2009, President Obama gave a speech revealing that both his and Senator John McCain’s campaigns had been hacked by the Russians, as was his personal credit card.
In response, he kicked off a robust new agency within the White House to coordinate cybersecurity across federal agencies so that America wouldn’t get caught flat-footed like we were on 9/11.
J. Michael Daniel was Obama’s head of the office of the Cybersecurity Coordinator and special assistant to the president, working with a substantial team out of the Eisenhower Executive Office Building next door to the White House.
All the bells and alarms from more than 20 US security agencies, from those associated with the military to the FBI, CIA, NSA, and parts of the government that don’t even have public names, coordinated in this operation.
And then Russia attacked via cyberspace, although not here…yet.
Obama and his team watched from the Situation Room with horror as the day before Christmas Eve, the busiest shopping day of 2015, Russia took down Ukraine.
It was an explicit act of war, a punishment a year after voters in that country had expelled a Russian-friendly oligarch, Viktor Yanukovych, and replaced him with a Western-friendly president.
And by “take down,” I mean it literally. Kim Zetter told the story of a supervisor at one of Ukraine’s main power substations in Wired:
“All he could do was stare helplessly at his screen while the ghosts in the machine clicked open one breaker after another, eventually taking about 30 substations offline.
“The attackers didn’t stop there, however. They also struck two other power distribution centers at the same time, nearly doubling the number of substations taken offline and leaving more than 230,000 residents in the dark.
“And as if that weren’t enough, they also disabled backup power supplies to two of the three distribution centers, leaving operators themselves stumbling in the dark.”
It was the second consequential cyberattack (the first being Stuxnet) of one nation-state against another.
Prior hacks, mostly by Iran, North Korea, and China, were designed to extort money via ransomware, steal money directly from people’s bank accounts or credit cards, or steal product designs and other intellectual properties that could be converted to profit.
But there was no profit motive here, nor in the Stuxnet attack. Both were acts of war that presaged Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and demonstrated what they could do to us if we lower our defenses.
This wasn’t the first time Russia had attacked another nation via cyberspace. Back in 2007 when the Estonians (a former Soviet state) removed an old Soviet-era statue from a public square, Russia invaded that countries computer systems and pulled the internet plug on the entire nation; for a brief while, no traffic got in or out of the country.
And then the Russians went after America’s most powerful weapons to use in their cyberwar against Ukraine.
In 2016, the US cyberwarfare equivalents of our nuclear arsenal were hacked/stolen from our intelligence agencies (particularly the NSA) and put up for sale on the dark web. One of those cybernukes, named by the NSA EternalBlue, was integrated into a new Russian cyberweapon now known as NotPetya and used a year later, June 27, 2017, against Ukraine.
While few Americans know the story — it was largely ignored by the mainstream media — officials in the agency Obama had set up worried that it could be a dress rehearsal for an attack on America.
As Andy Greenberg wrote for Wired:
“On a national scale, NotPetya was eating Ukraine’s computers alive. It would hit at least four hospitals in Kiev alone, six power companies, two airports, more than 22 Ukrainian banks, ATMs and card payment systems in retailers and transport, and practically every federal agency. ‘The government was dead,’ summarizes Ukrainian minister of infrastructure Volodymyr Omelyan.”
About 10 percent of all the computers in Ukraine were “bricked” — permanently destroyed — and more than 300 companies were shut down and lost everything on their computer systems.
Checkout systems in stores died; gas stations couldn’t process payments, so their pumps stopped working; banks went down, and not only were people unable to access their balances, but some banking information (and thus money in the banks) was simply lost, forever.
The Russian cyberweapon even took down the monitoring systems at Chernobyl, provoking mass panic among the scientists working remotely on the cleanup who didn’t know for hours if the site had exploded, been attacked, or had just been hacked with devastating consequences.
The response of the Trump administration took a few months but was decisive: In early 2018, presumably following one of his many secret phone conversations with Putin, Trump shut down Obama’s White House Office of the Cybersecurity Coordinator and ended the job of its then-director, Rob Joyce.
In the understatement of the year, Senator Mark Warner of Virginia tweeted:
“Mr. President, if you really want to put America first, don’t cut the White House Cybersecurity Coordinator, the only person in the federal government tasked with delivering a coordinated, whole-of-government response to the growing cyber threats facing our nation.... I don’t see how getting rid of the top cyber official in the White House does anything to make our country safer from cyber threats.”
An aide to Trump’s National Security Adviser explained, using language lifted from Alexander Hamilton’s 1788 Federalist 70, that they killed off the Cybersecurity Czar’s office because “eliminating another layer of bureaucracy delivers greater ‘decision, activity, secrecy and despatch [sic].’”
It was a quote worthy of Elon Musk.
After the two years during which Trump forbade America a cybersecurity coordinator, the incoming Biden administration discovered that Russian hackers had used that time to embed themselves deeply into the computer systems of the Treasury and Commerce departments, and nobody is sure how far or how deep the Russian hackers went into other government agencies, including our military and intelligence agencies.
They were inside US government computers for almost a year during Trump’s first administration: Instead of the Trump administration, it was an outside company, FireEye, which discovered the hack and alerted both the government and the media. And there’s every indication that they’re still there.
When the Russians’ penetration deep into the US government’s computers hit the papers, Trump had, a month earlier, also fired Christopher Krebs, head of the Department of Homeland Security’s Cybersecurity Agency (because he’d publicly said there was no fraud in the 2020 election), so that agency was also in a bind when the news came out.
FireEye, SolarWinds, and several of America’s intelligence agencies unequivocally said the attack was launched from Russia, and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo declared:
“This was a very significant effort, and I think it’s the case that now we can say pretty clearly that it was the Russians that engaged in this activity.”
But President Donald Trump, having now lost the office that Putin had first helped him win in 2016, and a month away from having to vacate the White House, had a different story.
The AP reported on December 19, 2020:
“Contradicting his secretary of state and other top officials, President Donald Trump on Saturday suggested without evidence that China — not Russia — may be behind the cyber espionage operation against the United States and tried to minimize its impact.”
Trump then tweeted:
“The Cyber Hack is far greater in the Fake News Media than in actuality. I have been fully briefed and everything is well under control.”
He accused the media of being “petrified” of discussing “the possibility that it may be China (it may!)”
The headline at Business Insider neatly summarized the day:
“The White House was set to accuse Russia of the devastating cyberattack on the US government’s computer systems but was told at the last minute to stand down.”
The order apparently came directly from Trump.
The incoming Biden administration began the difficult, expensive, and time-consuming task of rebuilding our cybersecurity infrastructure, but Trump had left behind massive damage and what apparently ended up facilitating a years-long Russian presence inside our systems.
So this week Trump, Musk, and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth shut down our operations that were designed to prevent Russia’s intrusions into America’s cyber infrastructure.
Presumably Pam Bondi is doing something similar to this, just like she shut down the FBI’s efforts to uncover and defeat Russian social media and fake news influence operations within the United States.
As a result of Trump’s efforts, World War III will probably not start with a nuclear exchange.
First, a dozen American cities will go dark as major dams burst and flood millions, killing them in their homes. Multiple nuclear power plants will melt down, and dozens of major businesses across America will lose all access to payment processing and inventory. Trillions will vanish from the banks.
For many yrs,the greatest amt of money made in the US stock market has been on the short side. Through high frequency trading,machine trading valuations have become laughable.During the past 40 days,more money has been made on the short side than the previous yr on buy side.
The morning before the election I posted the following on selected replies to two Joe Rogan interviews with J.D. Vance and John Fetterman. Once I got thrown off that site for 'spamming' I moved on to Robert Reich and Micheal Moore's sites, finishing the night on the Republican Voters Against Trump's Facebook page:
Thom Hartmann 11-1-24
America’s billionaires would love to have a recession, particularly a really severe one.
In a recent “town hall,” billionaire Elon Musk acknowledged what 23 Nobel Prize-winning economists across the country have predicted: If Trump is elected and he and Elon undertake their project to gut government spending, it will provoke a severe recession.
Thom goes on to give the reason Why Billionaires Would Actively Force A Stock Market Crash: Buy Cheap, Sell High. It won't be a mere recession, it will be a full blown Depression that can only Begin to End when another Democrat Enters Their Office As President on January 20 2029, one hundred years after the 1929 Stock Market Crash!
Those economists said that the National Debt would rise by 4.5 trillion $s as Tax Cuts for the .1% while increasing inflation by $2000 per household a year by the added tariff fees!
Sadly, it will take decades to sort all of this out! Especially foreign relations & economics. Even if a democrat is elected the trust has been lost, If the republicans can throw the world into such economic turmoil by electing this president, what’s to stop republican Americans doing it again. People won’t forget what this American regime has done! We can only hope Americans don’t forget what they’ve done also! And hope that elections continue!
The morning before the election I posted the following on selected replies to two Joe Rogan interviews with J.D. Vance and John Fetterman. Once I got thrown off that site for 'spamming' I moved on to Robert Reich and Micheal Moore's sites, finishing the night on the Republican Voters Against Trump's Facebook page:
Thom Hartmann 11-1-24
America’s billionaires would love to have a recession, particularly a really severe one.
In a recent “town hall,” billionaire Elon Musk acknowledged what 23 Nobel Prize-winning economists across the country have predicted: If Trump is elected and he and Elon undertake their project to gut government spending, it will provoke a severe recession.
Thom goes on to give the reason Why Billionaires Would Actively Force A Stock Market Crash: Buy Cheap, Sell High. It won't be a mere recession, it will be a full blown Depression that can only Begin to End when another Democrat Enters Their Office As President on January 20 2029, one hundred years after the 1929 Stock Market Crash!
Those economists said that the National Debt would rise by 4.5 trillion $s as Tax Cuts for the .1% while increasing inflation by $2000 per household a year by the added tariff fees!
We still have the same challenge though...if Agent Orange and Space Karen torpedo the economy, but podcasts and influencers and foreign-run bots and trolls tell people that Biden and his army of kale-eating anti-Israel trans athletes are responsible, then it doesn't matter what actually happened.
The Dems need to speak up and out in every way possible, calling these traitors out for what they are. Their unwillingness to fight like the nation and democracy are at risk is why the crazy messages are so powerful to millions throughout the country. In the complete absence of truth, insanity and lies are driving the narrative.
That's my new nickname for President elon! #spacekaren! Bless you for the laughter we all desperately need to survive the next month or so before It dies.
We keep moving towards the middle when we must take a stand and fight back, dirty if nessasary, I don't like it either but our choices are evaporating quickly.
Isn’t it time for a bipartisan movement yet? A lot of people who voted for him have already gotten hurt. Surely people can see that this has nothing to do with fraud, abuse and waste! They didn’t have a chance to even look around. Muskrat’s tribe is performing vandalism, not streamlining. The destruction has to be costing us billions, not to mention all of the broken relationships and isolation. Shouldn’t we be standing up for Ukraine, NATO, Canada, Mexico and against Putin? What could be more important? Most of us don’t want what they are selling!
The orange man's house of cards is falling down! His republican sycophants, the musk-rat, his completely bonkers cabinet members and the orange smear are responsible for what is happening right now. I swear, if one person even slightly suggests that Democrats, President Biden or liberals are to blame, I will forget my upbringing and punch 'em right in the face! It took seven weeks for the orange man to completely destroy our country! He is a treasonous traitor and I want with all my heart to see him impeached, arrested and thrown in solitary confinement on Gitmo for the rest of his miserable life! That goes for all of his sick traitorous buddies as well! Enough is enough! All of you rich POSs better take note. There is nothing that will enrage an American citizen as much as when they can't feed their family and have no means to feed them in the future! Y'all sit up there in your glorified castles whining and complaining how you can't get good help. Calling Americans lazy and trying to live off the government. You are just as much to blame for this crap as the orange man and his cronies!
The sad part is that so many voters still apparently buy the bullshit emanating from the White House. Like a clogged toilet, the crap is permeating the whole house
At first glance I thought you meant POS (piece of shite), referring to The Don, JD or Elon . But on rereading your comment I realized that you are more polite than I feel on a Monday.
How much time do you have? My list is long. It's not very lady like either.
I do hope I live long enough to see his demise and piss on his grave. Maybe not, I've heard he likes that.
It wouldn't suck if all his assets were frozen and paid to the people who he fired,wronged and harmed either just before he goes. Nothing to leave behind to his useless offspring.
The morning before the election I posted the following on selected replies to two Joe Rogan interviews with J.D. Vance and John Fetterman. Once I got thrown off that site for 'spamming' I moved on to Robert Reich and Micheal Moore's sites, finishing the night on the Republican Voters Against Trump's Facebook page:
Thom Hartmann 11-1-24
America’s billionaires would love to have a recession, particularly a really severe one.
In a recent “town hall,” billionaire Elon Musk acknowledged what 23 Nobel Prize-winning economists across the country have predicted: If Trump is elected and he and Elon undertake their project to gut government spending, it will provoke a severe recession.
Thom goes on to give the reason Why Billionaires Would Actively Force A Stock Market Crash: Buy Cheap, Sell High. It won't be a mere recession, it will be a full blown Depression that can only Begin to End when another Democrat Enters Their Office As President on January 20 2029, one hundred years after the 1929 Stock Market Crash!
Those economists said that the National Debt would rise by 4.5 trillion $s as Tax Cuts for the .1% while increasing inflation by $2000 per household a year by the added tariff fees!
Every time the market tries to claw its way back - he throws more at the economy (more trade threats, wild statements and executive actions all seemingly designed to destabilize the US) - it's almost like he's deliberately trying to tank it.
The morning before the election I posted the following on selected replies to two Joe Rogan interviews with J.D. Vance and John Fetterman. Once I got thrown off that site for 'spamming' I moved on to Robert Reich and Micheal Moore's sites, finishing the night on the Republican Voters Against Trump's Facebook page:
Thom Hartmann 11-1-24
America’s billionaires would love to have a recession, particularly a really severe one.
In a recent “town hall,” billionaire Elon Musk acknowledged what 23 Nobel Prize-winning economists across the country have predicted: If Trump is elected and he and Elon undertake their project to gut government spending, it will provoke a severe recession.
Thom goes on to give the reason Why Billionaires Would Actively Force A Stock Market Crash: Buy Cheap, Sell High. It won't be a mere recession, it will be a full blown Depression that can only Begin to End when another Democrat Enters Their Office As President on January 20 2029, one hundred years after the 1929 Stock Market Crash!
Those economists said that the National Debt would rise by 4.5 trillion $s as Tax Cuts for the .1% while increasing inflation by $2000 per household a year by the added tariff fees!
The province of Ontario has added a 25% charge to the electricity it sells to New York, Michigan and Minnesota. People here are furious over the tariffs and threats to annex Canada.
I believe he is trying to destroy America and America’s economy. He and musk are doing it as fast as they can so that they can move to mother Russia, their work for Putin completed.
The morning before the election I posted the following on selected replies to two Joe Rogan interviews with J.D. Vance and John Fetterman. Once I got thrown off that site for 'spamming' I moved on to Robert Reich and Micheal Moore's sites, finishing the night on the Republican Voters Against Trump's Facebook page:
Thom Hartmann 11-1-24
America’s billionaires would love to have a recession, particularly a really severe one.
In a recent “town hall,” billionaire Elon Musk acknowledged what 23 Nobel Prize-winning economists across the country have predicted: If Trump is elected and he and Elon undertake their project to gut government spending, it will provoke a severe recession.
Thom goes on to give the reason Why Billionaires Would Actively Force A Stock Market Crash: Buy Cheap, Sell High. It won't be a mere recession, it will be a full blown Depression that can only Begin to End when another Democrat Enters Their Office As President on January 20 2029, one hundred years after the 1929 Stock Market Crash!
Those economists said that the National Debt would rise by 4.5 trillion $s as Tax Cuts for the .1% while increasing inflation by $2000 per household a year by the added tariff fees!
The entire issue needs to be simplified. It is theft. They are trying to steal all the money. That is what Oligarchs do. Steal all the money. Welcome to the Kakistocracy.
The morning before the election I posted the following on selected replies to two Joe Rogan interviews with J.D. Vance and John Fetterman. Once I got thrown off that site for 'spamming' I moved on to Robert Reich and Micheal Moore's sites, finishing the night on the Republican Voters Against Trump's Facebook page:
Thom Hartmann 11-1-24
America’s billionaires would love to have a recession, particularly a really severe one.
In a recent “town hall,” billionaire Elon Musk acknowledged what 23 Nobel Prize-winning economists across the country have predicted: If Trump is elected and he and Elon undertake their project to gut government spending, it will provoke a severe recession.
Thom goes on to give the reason Why Billionaires Would Actively Force A Stock Market Crash: Buy Cheap, Sell High. It won't be a mere recession, it will be a full blown Depression that can only Begin to End when another Democrat Enters Their Office As President on January 20 2029, one hundred years after the 1929 Stock Market Crash!
Those economists said that the National Debt would rise by 4.5 trillion $s as Tax Cuts for the .1% while increasing inflation by $2000 per household a year by the added tariff fees!
Coming to grips with Russia’s agenda and their talking points. Those now emanate from the seat of U.S. power, the White House. Our President acts very suspiciously. Is he fully compromised? Things were clear in my mind, as I wrote in this post. I have little doubt. https://bit.ly/4heWKvb
I've been feeling the same way. This feels like an invasion from within. Fully compromised fits. Many of us in New England want to join Canada as its newest province.
Please intrude professor. I guess we need to watch our 401k’s drop and take the pain for the sake of democracy, as part of our patriotic duty. Aside from us and the lawyers, it looks like we may have the stock market to be a bulwark against Trump.
I just started a 401k for the first time in my life. Wondering why I did that! Hoping for some security in turbulent times but who can afford to lose their principal now? I might do as you have. I can't afford more ups and downs.
In the 1980s companies - mine did - nixed pensions and went with the 401K.... Biggest scam ever ... trusting retirement $ in stock market ... I was the only one in my whole company that kept the pension option ... management annoyed . Today.... glad I did that. Dems. paved the way for what is happening today - e.g. Clinton's repeal of Glass Steagall ... for one ...
I'm with Vanguard...they have 2 or 3 cash reserve offerings that pay interest the 3.7-4 % range. (No I don't work for them). Any of the big funds would offer some. Good luck, and good luck to us!
This feels like a bloodless invasion? I mean this seriously. We must stop just talking to and among ourselves. All this destruction from within feels much more than disconcerting. What's really going on here. Where's Congress? Fear of retribution can't be the only reason we're hearing almost nothing. What gives?
I remember a few months back, I think it was snakebannon?, said we will take over this country. It will be bloodless if the Dems allow it..... well, Screw you
Marilyn, you might also be thinking about Christo fascist Russell Vought, Drump's director of the Office of Management and Budget and head of Project 2025. He once claimed that all of us sheep might not be destroyed by the rethugs if we didn't resist.
I agree ... this is a fascist coup from within .... and EVERY single institution in this country has been taken over by ... as it turns out .... Nazis ... including the illegitimate scotus ... CORRUPT, rightwing nuts, hand maiden, grifters, sexual predators, corrupt to the core, right wing nuts married to January 6 terrorist sympathizer... their tortured opinions sound like word salad ... TRYING to sound erudite while justifying their ruling basically giving Cheeto the permission to do whatever he wanted to. Why didn't Biden DO SOMETHING like that before he left? Epitome of arrogance ....
The Trump slump will only matter when it touches the wealth and status of the oligrachic plutocrats that own Trump and the Republican party (includes the technocrats of course), the base will gladly bear the pain so long as they believe that they have owned the libs, the trans, the migrants, the atheists and people of color.
And the only way to right the ship of state is with a counter coup, and it takes resources, money, power to pull off a counter coup. And until those that marched us into the dismal swamp feel the pain that we are feeling, nothing will happen.
Any elections from now on will be charades. We've been living in a Kabuki theater world.
There are at best 8 Democratic politicians that aren't corrupted or intimidated into silence or compliance. Four off the top of my head,Al Green, AOC, Sen Merkley, Sen Chris Murphy.
Like I told Dennis above. Off the top of my head I couldn't think of all reps and senators with spines and who are patriots above their need for self service.
Let's create a List
Jasmine Crockett
Tammy Baldwin
Chris Murphy
Jeff Merkley
Anastaia Ocasio Cortez
Al Green
To get on the list they have to be forceful, unwavering and out front.
I nominate the Drump-thumping antifascist Bernie 'Bernardo Sandrini', the arch nemesis of Orange Menace. The drumpist congressman from my district in Wisconsin, Bryan Steil today claimed that Bernie is on a fear-mongering campaign to discredit Drump.
William, I will go with Sen. Tammy Baldwin (D-WI), an advocate for workers', LGBTQ, immigrants', and women's rights and for UW federal research grants as well. Damn her counterpart the seditious Sen. Ron Johnson to hell for lining up with drump, mukz, wanze and their cadre to oppose all these things and more.
Yep, there are more. I just couldn't name them off the top of my head. Maybe start keeping a list of Reps and Senates that have spines and are true patriots.
The morning before the election I posted the following on selected replies to two Joe Rogan interviews with J.D. Vance and John Fetterman. Once I got thrown off that site for 'spamming' I moved on to Robert Reich and Micheal Moore's sites, finishing the night on the Republican Voters Against Trump's Facebook page:
Thom Hartmann 11-1-24
America’s billionaires would love to have a recession, particularly a really severe one.
In a recent “town hall,” billionaire Elon Musk acknowledged what 23 Nobel Prize-winning economists across the country have predicted: If Trump is elected and he and Elon undertake their project to gut government spending, it will provoke a severe recession.
Thom goes on to give the reason Why Billionaires Would Actively Force A Stock Market Crash: Buy Cheap, Sell High. It won't be a mere recession, it will be a full blown Depression that can only Begin to End when another Democrat Enters Their Office As President on January 20 2029, one hundred years after the 1929 Stock Market Crash!
Those economists said that the National Debt would rise by 4.5 trillion $s as Tax Cuts for the .1% while increasing inflation by $2000 per household a year by the added tariff fees!
Musk has one overarching goal, and has had the goal since childhood, and that is to The Elon of Mars, everything he does is done with that one obsession in mind.
I think that he sees America as some kind of cornucopia that runs on automatic, and that it's output should be directed away for social good, the purpose that government was formed in the first place (the common weal) and towards his goal of being The Elon on Mars.
In his mind money spent on USAID, Social programs, defense, infrastructure is being diverted from Project Mars.
Trump is of the same mind, but his need is for public adulation, to be the son of god, have all men bow before him, he doesn't care about Mars and probably would like to see Musk take off for Mars as soon as he has done his job on Earth.
Will, you might recall that you were the first one who I posted the above to after hearing about Musk's gizmo that saves households $2000 a year. So opened a $10,000 Schwab option account a week before the inauguration. However it took over that time to get it approved so never bought puts on electric utility companies.Which was fine because also never saw a word about Musk's announcement.
After the market rebounded from the first tariff scare, I decided to to buy $1000 worth of puts on SPX. Practically spent an hour talking to a broker who ended up telling me that Schwab had Cancelled My Account! Broke my hand two weeks ago and the day after I paid a $2660 Doctor bill I received a 'no insurance discounted' $6110 Hospital bill along with that $10,000 check from fucking Schwab!! Of course no word on Why my account was cancelled, but likely it was because I told everybody that Musk agreed with 23 economists that a Crash was the Point of Trusk's Election!! The Corruption Index is now officially exponentially off the charts.
Sorry I don't recall your posting. I have a Masters in Finance and Accounting. My son, who is now almost eligible for Social Security, once asked me for investment advice. I told him, that I lack inside information and playing the stock market is the same as pulling the handle on one armed bandit.
Today they have sophisticated computer models, that initiate trades at the speed of light, and still money is lost.
BTW I like the blend of Musk and Trump into Trusk, I will use that from now on, a lot handier than typing Musk and Trump.
To Robert Reich: For sharing your insights more than once in a day, no apology is necessary. The turmoil of recent current events causes so much worry and stress, your mid-day message, on any day, helps to allay some intensity of the anxiety we are feeling. You are more than welcome to add your messages to my email any time. Thank you for what you do!
The autocratic strategy is to bankrupt America and buy it back with cryptocurrency, the new reserve currency of the world. That might sound crazy, but it makes sense. I never read 2025, but I bet it is in there.
The morning before the election I posted the following on selected replies to two Joe Rogan interviews with J.D. Vance and John Fetterman. Once I got thrown off that site for 'spamming' I moved on to Robert Reich and Micheal Moore's sites, finishing the night on the Republican Voters Against Trump's Facebook page:
Thom Hartmann 11-1-24
America’s billionaires would love to have a recession, particularly a really severe one.
In a recent “town hall,” billionaire Elon Musk acknowledged what 23 Nobel Prize-winning economists across the country have predicted: If Trump is elected and he and Elon undertake their project to gut government spending, it will provoke a severe recession.
Thom goes on to give the reason Why Billionaires Would Actively Force A Stock Market Crash: Buy Cheap, Sell High. It won't be a mere recession, it will be a full blown Depression that can only Begin to End when another Democrat Enters Their Office As President on January 20 2029, one hundred years after the 1929 Stock Market Crash!
Those economists said that the National Debt would rise by 4.5 trillion $s as Tax Cuts for the .1% while increasing inflation by $2000 per household a year by the added tariff fees!
Uncle Joe Biden had an industrial plan that included infrastructure development, onshoring, and expansion of green energy. As usual, Drumpf offers chaos.
The morning before the election I posted the following on selected replies to two Joe Rogan interviews with J.D. Vance and John Fetterman. Once I got thrown off that site for 'spamming' I moved on to Robert Reich and Micheal Moore's sites, finishing the night on the Republican Voters Against Trump's Facebook page:
Thom Hartmann 11-1-24
America’s billionaires would love to have a recession, particularly a really severe one.
In a recent “town hall,” billionaire Elon Musk acknowledged what 23 Nobel Prize-winning economists across the country have predicted: If Trump is elected and he and Elon undertake their project to gut government spending, it will provoke a severe recession.
Thom goes on to give the reason Why Billionaires Would Actively Force A Stock Market Crash: Buy Cheap, Sell High. It won't be a mere recession, it will be a full blown Depression that can only Begin to End when another Democrat Enters Their Office As President on January 20 2029, one hundred years after the 1929 Stock Market Crash!
Those economists said that the National Debt would rise by 4.5 trillion $s as Tax Cuts for the .1% while increasing inflation by $2000 per household a year by the added tariff fees!
I cannot stand Trump and all he stands for. I never have, and I never will. He has sold America and the American Dream down river to enrich himself at the expense of everyone else on the planet. It is beyond disgusting. And to see the "richest man in the world", Mr. Musk, stealing from the old and young to make himself richer still gags me in ways I find difficult to describe. I continue to write postcards and email my representatives. Can we fire this bunch of crooks who are so good at firing everyone else? I don't know, but I wish I did. Onward.
The morning before the election I posted the following on selected replies to two Joe Rogan interviews with J.D. Vance and John Fetterman. Once I got thrown off that site for 'spamming' I moved on to Robert Reich and Micheal Moore's sites, finishing the night on the Republican Voters Against Trump's Facebook page:
Thom Hartmann 11-1-24
America’s billionaires would love to have a recession, particularly a really severe one.
In a recent “town hall,” billionaire Elon Musk acknowledged what 23 Nobel Prize-winning economists across the country have predicted: If Trump is elected and he and Elon undertake their project to gut government spending, it will provoke a severe recession.
Thom goes on to give the reason Why Billionaires Would Actively Force A Stock Market Crash: Buy Cheap, Sell High. It won't be a mere recession, it will be a full blown Depression that can only Begin to End when another Democrat Enters Their Office As President on January 20 2029, one hundred years after the 1929 Stock Market Crash!
Those economists said that the National Debt would rise by 4.5 trillion $s as Tax Cuts for the .1% while increasing inflation by $2000 per household a year by the added tariff fees!
It's coming, refers to the recession Trump is potentially bringing about in this country. The man is an ass, he has absolutely no idea of what he's doing. His cabinet is a bunch of head nodding stooges who can't figure out how to put on Sketchers since the laces are missing. They take one step forward and two steps back, in an effort to fix the problems created by their blind foolishness. We have a drunk in charge of our military, his choice for director of national intelligence can't even say Snowden was a traitor, and the new director of the FBI is a flaming moron. As a bullet travels through the air it creates a vortex in its wake. After the initial destruction caused by the flight of the projectile, the following vortex will bring nothing but further destruction and carnage. What devastation will Trump's vortex cause once he is spent?
And this chaos is deliberate. tRump is being manipulated and directed by Putin and Musk. The willful destruction of the US Government and its institutions as well as the economy is an act of terrorism, treason, and war.
There is no way Trump came up with any of these ideas. I would like to include the Heritage Foundation (Project 2025) and the Thiel Foundation as two huge manipulators of Trump. These organizations have steadfastly been workin on the chaos that we are seeing today. Thank you Peter for the toxic influence you have on Musk and J D Vance.
We may not be able to get at Trump but Thiel and co are easier targets.
Know your enemy. Too long we have ignored Mr. Thiel.
At our peril.
We need to send the South African Bros back from whence they came.
and the Australian racist Murdoch.
Cancelling my PayPal account tomorrow.
the relationship between Peter Thiel and DJ Vance merits close scrutiny and publicity. MAGA may not mind their racism, but might find interesting their financial connection.
Tell us how. Many citizens are
willing to fight back.
how?
Give them a seat in the cargo bay of a C-130 and two new parachutes. They can spend their travel time reading the instructions and trying them on for fit.
The Cargo bay of that plane has a big tilt down door/ramp in the aft end.
When they arrive over their South Africa home land a wounded veteran of the war in Ukriane enters the bay with a loaded weapon and the door is opened. And says "who wants to go first?"
True!
tRump doesn't have a single original thought in his head - he is just too damned stupid. He has always been manipulated by people whom he admires for their ability to corrupt a system. Putin got his hooks into the Donald back in the 80s. He has been reported to have an interest in Cold War novels, and as a former KGB agent, he would have been fluent in English. I am sure he can recite 'The Manchurian Candidate' - chapter and verse.
It's also the prelude to the "private spending" Bessent blurted out last week, those words being euphemistic code for privatization or oligarchic takeover of heretofore public systems and institutions. Going hand in hand with that is the liberation from any sort of regulation or oversight, and of course taxation. And who among all the oligarchs stands to benefit enormously from that? (Hint: he's South African and is in the news a lot lately.)
Totally agree, and Bessent showed his cards with those two words! Musk has, I've read, citizenship in three countries: ours, Canada, and South Africa. Is this legit?
Canada has voted him out as a citizen to their country! We should as well!
Being born in South Africa, he may have dual citizenship if South Africa, like Britain, considers you a citizen if you were born there even if you became a citizen of the U.S. I can’t speak to his citizenship in Canada though!
Musk has Canadian Citizenship because his Mother is Canadian... He traveled there to Study before applying for a Faux Student Visa to study at Stanford...
Musk was born in Canada and his family moved to South Africa
Here’s what I found online about Musk’s Canadian citizenship… “ The Tesla CEO obtained Canadian citizenship at birth through his mother, Maye Musk, who was born in Saskatchewan, Canada. According to CIC News, Musk automatically inherited Canadian citizenship by descent despite being born in South Africa. Musk moved to Canada at the age of 18 before emigrating to the United States.”
America, formerly known as the United States of America, will be run by United Health Care, the United Atmospheric Care, the United Forest Care, the United Mining Care, the United Fisheries Care, the United Parks Care, the United Water Resources Care, the United Law Enforcement and Interpretation Care, the United Catholic and Evangelical Soul Care. We will be united as never before..
Impeach
Those lard arses in Congress won't do a thing.
Yes, that's a befitting name for them.
We don't have the votes in Congress yet. Getting the votes is our job as citizens. Talk to your Congress person(s).
The President raised his hand and swore an oath to faithfully execute the laws of the United States. He is clearly unable and unwilling to do that job. He may even be a paid Russian operative. Now it falls to the Congress to do their job.
the Republicans in Congress have made it clear that their job is to empower Trump.
True, but that could change as failures pile up and constituents demand action to address the problem. It might take electing a new Congress or some event to trigger a more rapid shift. At this point I see impeachment and removal as one of our better options.
I agree, Peter. That is also why Bernie Sanders is on the road speaking to huge crowds in mostly Republican districts. He is telling people they need to let their Reps know how they feel--they want democracy not oligarchy.
We only need 3 or 4 Reps in the House to turn against tRump and then the harder part is to get about 20 Senators to join the Dems to convict.
Many R's said they voted in the last impeachment against conviction out of fear of retaliatory violence against them and their families. After the J6 pardons that fear will now be hugely magnified. They don't fear their constituents
Hard to do with the Republicans in control of the other houses.
Yes, kick all of them out.
The morning before the election I posted the following on selected replies to two Joe Rogan interviews with J.D. Vance and John Fetterman. Once I got thrown off that site for 'spamming' I moved on to Robert Reich and Micheal Moore's sites, finishing the night on the Republican Voters Against Trump's Facebook page:
Thom Hartmann 11-1-24
America’s billionaires would love to have a recession, particularly a really severe one.
In a recent “town hall,” billionaire Elon Musk acknowledged what 23 Nobel Prize-winning economists across the country have predicted: If Trump is elected and he and Elon undertake their project to gut government spending, it will provoke a severe recession.
Thom goes on to give the reason Why Billionaires Would Actively Force A Stock Market Crash: Buy Cheap, Sell High. It won't be a mere recession, it will be a full blown Depression that can only Begin to End when another Democrat Enters Their Office As President on January 20 2029, one hundred years after the 1929 Stock Market Crash!
Those economists said that the National Debt would rise by 4.5 trillion $s as Tax Cuts for the .1% while increasing inflation by $2000 per household a year by the added tariff fees!
Find Thom Hartmann's article here:
https://open.substack.com/pub/thomhartmann/p/the-recession-racket-musk-trump-and-2bd?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android&r=2vljk
I think he's incapable of direction or manipulation. His own cabinet ministers don't know what he's going to say or do next, never mind Putin. Seth Myers has described him as an "intellectual Roomba". He will proceed happily along in one direction until he bumps into something (usually something he's seen on cable TV or the internet) whereupon he will set off again in a completely different direction. What he calls 'The Weave' (his increasing tendency to ramble at rallies) is a product of his disordered mind and that's reflected also in his erratic and impulsive policy decisions. I know that it's been suggested that he has a sinister and carefully thought out plan dsecribed in detail in Project 2025, but I'm pretty sure none of what we're actually seeing (the foreign policy volte face, the vacillations on tariffs, the bungling attempts to reduce the federal state leading to nearly 50 court challenges and the looming recession) were part of the plan.
Trump is a tactician. Project 2025 was produced by strategists.
Hello Victor... That is giving DJT a lot of Credit... I would consider DJT more of a 'Pin-Ball'... He always reacts in the Moment...
As the stock markets were plummeting yesterday, Kevin Hassett, head of the national economic council, was spreading the good news on CNBC. He told them that the president's policies were "starting to have the intended effect of onshoring in the US," He was referring to a 0.08% increase in the number of manufacturing jobs in February. On Sunday, Howard Lutnick, commerce secretary, told NBC’s Meet the Press: “There’s going to be no recession in America. You are going to see over the next two years the greatest set of growth coming from America," A few days ago, Scott Bessant, Treasury secretary, was claiming that buying cheap goods was not "an essential part of the American Dream." This is tactics?!!!!
Trump is a classic malignant narcissist. Read about malignant narcissism in psychiatrist M. Scott's "People of the Lie . . . Peck wrote that, if pure evil could be diagnosed, it would be malignant narcissism.
And we made a malignant narcissist our President. Twice. What is wrong with us? I hate to say it, but we brought this current turmoil on ourselves. We are already paying dearly for those mistakes, and we have years more of penance ahead of us.
There is a silver lining though: Trump is so far gone that he may not be able to finish this term.
I am not generally in favour of remote diagnostics. Psychiatrists certainly seem to have a name for everything, which is I suppose why new editions of the Diagnostic Manual of Mental Disorders always generates a lot of heated discussion. There are many descriptions one could fairly apply to Trump's behaviour - vindictive, capricious, mendacious etc. A NYT columnist recently chose 'magnanimous' as a descriptor (which I confess would never have made it onto my list) and in my opinion there's way too many comparisons between his administration and the nazis. To quote an American writer "he's muddled and he's through, but he's not through muddling." I agree with you that four years of this is a form of purgatory that Americans must somehow endure as best they can.
Intellectual Roomba! Excellent.
Yes, I thought so too.
Trump is being directed by the GOP.. They are the ones who gain the most if Trump overturns the Constitution and destroys our democracy. They have long wanted control so they can line their pockets at the expense of American citizens.
If the movie Dumb and Dumber was in production for its second instalment, they could cast Trump to play both roles.
read Project 2025.
Astute, alarming and right on the bullseye 🎯
Why are We Surprised? DJT is the Supreme Wealth Destroyer... DJT is Simple-Minded, and his Dementia is getting Worse... DJT has squandered Billions of $, and has filed for Bankruptcy 6-Times... In the year 2000, the USA had a Balanced Budget, and was slated to payoff the National Debt by 2010... Then came GWB, and his Forever-Wars, and DJT's Tax-Cuts for the Wealthy... The Wealthy own the Corporations thru their Funds, and Stock Holdings... DJT was a 'Successful Businessman' only in a Simple-Minded Fantasy Reality Show.... DJT is the Perfect Orange Puppet for Putin, and Musk... Putin wants to Destroy the U.S. led Western-Order, Musk wants to Pillage the USG for his own Ends... Note which Agencies have been Crushed by Musk... Keep an Eye on China... The Chinese play an extremely Long-Game, and they are are starting to Fight Back...
The morning before the election I posted the following on selected replies to two Joe Rogan interviews with J.D. Vance and John Fetterman. Once I got thrown off that site for 'spamming' I moved on to Robert Reich and Micheal Moore's sites, finishing the night on the Republican Voters Against Trump's Facebook page:
Thom Hartmann 11-1-24
America’s billionaires would love to have a recession, particularly a really severe one.
In a recent “town hall,” billionaire Elon Musk acknowledged what 23 Nobel Prize-winning economists across the country have predicted: If Trump is elected and he and Elon undertake their project to gut government spending, it will provoke a severe recession.
Thom goes on to give the reason Why Billionaires Would Actively Force A Stock Market Crash: Buy Cheap, Sell High. It won't be a mere recession, it will be a full blown Depression that can only Begin to End when another Democrat Enters Their Office As President on January 20 2029, one hundred years after the 1929 Stock Market Crash!
Those economists said that the National Debt would rise by 4.5 trillion $s as Tax Cuts for the .1% while increasing inflation by $2000 per household a year by the added tariff fees!
I agree that the .01% want a full blown Depression. That would certainly make Trump's handler (Putin) very happy. He wants us to end up just like Russia. He's playing a dangerous game with Trump. He's so unstable that he could start a war with Putin as not.
These are dangerous times for us all.
Thom Hartmann's article:
https://open.substack.com/pub/thomhartmann/p/the-recession-racket-musk-trump-and-2bd?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android&r=2vljk
Apache - Just read this morning that Netflix was going to be airing reruns of the apprentice…made me throw up in my mouth at the thought of the next round of simpletons being subjected to this onslaught of stupidity.
My hope is it will pass on to Hell before the month is out so President Vance can deport current President elon! 🤞🤞🤞
My hope is the devil takes trump down to hell for his eternal punishment, Elon overdoses and Vance and the rest of the Republicans face the wrath and overturn from those of us who saw this shit show coming and never voted for such bafoonery in the first place.
In the infamous words of Jim Carrey as the Riddler said..."Batman you say? Coming for you? I'M COUNTING ON IT.
That's how I have go get through the day sometimes, thinking about just that. Sorry if it's not appropriate to this thread.
Camille, I too find myself with heinous, hateful, murderous thoughts. I channel them into attending protests. We are the good people. And you know what happens when good people do nothing.
It's okay, we are with you.
It's a great response!
When you’re being abused you have those funny little cynical moments. If someone tells you not to is a hypocrite
And yet I see interviews, an ordinary Trump supporter who owns a lumberyard and is losing money and business but still has "CONfidence in his idol. Sadly, all of the poor/middle/working class will hit rock bottom before most of the Trump/Republican voters realize their idiocy. The control of our government is so much more complicated than just the antics displayed by it’s figurehead.
Good question!
I hope he doesn’t cause another global recession. With the complete chaos he’s playing cat and mouse with the global economy. He is more globally dangerous than Putin or Xi. They have two neuron’s to connect occasionally. Trump has completely checked out. If Vance won’t initiate the 25 Amendment, then Vance is guilty of reckless endangerment. I hope Ukraine doesn’t turn over its natural resources. He’s just changing dictators.
'Trump has completely checked out. . . .' Yes. See my earlier post about this. I do not think Trump will be able to complete this term.
I don't think the members of the cabinet are stooges, as much as they are enablers that help open the regulatory doors for them to loot and pillage our country. they may not even be morons, as they are billionaires after all, and some rudimentary lizard brain must obtain for them to be able to prey on those lower on the economic food chain. not for a second do I believe they have the capacity to feel empathy, guilt, compassion, or shame. which i supposen suggests psychotic sociopathy, or is it sociopathic psychopathy, i never can remember.
Agree with everything you said. Those morons can't even figure out how to put those no lace walk-in Sketchers on!!
If I was to characterize Mr. Trump, I would equate the idiot to a rubber ball with zero bounce. What does the guy have to offer besides a maladjusted view on a society he never understood in the first place. Because he can't come to terms with the significance our freedoms enshrine, he is determined to reduce what we enjoy into something his shallow thinking can comprehend. This is why he endeavors to destroy what we've built into something out of a Mid-1950's monster movie starring Dana Andrews. Time is Trump's main advisory; the man is succumbing to the whims of his advancing years. He has weakened in recent months due to the rigors of the job, and the copy of the 25th amendment JD keeps in his lapel packet shows signs of wear from being read so often. As Puck would say, "What fools these mortals be." Both Mickey and Puck were Democrats. Trump will become ensnared in his own sticky webbing. I'm not looking forward to Mr. Vance stepping into Trump's shoes.
Unbelievable isn't it?
One of the biggest complaints the Republicans posted was their objection to mandatory vaccinations as a means of preventing the covid virus. How stupid can they be? There may arise a time when our government will enact policies that seem unwelcome among the population, however people must realize they are a part of a whole as such are subject to rules and regulations that are beyond their ability to argue with. When people are to stupid to see the importance of everyone falling in line in order to face a problem, we must force them to accept the realities of the situation. I don't want to hear the peanut gallery complaining about how the government is infringing upon their personal rights and freedoms, more stupidity. RFK Jr. is a mindless moron who doesn't understand how he got here, let alone what powers promote his life forces. People are ignorant, that's a given, just look at our President. School closings and stay at home orders were all directed in an effort to help stave off the pandemic Trump totally ignored, because the warm weather would make it go away and a little disinfectant injected into our bodies would kill what ails us. The man is an uneducated fool. Ranking Republicans brag about the graduation of Trump from an ivy league college in the East. What they don't tell you is his transcripts are locked away in a safe beyond the view of anyone interested in seeing them. Fred had to pay for Donnie's sheep skin due to his failing grades in virtually every class. Trump graduated from nothing. Public ignorance is something that at times the powers that be must deal with. Take seat belts as an example. People don't see the logic in having public compliance with issues they simply either don't understand or don't want to follow. When you get in your car it's a law you fasten your seat belt because people were to stupid to see the relevance in doing it on their own volition. Our government will force dumb people to protect themselves whether they like it or not. Mr. Trump is a solipsistic individual.
Sorry, meant to reply here:
Do you think Daniel Ellsberg was also a traitor? I don't.
read Project 2025.
Especially when the shooter is a person who calls whatever he hits the target.
😂, but how do you really feel Donald? I like your sy
The morning before the election I posted the following on selected replies to two Joe Rogan interviews with J.D. Vance and John Fetterman. Once I got thrown off that site for 'spamming' I moved on to Robert Reich and Micheal Moore's sites, finishing the night on the Republican Voters Against Trump's Facebook page:
Thom Hartmann 11-1-24
America’s billionaires would love to have a recession, particularly a really severe one.
In a recent “town hall,” billionaire Elon Musk acknowledged what 23 Nobel Prize-winning economists across the country have predicted: If Trump is elected and he and Elon undertake their project to gut government spending, it will provoke a severe recession.
Thom goes on to give the reason Why Billionaires Would Actively Force A Stock Market Crash: Buy Cheap, Sell High. It won't be a mere recession, it will be a full blown Depression that can only Begin to End when another Democrat Enters Their Office As President on January 20 2029, one hundred years after the 1929 Stock Market Crash!
Those economists said that the National Debt would rise by 4.5 trillion $s as Tax Cuts for the .1% while increasing inflation by $2000 per household a year by the added tariff fees!
Antonia Hitchens in the London Review of Books points out that after National Park Service cuts, the only locksmith who could free people stuck in bathrooms at Yosemite was gone. An image the Enola Gay was among the 26,000 images flagged for deletion by the Pentagon in Trump's DEI purge -https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/mar/07/military-images-trump-dei. These and countless other inanities are not the result of some devious plan hatched by a cabal of billionaires but rather the capricious behaviour of the most catastrophically stupid and impulsive president that Americans have ever elected.
I’m convinced this is all by design. Tank the stock market so the 1% can buy more stock at bargain prices. Destroy farms so corporations own all the farming in the country. People lose their houses to foreclosure? Sold below market value. No one in charge cares about their popularity. They certainly don’t care about the lives of the poor or middle class. There’s money to be made and that’s all that matters.
I’m afraid your remarks are right on, especially about scooping up assets at bargain prices. Not caring about poor people is a requirement for membership in the “I like Elon” fan club, and Trump thinks that the middle class are just useful marks and suckers for his hare-brained marketing shtick (think, Trump U, crypto and schlock MAGA merch).
The morning before the election I posted the following on selected replies to two Joe Rogan interviews with J.D. Vance and John Fetterman. Once I got thrown off that site for 'spamming' I moved on to Robert Reich and Micheal Moore's sites, finishing the night on the Republican Voters Against Trump's Facebook page:
Thom Hartmann 11-1-24
America’s billionaires would love to have a recession, particularly a really severe one.
In a recent “town hall,” billionaire Elon Musk acknowledged what 23 Nobel Prize-winning economists across the country have predicted: If Trump is elected and he and Elon undertake their project to gut government spending, it will provoke a severe recession.
Thom goes on to give the reason Why Billionaires Would Actively Force A Stock Market Crash: Buy Cheap, Sell High. It won't be a mere recession, it will be a full blown Depression that can only Begin to End when another Democrat Enters Their Office As President on January 20 2029, one hundred years after the 1929 Stock Market Crash!
Those economists said that the National Debt would rise by 4.5 trillion $s as Tax Cuts for the .1% while increasing inflation by $2000 per household a year by the added tariff fees!
I am in your camp. It is a modern-day Nazism and these people are so entrenched with holding us under their thrall while they stash away as much wealth as possible. Remember the Nazis were stealing art and other treasures from the onset of WW11. I knew we had a population with a lot of dolts, dopes and clowns, but the trumpers are outdoing "stupid" in ways most of us never imagined. I don't know how others here feel, but there seems to be lots of talk on the internet about insurrection complete with weapons. Putin and Trump = an alignment of evil. Slava Ukraini. Once and again, Hell is Empty and all the devils are here - Shakespeare
Robert,glad you're calling this precisely what it is" Modern day Nazism." Trouble is 75% of Americans don't know what Nazism is and don't seem to be interested in finding out.I have alluded to Trump as a Nazi for yrs and people just look @ me like" What is a Nazi" . I have implored them to check out the history of Nazi Germany,but they don't. If its not their phone,its too inconvenient. Just keep using the word as I will.
I'm with you. The rumor was that Trump before he became exactly what he wanted to be, had Mein Kampf next to his bed. It was to dense for him to actually read, but perhaps it was a reminder of where he wanted to go. Not long ago Trump said, and I paraphrase, I don't want American Generals I want German Generals, specifically "I need the kind of Generals that Hitler had." It is on the Internet. I have spent a lot of time working in Ukraine and to watch what Trump is allowing an unfettered Putin to do is beyond tragic. Stay in the light, brother
I believe that he only meant that he wanted to be surrounded by flunkies, The idea of Trump reading any book, let alone one as mind-bogglingly prolix as Mein Kampf really doesn't bear any serious consideration. Trump's foreign policy volte face has been foreshadowed by other isolationist American presidents like Woodrow Wilson. His eagerness to pursue peace negotiations in Israel and Ukraine is principally motivated by his burning desire to be awarded the Nobel Peace prize, an award made to Obama in 2009 that has generated an awful lot of grumbling from Trump who has always resented Obama's lofty urbanity and intellect. Trump has an insatiable need for adulation - he turned his recent inauguration speech into something that resembled one of his rallies - and that was no part of the character of Adolf Hitler.
I don't believe I wrote that he read Mein Kampf. I have no idea whether he read it. Someone who lived in Trump Tower, and I knew, said that to me. But certainly, as near as I can see, Trump always looked to have power and do precisely as he pleased. (When he decided to take down buildings with architectural details from another time, he didn't do what the City asked him; he took the buildings down.) In fact, here we are and it sure looks Trump and company has a lot of power. We democrats have been shunted aside. To quibble whether he read something doesn't stop it. And, frankly, the democrats, of which I am one, did a horrible job of mounting any kind of campaign to win the day and the future. Trump and Company, like the Nazis told lies, big bold lies, and they got the votes and now they are moving fast down a super highway to the land of TAKEOVER and consolidate power. If that ain't Nazi-like nothing is. And to argue over minutia is an exercise in absurdity. The real question is what are we going to do to stop it?
I beg to differ. He's never been able to do precisely as he pleases.That's why he's been forced to declare bankruptcy so many times. It's also why he was twice impeached during his first term in office and is a convicted criminal fraudster today. It seems to me that Godwin's law has gone out the window in discussions about Trump. He's not a nazi, he's an idiot and like an idiot he's making a terrible mess of everything. The Democrats ran a very poor campaign. Biden was clearly too old and frail to run again and he left the race far too late to allow Harris to make an impact. Despite this, Trump offered little that was new in his campaign - it was just Make America Great Again (Again). He won the popular vote against the Democrats but more Americans voted for someone else rather than for him and he ended with the smallest majority since Nixon in 1968 (and second-smallest of all time). His approval rating now is the worst of any president at this stage of their presidency. He's undoubtedly causing great harm to ordinary Americans and I completely agree with you that there is a need to mobilise effective opposition to his policies. As a Democrat, I hope you are suitably mortified about the absurd paddle-waving antics in the House during Trump's recent speech to the Congress. I have also read that ten Democrat representatives voted with the Republicans to censure Al Green for calling out Trump's lies during his speech and that later on minority leader Hakeem Jeffries hauled several other vociferous House members over the coals in a private meeting. My advice is to forget about the nazis and instead focus on meaningful opposition to Trump because you're clearly not doing it now.
Here is a clarification. In the quote as you shared it, it states what must have been intended, “I want the kind of generals…”, not generals from that country. He wanted people he could control thoroughly.
They can certainly research what a Nazi is on their phones.
Nancy,maybe they will.For too many Americans who are sitting idly by watching this tragedy unfold,it is just to much work to get involved.They are not going to rallies,not to the streets,its just too much work. They will regret they did not get involved,when its too late.
Exactly what many did in Germany. They thought nothing was going to really happen. And then it did and it was fast.
Love the Bard reference!
Spot on. It's called "disaster capitalism", and it started *here* after 911. At least to my personal memory. Actually, think Grapes of Wrath.
It is what the new oligarchy wants and Putin as well and why Putin put Muskrat and FOTUS together and it's working.
Also, T.R., think "Great Gatsby"!
The morning before the election I posted the following on selected replies to two Joe Rogan interviews with J.D. Vance and John Fetterman. Once I got thrown off that site for 'spamming' I moved on to Robert Reich and Micheal Moore's sites, finishing the night on the Republican Voters Against Trump's Facebook page:
Thom Hartmann 11-1-24
America’s billionaires would love to have a recession, particularly a really severe one.
In a recent “town hall,” billionaire Elon Musk acknowledged what 23 Nobel Prize-winning economists across the country have predicted: If Trump is elected and he and Elon undertake their project to gut government spending, it will provoke a severe recession.
Thom goes on to give the reason Why Billionaires Would Actively Force A Stock Market Crash: Buy Cheap, Sell High. It won't be a mere recession, it will be a full blown Depression that can only Begin to End when another Democrat Enters Their Office As President on January 20 2029, one hundred years after the 1929 Stock Market Crash!
Those economists said that the National Debt would rise by 4.5 trillion $s as Tax Cuts for the .1% while increasing inflation by $2000 per household a year by the added tariff fees!
Very true Deborah. We think along the same lines here. It’s the big sell off of the working class.
It is absolutely by design. We are witnessing an oligarchic takeover, and Congress is letting it happen. It's still too early to tell whether SCOTUS will in the end uphold the law and the Constitution, but history does not offer much reason for optimism.
The desired outcome is oligarchic control of every sector of the economy, every governmental financial and regulatory system, and every branch of government. Coming in on the coattails of that will be the imposition of an extreme fundamentalist faux-christian theocracy, which will complement the governmental and economic takeover with suppression of any form of education, the arts, lifestyle individuality, and any other cultural expression it deems unacceptable, with attendant persecution of adherents or practitioners.
It's happening before our eyes right now.
Pts,It is and we're letting it happen. When Dems like John Fetterman voted for for 14 of the Trump Nominees,Slotkin 11,Ossoff 13,Warnock 14,it became evident that the Dems were surrendering.The nominees were the worse possible choices,and the Dems voted for them, They showed up in large #s for the North Korean Parlimentary meeting last Tuesday night,they could have boycotted,but did not. The Dems are a disgrace.
Not all Democrats. Martin O’Malley was at three town halls in Florida over the weekend explaining what is happening with Social Security. He said the Republican House had already reduced funding for Social Security staff and now more employees will be cut making it dysfunctional. Low information people will lose confidence in Social Security not realizing who is to blame. Then it will be privatized. Private equity has been waiting in the wings, lusting over the trust fund we all paid into.
Jonni,if Martin O'Malley was @town halls in Florida talking about how SS is being unraveled,are the seniors going to speak up,or just wait for the whole program to collapse. Since Musk believes"Old people should just die" ,I expect that benefits will be reduced or ended.
Wonderfully described!!!
The morning before the election I posted the following on selected replies to two Joe Rogan interviews with J.D. Vance and John Fetterman. Once I got thrown off that site for 'spamming' I moved on to Robert Reich and Micheal Moore's sites, finishing the night on the Republican Voters Against Trump's Facebook page:
Thom Hartmann 11-1-24
America’s billionaires would love to have a recession, particularly a really severe one.
In a recent “town hall,” billionaire Elon Musk acknowledged what 23 Nobel Prize-winning economists across the country have predicted: If Trump is elected and he and Elon undertake their project to gut government spending, it will provoke a severe recession.
Thom goes on to give the reason Why Billionaires Would Actively Force A Stock Market Crash: Buy Cheap, Sell High. It won't be a mere recession, it will be a full blown Depression that can only Begin to End when another Democrat Enters Their Office As President on January 20 2029, one hundred years after the 1929 Stock Market Crash!
Those economists said that the National Debt would rise by 4.5 trillion $s as Tax Cuts for the .1% while increasing inflation by $2000 per household a year by the added tariff fees!
I differ with Thom Hartmann's 2024 post in only two respects, and he might well have updated his post since then.
I agree completely that the oligarchs are waiting in the wings to buy parts of the smouldering economic and governmental wreckage at bargain-basement prices. I'd argue, though, that they won't sell high but rather put together monopolies and cartels that will allow them to plunder the country continually over time. Think of it as endless uncontrolled, unsupervised, untaxed, unlimited, unchallenged profits. Maximum recurring revenue will beat big one-off gains every time.
And that's my second point: it will be endless because the oligarchs now own all three branches of government (yes, including SCOTUS) and the DOGE wrecking crew has already set upon several departments and agencies whose primary function is ensuring election integrity. So what expectation can we reasonably have that elections in 2026 and onward will reflect the people's will and not just be a charade with predetermined outcomes?
Post was perfectly Timed. 1: Musk has already set up multiple Monopolies Sans Government Oversight, largely controlled by him. 2. The only way elections won't be held in 2028 is that Putin shuts down all US infrastructure by the following Cyber Attack and Appoints Trusk Co-Dictators!
Thom Hartmann 3-4-25
Russian Cyber Threats To US
Tonight is Trump‘s first State of the Union speech of his second term. Observers all around the world are wondering how differential he will be toward Putin.
Already, there are ominous signs that he and Musk intend to bring America to its knees on behalf of the Russian dictator and to destroy our defenses against a possible Russian attack, should Trump lose Putin’s love or the next American president directly challenge Russia.
Yesterday I wrote:
Defense Secretary Hegseth ordered our federal operations to detect and stop Vladimir Putin‘s infiltration of American cyber security — from our nuclear facilities and dams to our news and social media spaces — to cease. As Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer noted yesterday afternoon:
“Donald Trump is so desperate to earn the affection of a thug like Vladimir Putin he appears to be giving him a free pass as Russia continues to launch cyber operations and ransomware attacks against critical American infrastructure, threatening our economic and national security. It is a critical strategic mistake for Donald Trump to unilaterally disarm against Putin.“
As an intelligence insider told the media: “Putin is on the inside now.” As in, “Inside our government and inside our most sensitive computer systems that defend America.”
So, how could this play out? Is it possible Russia could win a war against the United States without ever firing a shot?
New York Times reporter Nicole Perlroth, in her vital and brilliant book This Is How They Tell Me The World Ends: The Cyberweapons Arms Race, wrote that from 2012 to 2014:
“Russian hackers made their way inside more than a thousand companies, in more than eighty-four countries, the vast majority of them American.”
While the Chinese have hacked American companies for decades and stolen what Perlroth documents as trillions of dollars’ worth of intellectual property, product designs, manufacturing techniques, and drug formulas, this Russian hack seemed to have a different purpose.
They “made their way into hundreds of industrial control systems across the country,” Perlroth wrote, using systems and strategies similar to the way Stuxnet had penetrated Iranian nuclear enrichment facilities.
“It wasn’t just US oil and gas companies anymore,” she said. “Russian hackers infected the software updates that reached the industrial controllers inside hydroelectric dams, nuclear power plants, pipelines, and the grid, and were now inside the very computers that could unleash the locks at the dams, trigger an explosion, or shut down power to the grid.”
This action “was not Chinese-style industrial espionage,” Perlroth wrote. “Moscow was preparing the battlefield.”
She quotes cybersecurity expert John Hultquist, who told her, “This was the first stage in long-term preparation for an attack. There’s no other plausible explanation.”
While a handful of nations with nuclear weapons have spent much of the past 70 years both preparing for and trying to avoid a nuclear war, cyberwar has emerged as a far more likely way the next major international conflict will go down.
And Trump just forced America to abandon that battlefield.
A few decades ago, neutron bombs were all the rage in the press — weapons that would kill all the people through a massive radiation pulse but leave the infrastructure standing and waiting to be occupied and used or looted by victorious foreign troops.
Cyberwar is sort of the opposite of neutron bombs. Instead of killing the people, it takes out the infrastructure with the goal being to disrupt society so severely as to bring down governments (the ultimate goal of most warfare).
Like a previously unknown and still largely invisible fourth dimension, digital cyberspace has gone from being nonexistent when I was born to having interpenetrated almost every home, business, and government agency in the developed world and most of the developing world.
Today everything from our water/power/sewer utilities to our cellular telephone systems to our home information and entertainment systems runs on digital ones and zeros that flow through cyberspace.
Rather than the next war starting with a flash from a nuclear explosion over New York or Moscow or Beijing, it’s more likely that today the first step would be multiple major cities browning out as the electrical grid is fried the way the United States and Israel took out Iran’s centrifuges a decade ago with the Stuxnet worm.
Electronically force open a few big dams to kill millions with flooding, melt down a dozen nuclear reactors creating mass panic and death, and shut down communications systems for first responders: The country would be thrown into a chaos not unlike the firebombing of Dresden or Tokyo in 1944, but without the expense, hassle, or waste of building, fueling, and flying bombers or missiles.
With no power, no telecommunications, and no water, American cities would descend into chaos in days and become unlivable hellscapes within a week; drain the big banks and vanish their depositors’ records, and Putin has hit our nation at all levels from the top government/corporate to infrastructure to the individual and personal.
The risk/reward calculation for cyberwar is so much better than for nuclear war that it’s probable nuclear warfare has become an anachronism and cyberwar is the real new military frontier.
And Trump and Hegseth just eliminated most of our defenses against Russia doing this to us.
If they were to digitally infiltrate them, America’s own nuclear arsenal could even be used against us by Russians programming nuclear bombs and missiles to explode in place. And Trump just dropped our defenses against this scenario.
Right after taking office in 2009, President Obama gave a speech revealing that both his and Senator John McCain’s campaigns had been hacked by the Russians, as was his personal credit card.
In response, he kicked off a robust new agency within the White House to coordinate cybersecurity across federal agencies so that America wouldn’t get caught flat-footed like we were on 9/11.
J. Michael Daniel was Obama’s head of the office of the Cybersecurity Coordinator and special assistant to the president, working with a substantial team out of the Eisenhower Executive Office Building next door to the White House.
All the bells and alarms from more than 20 US security agencies, from those associated with the military to the FBI, CIA, NSA, and parts of the government that don’t even have public names, coordinated in this operation.
And then Russia attacked via cyberspace, although not here…yet.
Obama and his team watched from the Situation Room with horror as the day before Christmas Eve, the busiest shopping day of 2015, Russia took down Ukraine.
It was an explicit act of war, a punishment a year after voters in that country had expelled a Russian-friendly oligarch, Viktor Yanukovych, and replaced him with a Western-friendly president.
And by “take down,” I mean it literally. Kim Zetter told the story of a supervisor at one of Ukraine’s main power substations in Wired:
“All he could do was stare helplessly at his screen while the ghosts in the machine clicked open one breaker after another, eventually taking about 30 substations offline.
“The attackers didn’t stop there, however. They also struck two other power distribution centers at the same time, nearly doubling the number of substations taken offline and leaving more than 230,000 residents in the dark.
“And as if that weren’t enough, they also disabled backup power supplies to two of the three distribution centers, leaving operators themselves stumbling in the dark.”
It was the second consequential cyberattack (the first being Stuxnet) of one nation-state against another.
Prior hacks, mostly by Iran, North Korea, and China, were designed to extort money via ransomware, steal money directly from people’s bank accounts or credit cards, or steal product designs and other intellectual properties that could be converted to profit.
But there was no profit motive here, nor in the Stuxnet attack. Both were acts of war that presaged Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and demonstrated what they could do to us if we lower our defenses.
This wasn’t the first time Russia had attacked another nation via cyberspace. Back in 2007 when the Estonians (a former Soviet state) removed an old Soviet-era statue from a public square, Russia invaded that countries computer systems and pulled the internet plug on the entire nation; for a brief while, no traffic got in or out of the country.
And then the Russians went after America’s most powerful weapons to use in their cyberwar against Ukraine.
In 2016, the US cyberwarfare equivalents of our nuclear arsenal were hacked/stolen from our intelligence agencies (particularly the NSA) and put up for sale on the dark web. One of those cybernukes, named by the NSA EternalBlue, was integrated into a new Russian cyberweapon now known as NotPetya and used a year later, June 27, 2017, against Ukraine.
While few Americans know the story — it was largely ignored by the mainstream media — officials in the agency Obama had set up worried that it could be a dress rehearsal for an attack on America.
As Andy Greenberg wrote for Wired:
“On a national scale, NotPetya was eating Ukraine’s computers alive. It would hit at least four hospitals in Kiev alone, six power companies, two airports, more than 22 Ukrainian banks, ATMs and card payment systems in retailers and transport, and practically every federal agency. ‘The government was dead,’ summarizes Ukrainian minister of infrastructure Volodymyr Omelyan.”
About 10 percent of all the computers in Ukraine were “bricked” — permanently destroyed — and more than 300 companies were shut down and lost everything on their computer systems.
Checkout systems in stores died; gas stations couldn’t process payments, so their pumps stopped working; banks went down, and not only were people unable to access their balances, but some banking information (and thus money in the banks) was simply lost, forever.
The Russian cyberweapon even took down the monitoring systems at Chernobyl, provoking mass panic among the scientists working remotely on the cleanup who didn’t know for hours if the site had exploded, been attacked, or had just been hacked with devastating consequences.
The response of the Trump administration took a few months but was decisive: In early 2018, presumably following one of his many secret phone conversations with Putin, Trump shut down Obama’s White House Office of the Cybersecurity Coordinator and ended the job of its then-director, Rob Joyce.
In the understatement of the year, Senator Mark Warner of Virginia tweeted:
“Mr. President, if you really want to put America first, don’t cut the White House Cybersecurity Coordinator, the only person in the federal government tasked with delivering a coordinated, whole-of-government response to the growing cyber threats facing our nation.... I don’t see how getting rid of the top cyber official in the White House does anything to make our country safer from cyber threats.”
An aide to Trump’s National Security Adviser explained, using language lifted from Alexander Hamilton’s 1788 Federalist 70, that they killed off the Cybersecurity Czar’s office because “eliminating another layer of bureaucracy delivers greater ‘decision, activity, secrecy and despatch [sic].’”
It was a quote worthy of Elon Musk.
After the two years during which Trump forbade America a cybersecurity coordinator, the incoming Biden administration discovered that Russian hackers had used that time to embed themselves deeply into the computer systems of the Treasury and Commerce departments, and nobody is sure how far or how deep the Russian hackers went into other government agencies, including our military and intelligence agencies.
They were inside US government computers for almost a year during Trump’s first administration: Instead of the Trump administration, it was an outside company, FireEye, which discovered the hack and alerted both the government and the media. And there’s every indication that they’re still there.
When the Russians’ penetration deep into the US government’s computers hit the papers, Trump had, a month earlier, also fired Christopher Krebs, head of the Department of Homeland Security’s Cybersecurity Agency (because he’d publicly said there was no fraud in the 2020 election), so that agency was also in a bind when the news came out.
FireEye, SolarWinds, and several of America’s intelligence agencies unequivocally said the attack was launched from Russia, and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo declared:
“This was a very significant effort, and I think it’s the case that now we can say pretty clearly that it was the Russians that engaged in this activity.”
But President Donald Trump, having now lost the office that Putin had first helped him win in 2016, and a month away from having to vacate the White House, had a different story.
The AP reported on December 19, 2020:
“Contradicting his secretary of state and other top officials, President Donald Trump on Saturday suggested without evidence that China — not Russia — may be behind the cyber espionage operation against the United States and tried to minimize its impact.”
Trump then tweeted:
“The Cyber Hack is far greater in the Fake News Media than in actuality. I have been fully briefed and everything is well under control.”
He accused the media of being “petrified” of discussing “the possibility that it may be China (it may!)”
The headline at Business Insider neatly summarized the day:
“The White House was set to accuse Russia of the devastating cyberattack on the US government’s computer systems but was told at the last minute to stand down.”
The order apparently came directly from Trump.
The incoming Biden administration began the difficult, expensive, and time-consuming task of rebuilding our cybersecurity infrastructure, but Trump had left behind massive damage and what apparently ended up facilitating a years-long Russian presence inside our systems.
So this week Trump, Musk, and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth shut down our operations that were designed to prevent Russia’s intrusions into America’s cyber infrastructure.
Presumably Pam Bondi is doing something similar to this, just like she shut down the FBI’s efforts to uncover and defeat Russian social media and fake news influence operations within the United States.
As a result of Trump’s efforts, World War III will probably not start with a nuclear exchange.
First, a dozen American cities will go dark as major dams burst and flood millions, killing them in their homes. Multiple nuclear power plants will melt down, and dozens of major businesses across America will lose all access to payment processing and inventory. Trillions will vanish from the banks.
Sadly I think you’re right. I have been thinking for a while that he’s shorting the market to buy cheap! It’s all a sick game! GREED at any cost!
For many yrs,the greatest amt of money made in the US stock market has been on the short side. Through high frequency trading,machine trading valuations have become laughable.During the past 40 days,more money has been made on the short side than the previous yr on buy side.
The morning before the election I posted the following on selected replies to two Joe Rogan interviews with J.D. Vance and John Fetterman. Once I got thrown off that site for 'spamming' I moved on to Robert Reich and Micheal Moore's sites, finishing the night on the Republican Voters Against Trump's Facebook page:
Thom Hartmann 11-1-24
America’s billionaires would love to have a recession, particularly a really severe one.
In a recent “town hall,” billionaire Elon Musk acknowledged what 23 Nobel Prize-winning economists across the country have predicted: If Trump is elected and he and Elon undertake their project to gut government spending, it will provoke a severe recession.
Thom goes on to give the reason Why Billionaires Would Actively Force A Stock Market Crash: Buy Cheap, Sell High. It won't be a mere recession, it will be a full blown Depression that can only Begin to End when another Democrat Enters Their Office As President on January 20 2029, one hundred years after the 1929 Stock Market Crash!
Those economists said that the National Debt would rise by 4.5 trillion $s as Tax Cuts for the .1% while increasing inflation by $2000 per household a year by the added tariff fees!
Sadly, it will take decades to sort all of this out! Especially foreign relations & economics. Even if a democrat is elected the trust has been lost, If the republicans can throw the world into such economic turmoil by electing this president, what’s to stop republican Americans doing it again. People won’t forget what this American regime has done! We can only hope Americans don’t forget what they’ve done also! And hope that elections continue!
and then trash our currency to be replaced with greatest Ponzi scheme ever, bitcoin.
I see this questioning of “is the gold still in Fort Knox” as a prelude to making crypto the foundation of the Treasury.
No question that is a large part of their plan -- at least at the top of the heap, the lump of oligarchy.
The morning before the election I posted the following on selected replies to two Joe Rogan interviews with J.D. Vance and John Fetterman. Once I got thrown off that site for 'spamming' I moved on to Robert Reich and Micheal Moore's sites, finishing the night on the Republican Voters Against Trump's Facebook page:
Thom Hartmann 11-1-24
America’s billionaires would love to have a recession, particularly a really severe one.
In a recent “town hall,” billionaire Elon Musk acknowledged what 23 Nobel Prize-winning economists across the country have predicted: If Trump is elected and he and Elon undertake their project to gut government spending, it will provoke a severe recession.
Thom goes on to give the reason Why Billionaires Would Actively Force A Stock Market Crash: Buy Cheap, Sell High. It won't be a mere recession, it will be a full blown Depression that can only Begin to End when another Democrat Enters Their Office As President on January 20 2029, one hundred years after the 1929 Stock Market Crash!
Those economists said that the National Debt would rise by 4.5 trillion $s as Tax Cuts for the .1% while increasing inflation by $2000 per household a year by the added tariff fees!
Yes, this is how sadistic autocrats operate.
Amen.
We still have the same challenge though...if Agent Orange and Space Karen torpedo the economy, but podcasts and influencers and foreign-run bots and trolls tell people that Biden and his army of kale-eating anti-Israel trans athletes are responsible, then it doesn't matter what actually happened.
The Dems need to speak up and out in every way possible, calling these traitors out for what they are. Their unwillingness to fight like the nation and democracy are at risk is why the crazy messages are so powerful to millions throughout the country. In the complete absence of truth, insanity and lies are driving the narrative.
That's my new nickname for President elon! #spacekaren! Bless you for the laughter we all desperately need to survive the next month or so before It dies.
We keep moving towards the middle when we must take a stand and fight back, dirty if nessasary, I don't like it either but our choices are evaporating quickly.
Isn’t it time for a bipartisan movement yet? A lot of people who voted for him have already gotten hurt. Surely people can see that this has nothing to do with fraud, abuse and waste! They didn’t have a chance to even look around. Muskrat’s tribe is performing vandalism, not streamlining. The destruction has to be costing us billions, not to mention all of the broken relationships and isolation. Shouldn’t we be standing up for Ukraine, NATO, Canada, Mexico and against Putin? What could be more important? Most of us don’t want what they are selling!
Excellent! Yes! ... "crazy messages" are all that they are hearing... stop the identity politics stuff .... geeze louise ...
The orange man's house of cards is falling down! His republican sycophants, the musk-rat, his completely bonkers cabinet members and the orange smear are responsible for what is happening right now. I swear, if one person even slightly suggests that Democrats, President Biden or liberals are to blame, I will forget my upbringing and punch 'em right in the face! It took seven weeks for the orange man to completely destroy our country! He is a treasonous traitor and I want with all my heart to see him impeached, arrested and thrown in solitary confinement on Gitmo for the rest of his miserable life! That goes for all of his sick traitorous buddies as well! Enough is enough! All of you rich POSs better take note. There is nothing that will enrage an American citizen as much as when they can't feed their family and have no means to feed them in the future! Y'all sit up there in your glorified castles whining and complaining how you can't get good help. Calling Americans lazy and trying to live off the government. You are just as much to blame for this crap as the orange man and his cronies!
The sad part is that so many voters still apparently buy the bullshit emanating from the White House. Like a clogged toilet, the crap is permeating the whole house
I know, R. Hodsdon! Frankly, I am so sick of the smell!
PITCHFORKS! SHARPEN! NOW!
"It took seven weeks for the orange man to completely destroy our country!"
No. The destruction is not yet complete. Many of us still have a stake in the USA. It's the real money we deposited in the Social Security system.
If the POF (Pack of Fools) steal that stake it will be just a rotting piece of wood laying on the ground waiting for the rain.
At first glance I thought you meant POS (piece of shite), referring to The Don, JD or Elon . But on rereading your comment I realized that you are more polite than I feel on a Monday.
I do want more of a punishment than that for Trump.
What are you envisioning as more punishment, Camille?
How much time do you have? My list is long. It's not very lady like either.
I do hope I live long enough to see his demise and piss on his grave. Maybe not, I've heard he likes that.
It wouldn't suck if all his assets were frozen and paid to the people who he fired,wronged and harmed either just before he goes. Nothing to leave behind to his useless offspring.
I like your thinking, Camille!
“A cheap and chippy chopper on a big, black block” comes to mind.
Well said, Peggy!!!
I'm saving your comments!
The morning before the election I posted the following on selected replies to two Joe Rogan interviews with J.D. Vance and John Fetterman. Once I got thrown off that site for 'spamming' I moved on to Robert Reich and Micheal Moore's sites, finishing the night on the Republican Voters Against Trump's Facebook page:
Thom Hartmann 11-1-24
America’s billionaires would love to have a recession, particularly a really severe one.
In a recent “town hall,” billionaire Elon Musk acknowledged what 23 Nobel Prize-winning economists across the country have predicted: If Trump is elected and he and Elon undertake their project to gut government spending, it will provoke a severe recession.
Thom goes on to give the reason Why Billionaires Would Actively Force A Stock Market Crash: Buy Cheap, Sell High. It won't be a mere recession, it will be a full blown Depression that can only Begin to End when another Democrat Enters Their Office As President on January 20 2029, one hundred years after the 1929 Stock Market Crash!
Those economists said that the National Debt would rise by 4.5 trillion $s as Tax Cuts for the .1% while increasing inflation by $2000 per household a year by the added tariff fees!
It has formally transitioned to a TrumpCession.
Every time the market tries to claw its way back - he throws more at the economy (more trade threats, wild statements and executive actions all seemingly designed to destabilize the US) - it's almost like he's deliberately trying to tank it.
Trumpcession..good word for it! How's it going for ya, maga?
Reading comments on other websites .... there are a heck of a lot of hate filled, raging, cruel fascists out there supporting Cheeto ....
Yep I see them at the WSJ. Although most of them are avoiding the articles about tariffs.
duh! "it's almost like he's deliberately trying to tank it". duh!
The morning before the election I posted the following on selected replies to two Joe Rogan interviews with J.D. Vance and John Fetterman. Once I got thrown off that site for 'spamming' I moved on to Robert Reich and Micheal Moore's sites, finishing the night on the Republican Voters Against Trump's Facebook page:
Thom Hartmann 11-1-24
America’s billionaires would love to have a recession, particularly a really severe one.
In a recent “town hall,” billionaire Elon Musk acknowledged what 23 Nobel Prize-winning economists across the country have predicted: If Trump is elected and he and Elon undertake their project to gut government spending, it will provoke a severe recession.
Thom goes on to give the reason Why Billionaires Would Actively Force A Stock Market Crash: Buy Cheap, Sell High. It won't be a mere recession, it will be a full blown Depression that can only Begin to End when another Democrat Enters Their Office As President on January 20 2029, one hundred years after the 1929 Stock Market Crash!
Those economists said that the National Debt would rise by 4.5 trillion $s as Tax Cuts for the .1% while increasing inflation by $2000 per household a year by the added tariff fees!
The province of Ontario has added a 25% charge to the electricity it sells to New York, Michigan and Minnesota. People here are furious over the tariffs and threats to annex Canada.
I believe he is trying to destroy America and America’s economy. He and musk are doing it as fast as they can so that they can move to mother Russia, their work for Putin completed.
The morning before the election I posted the following on selected replies to two Joe Rogan interviews with J.D. Vance and John Fetterman. Once I got thrown off that site for 'spamming' I moved on to Robert Reich and Micheal Moore's sites, finishing the night on the Republican Voters Against Trump's Facebook page:
Thom Hartmann 11-1-24
America’s billionaires would love to have a recession, particularly a really severe one.
In a recent “town hall,” billionaire Elon Musk acknowledged what 23 Nobel Prize-winning economists across the country have predicted: If Trump is elected and he and Elon undertake their project to gut government spending, it will provoke a severe recession.
Thom goes on to give the reason Why Billionaires Would Actively Force A Stock Market Crash: Buy Cheap, Sell High. It won't be a mere recession, it will be a full blown Depression that can only Begin to End when another Democrat Enters Their Office As President on January 20 2029, one hundred years after the 1929 Stock Market Crash!
Those economists said that the National Debt would rise by 4.5 trillion $s as Tax Cuts for the .1% while increasing inflation by $2000 per household a year by the added tariff fees!
The entire issue needs to be simplified. It is theft. They are trying to steal all the money. That is what Oligarchs do. Steal all the money. Welcome to the Kakistocracy.
The morning before the election I posted the following on selected replies to two Joe Rogan interviews with J.D. Vance and John Fetterman. Once I got thrown off that site for 'spamming' I moved on to Robert Reich and Micheal Moore's sites, finishing the night on the Republican Voters Against Trump's Facebook page:
Thom Hartmann 11-1-24
America’s billionaires would love to have a recession, particularly a really severe one.
In a recent “town hall,” billionaire Elon Musk acknowledged what 23 Nobel Prize-winning economists across the country have predicted: If Trump is elected and he and Elon undertake their project to gut government spending, it will provoke a severe recession.
Thom goes on to give the reason Why Billionaires Would Actively Force A Stock Market Crash: Buy Cheap, Sell High. It won't be a mere recession, it will be a full blown Depression that can only Begin to End when another Democrat Enters Their Office As President on January 20 2029, one hundred years after the 1929 Stock Market Crash!
Those economists said that the National Debt would rise by 4.5 trillion $s as Tax Cuts for the .1% while increasing inflation by $2000 per household a year by the added tariff fees!
Coming to grips with Russia’s agenda and their talking points. Those now emanate from the seat of U.S. power, the White House. Our President acts very suspiciously. Is he fully compromised? Things were clear in my mind, as I wrote in this post. I have little doubt. https://bit.ly/4heWKvb
I've been feeling the same way. This feels like an invasion from within. Fully compromised fits. Many of us in New England want to join Canada as its newest province.
Please intrude professor. I guess we need to watch our 401k’s drop and take the pain for the sake of democracy, as part of our patriotic duty. Aside from us and the lawyers, it looks like we may have the stock market to be a bulwark against Trump.
I moved out of the market into cash reserves 2 weeks ago..the heck with riding the ups & downs when the sled is driven by MeMeMe boy.
I just started a 401k for the first time in my life. Wondering why I did that! Hoping for some security in turbulent times but who can afford to lose their principal now? I might do as you have. I can't afford more ups and downs.
In the 1980s companies - mine did - nixed pensions and went with the 401K.... Biggest scam ever ... trusting retirement $ in stock market ... I was the only one in my whole company that kept the pension option ... management annoyed . Today.... glad I did that. Dems. paved the way for what is happening today - e.g. Clinton's repeal of Glass Steagall ... for one ...
Right on!
I'm with Vanguard...they have 2 or 3 cash reserve offerings that pay interest the 3.7-4 % range. (No I don't work for them). Any of the big funds would offer some. Good luck, and good luck to us!
Vanguard is too pricey IMHO.
I am famliar with Vanguard, just haven't gone to them yet. Might be the right time! :P Thanks, Marilyn.
Vs prices on products are too costly, you can do better elsewhere. Shop around. Best wishes.
Good time, IMHO. Check for any fees, costs, etc.
I sold out of the market last September so I sleep better!
This feels like a bloodless invasion? I mean this seriously. We must stop just talking to and among ourselves. All this destruction from within feels much more than disconcerting. What's really going on here. Where's Congress? Fear of retribution can't be the only reason we're hearing almost nothing. What gives?
I remember a few months back, I think it was snakebannon?, said we will take over this country. It will be bloodless if the Dems allow it..... well, Screw you
Marilyn, you might also be thinking about Christo fascist Russell Vought, Drump's director of the Office of Management and Budget and head of Project 2025. He once claimed that all of us sheep might not be destroyed by the rethugs if we didn't resist.
May be... one of gargantuans!
I agree ... this is a fascist coup from within .... and EVERY single institution in this country has been taken over by ... as it turns out .... Nazis ... including the illegitimate scotus ... CORRUPT, rightwing nuts, hand maiden, grifters, sexual predators, corrupt to the core, right wing nuts married to January 6 terrorist sympathizer... their tortured opinions sound like word salad ... TRYING to sound erudite while justifying their ruling basically giving Cheeto the permission to do whatever he wanted to. Why didn't Biden DO SOMETHING like that before he left? Epitome of arrogance ....
The Trump slump will only matter when it touches the wealth and status of the oligrachic plutocrats that own Trump and the Republican party (includes the technocrats of course), the base will gladly bear the pain so long as they believe that they have owned the libs, the trans, the migrants, the atheists and people of color.
Trump has pulled off a self coup: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-coup#:~:text=A%20self%2Dcoup%2C%20also%20called,of%20themselves%20or%20their%20supporters.
And the only way to right the ship of state is with a counter coup, and it takes resources, money, power to pull off a counter coup. And until those that marched us into the dismal swamp feel the pain that we are feeling, nothing will happen.
Any elections from now on will be charades. We've been living in a Kabuki theater world.
There are at best 8 Democratic politicians that aren't corrupted or intimidated into silence or compliance. Four off the top of my head,Al Green, AOC, Sen Merkley, Sen Chris Murphy.
Don't forget Jasmine Crockett
Like I told Dennis above. Off the top of my head I couldn't think of all reps and senators with spines and who are patriots above their need for self service.
Let's create a List
Jasmine Crockett
Tammy Baldwin
Chris Murphy
Jeff Merkley
Anastaia Ocasio Cortez
Al Green
To get on the list they have to be forceful, unwavering and out front.
Ilhan, Pressley, Jamie Raskin......
Glad to see Jeff Merkley on your list William. He is underrated.
Mos def underrated.
I nominate the Drump-thumping antifascist Bernie 'Bernardo Sandrini', the arch nemesis of Orange Menace. The drumpist congressman from my district in Wisconsin, Bryan Steil today claimed that Bernie is on a fear-mongering campaign to discredit Drump.
And Only one Senator i can think of: Bernie Sanders
Tammy Baldwin and Chris Murphy
And Ilhan and Pressley, and Jamie Raskin
William, I will go with Sen. Tammy Baldwin (D-WI), an advocate for workers', LGBTQ, immigrants', and women's rights and for UW federal research grants as well. Damn her counterpart the seditious Sen. Ron Johnson to hell for lining up with drump, mukz, wanze and their cadre to oppose all these things and more.
Here is my list to date:
Al Green
AOC
Chris Murphy
Jeff Merkley
Tammy Baldwin
Jasmine Crockett
Ilah
Pressley
Holding off on Jamie Raskin, he needs to do more than pop up on MSNBC, he needs to be in front leading the charge
is my list to date:
Yep, there are more. I just couldn't name them off the top of my head. Maybe start keeping a list of Reps and Senates that have spines and are true patriots.
The morning before the election I posted the following on selected replies to two Joe Rogan interviews with J.D. Vance and John Fetterman. Once I got thrown off that site for 'spamming' I moved on to Robert Reich and Micheal Moore's sites, finishing the night on the Republican Voters Against Trump's Facebook page:
Thom Hartmann 11-1-24
America’s billionaires would love to have a recession, particularly a really severe one.
In a recent “town hall,” billionaire Elon Musk acknowledged what 23 Nobel Prize-winning economists across the country have predicted: If Trump is elected and he and Elon undertake their project to gut government spending, it will provoke a severe recession.
Thom goes on to give the reason Why Billionaires Would Actively Force A Stock Market Crash: Buy Cheap, Sell High. It won't be a mere recession, it will be a full blown Depression that can only Begin to End when another Democrat Enters Their Office As President on January 20 2029, one hundred years after the 1929 Stock Market Crash!
Those economists said that the National Debt would rise by 4.5 trillion $s as Tax Cuts for the .1% while increasing inflation by $2000 per household a year by the added tariff fees!
Prescient.
Musk has one overarching goal, and has had the goal since childhood, and that is to The Elon of Mars, everything he does is done with that one obsession in mind.
I think that he sees America as some kind of cornucopia that runs on automatic, and that it's output should be directed away for social good, the purpose that government was formed in the first place (the common weal) and towards his goal of being The Elon on Mars.
In his mind money spent on USAID, Social programs, defense, infrastructure is being diverted from Project Mars.
Trump is of the same mind, but his need is for public adulation, to be the son of god, have all men bow before him, he doesn't care about Mars and probably would like to see Musk take off for Mars as soon as he has done his job on Earth.
Will, you might recall that you were the first one who I posted the above to after hearing about Musk's gizmo that saves households $2000 a year. So opened a $10,000 Schwab option account a week before the inauguration. However it took over that time to get it approved so never bought puts on electric utility companies.Which was fine because also never saw a word about Musk's announcement.
After the market rebounded from the first tariff scare, I decided to to buy $1000 worth of puts on SPX. Practically spent an hour talking to a broker who ended up telling me that Schwab had Cancelled My Account! Broke my hand two weeks ago and the day after I paid a $2660 Doctor bill I received a 'no insurance discounted' $6110 Hospital bill along with that $10,000 check from fucking Schwab!! Of course no word on Why my account was cancelled, but likely it was because I told everybody that Musk agreed with 23 economists that a Crash was the Point of Trusk's Election!! The Corruption Index is now officially exponentially off the charts.
Sorry I don't recall your posting. I have a Masters in Finance and Accounting. My son, who is now almost eligible for Social Security, once asked me for investment advice. I told him, that I lack inside information and playing the stock market is the same as pulling the handle on one armed bandit.
Today they have sophisticated computer models, that initiate trades at the speed of light, and still money is lost.
BTW I like the blend of Musk and Trump into Trusk, I will use that from now on, a lot handier than typing Musk and Trump.
To Robert Reich: For sharing your insights more than once in a day, no apology is necessary. The turmoil of recent current events causes so much worry and stress, your mid-day message, on any day, helps to allay some intensity of the anxiety we are feeling. You are more than welcome to add your messages to my email any time. Thank you for what you do!
Robert, your intrusions on my Inbox are welcome!
The autocratic strategy is to bankrupt America and buy it back with cryptocurrency, the new reserve currency of the world. That might sound crazy, but it makes sense. I never read 2025, but I bet it is in there.
Crypto, used by criminals and money launderers.
This is what it will take, most likely, to knock some sense into the people that voted for this idiot!🤬
Hm. I think most Trumpers are not deep into the markets.
The morning before the election I posted the following on selected replies to two Joe Rogan interviews with J.D. Vance and John Fetterman. Once I got thrown off that site for 'spamming' I moved on to Robert Reich and Micheal Moore's sites, finishing the night on the Republican Voters Against Trump's Facebook page:
Thom Hartmann 11-1-24
America’s billionaires would love to have a recession, particularly a really severe one.
In a recent “town hall,” billionaire Elon Musk acknowledged what 23 Nobel Prize-winning economists across the country have predicted: If Trump is elected and he and Elon undertake their project to gut government spending, it will provoke a severe recession.
Thom goes on to give the reason Why Billionaires Would Actively Force A Stock Market Crash: Buy Cheap, Sell High. It won't be a mere recession, it will be a full blown Depression that can only Begin to End when another Democrat Enters Their Office As President on January 20 2029, one hundred years after the 1929 Stock Market Crash!
Those economists said that the National Debt would rise by 4.5 trillion $s as Tax Cuts for the .1% while increasing inflation by $2000 per household a year by the added tariff fees!
Uncle Joe Biden had an industrial plan that included infrastructure development, onshoring, and expansion of green energy. As usual, Drumpf offers chaos.
The morning before the election I posted the following on selected replies to two Joe Rogan interviews with J.D. Vance and John Fetterman. Once I got thrown off that site for 'spamming' I moved on to Robert Reich and Micheal Moore's sites, finishing the night on the Republican Voters Against Trump's Facebook page:
Thom Hartmann 11-1-24
America’s billionaires would love to have a recession, particularly a really severe one.
In a recent “town hall,” billionaire Elon Musk acknowledged what 23 Nobel Prize-winning economists across the country have predicted: If Trump is elected and he and Elon undertake their project to gut government spending, it will provoke a severe recession.
Thom goes on to give the reason Why Billionaires Would Actively Force A Stock Market Crash: Buy Cheap, Sell High. It won't be a mere recession, it will be a full blown Depression that can only Begin to End when another Democrat Enters Their Office As President on January 20 2029, one hundred years after the 1929 Stock Market Crash!
Those economists said that the National Debt would rise by 4.5 trillion $s as Tax Cuts for the .1% while increasing inflation by $2000 per household a year by the added tariff fees!
I cannot stand Trump and all he stands for. I never have, and I never will. He has sold America and the American Dream down river to enrich himself at the expense of everyone else on the planet. It is beyond disgusting. And to see the "richest man in the world", Mr. Musk, stealing from the old and young to make himself richer still gags me in ways I find difficult to describe. I continue to write postcards and email my representatives. Can we fire this bunch of crooks who are so good at firing everyone else? I don't know, but I wish I did. Onward.
The morning before the election I posted the following on selected replies to two Joe Rogan interviews with J.D. Vance and John Fetterman. Once I got thrown off that site for 'spamming' I moved on to Robert Reich and Micheal Moore's sites, finishing the night on the Republican Voters Against Trump's Facebook page:
Thom Hartmann 11-1-24
America’s billionaires would love to have a recession, particularly a really severe one.
In a recent “town hall,” billionaire Elon Musk acknowledged what 23 Nobel Prize-winning economists across the country have predicted: If Trump is elected and he and Elon undertake their project to gut government spending, it will provoke a severe recession.
Thom goes on to give the reason Why Billionaires Would Actively Force A Stock Market Crash: Buy Cheap, Sell High. It won't be a mere recession, it will be a full blown Depression that can only Begin to End when another Democrat Enters Their Office As President on January 20 2029, one hundred years after the 1929 Stock Market Crash!
Those economists said that the National Debt would rise by 4.5 trillion $s as Tax Cuts for the .1% while increasing inflation by $2000 per household a year by the added tariff fees!