The TACO

The TACO meme is so perfect. Because Trump, as all bullies do, does chicken out. A lot! And not just to China and the tariffs.

The latest news on tariffs is Trump’s threat on Russia. Trump announced Russia will face 100% “secondary” tariffs if there isn’t a ceasefire deal between the country and Ukraine in 50 days. “We want to see it end, and I’m disappointed in President Putin because I thought we would’ve had a deal two months ago but it doesn’t seem to get there.” 

Other recent threats include a 50% tariff on Brazil for the trial against its former president. Mr. Trump’s pledge to place tariffs on imports from Brazil is partly in retaliation for what he considers a “witch hunt” against his political ally, the former Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro, who is facing trial for attempting a coup.

It should be obvious that Trump sees tariffs as his best way to influence world order. He doesn’t see his method as chickening out. He sees his threats of getting his way as success.

Is History Repeating itself?

In March 1933, the Enabling Act became law in Germany, granting the chief executive the power to enact laws without legislative oversight, effectively dismantling the system of checks and balances.

This pivotal legislation marked the transition from a democratic republic to a totalitarian dictatorship.

By September of that year, Germany had become a one-party state, consolidating the power of the Nazi regime and eliminating political opposition.

During the liquidation of the ghettos starting in 1942, trains were used to transport the condemned populations to death camps. To implement the “Final Solution”, the Nazis made the Deutsche Reichsbahn an indispensable element of the mass extermination machine, wrote historian Raul Hilberg.

Today masked immigration agents are taking unwanted immigrants to detention facilities.

Does any of that history remind anyone of what is happening in the United States today?

During the liquidation of the ghettos starting in 1942, trains were used to transport the condemned populations to death camps. To implement the “Final Solution”, the Nazis made the Deutsche Reichsbahn an indispensable element of the mass extermination machine, wrote historian Raul Hilberg.

Today masked immigration agents are taking unwanted immigrants to detention facilities.

Flag Day is Sad Day!

Today is Flag Day but it has turned into Sad Day as the president has an Army Parade, people are demonstrating calling this No Kings Day, and thousands of Hispanics have fear of arrest and deportation.

The lawn was not cut. I called the gardener. His wife said he feared for arrest and told me he is in hiding.

Hotel workers, restaurant workers, farm workers and many other groups are living in fear.

This is one Flag Day we will never forget.

Mr. Trump: History is not on your side and neither is Los Angeles.

Copied from today’s Los Angeles Times. This is a beautifully written article.

I’ve lived in Los Angeles long enough to know that this city weathers fire, quake and fury and still manages to bloom. We grow food in our backyards, paint our pain on walls and find beauty in the struggle. But right now, there’s a pressure in the air thicker than smog, a national fear winding through our streets, and its name is Donald Trump (“National Guard arrives in Los Angeles as fallout from immigration raids continues,” June 8).

The helicopters overhead aren’t just news choppers anymore. They’re echoes of something ancient and dangerous: Fascism rising on American soil. I never thought I’d say this in my lifetime, but we’re watching a man try to bring down a republic with the smug grin of a game show host who already knows the final answer.

President Trump, you can stop now. Turn on your TV. Watch what you’ve done. You will not be remembered as a patriot. You will not be remembered as a liberator. You will be remembered as the worst leader this country has ever produced. A divider. A destroyer.

We write, we paint, we protest and we plant seeds of hope in cracked concrete. But we are exhausted. We need moral leadership, not messianic delusion. What do we tell our children when their leaders praise dictators, vilify the press and mock the weak? That chaos is power? That empathy is weakness?

Mr. Trump: History is not on your side and neither is Los Angeles.

Patsy Pitts, South Los Angeles

Three and a half years to go!

President Theodore Roosevelt said “To announce that there must be no criticism of the president, or that we are to stand by the president, right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public.”

In merely four months Donald Trump has turned the United States from a functioning democracy into a country on the edge of a fascist dictatorship.

The following reports I found on the internet from reliable news sources confirm what my beliefs.                    

The courts including the Supreme Court have given the power for Donald Trump to do as he wishes. The Supreme Court has ruled that President Trump is at least presumptively immune from criminal liability for his official acts, and is absolutely immune for some “core” of them — including his attempts to use the Justice Department to obstruct the results of an election.

Since late February, President Trump has used the power of the presidency to punish law firms that he accuses of weaponizing the justice system and undermining the national interest, part of his promised campaign of vengeance against his perceived political enemies.

Donald Trump expanded on his threats to the media suggesting actions of the press should be deemed illegal and subject to investigation.

“I believe that CNN and MS-DNC, who literally write 97.6% bad about me, are political arms of the Democrat [sic] party and in my opinion, they’re really corrupt and they’re illegal, what do they do is illegal,” the president said during a contentious speech at the Department of Justice.

The Trump administration is seeking to exert extraordinary influence over American universities by withholding the kind of federal financial support that has flowed to campuses for decades. His claim it’s all about anti-semitism. His initial attack is on Harvard, a private university. But it has been expanded.

So far, seven universities have been singled out for punitive funding cuts or have been explicitly notified that their funding is in serious jeopardy. They are:

Now Trump is planning attacks on California universities who chose not to follow his directions.

Now Trump is planning to stop California’s environmental regulations.

What will Trump do next? I do not know. With more than 3 1/2 (three and a half years of his term to go it will be a bumpy ride.

President Trump’s Attack on the Media reads as an attack on Free Speech

Donald Trump’s attack on the media are the acts pf a dictator. The following reports on his actions support this contention

The top executive in charge of CBS News resigned on Monday amid President Trump’s intensifying political pressure against the news operation.

Donald Trump attacked ABC News the network hosting the debate for being unfair to him.

The president has prevented The Associated Press from entering the Oval Office while his FCC goes after other media outlets. 

Media watchdogs and other journalists have already accused some of the country’s most respected news outlets of bending to Trump’s will.  Bowing to pressure by Donald Trump both the Washington Post and the Los Angeles Times owners stopped their endorsements of Kamala Harris. Both NPR and PBS are under pressure to change their reporting on the White House.

Before the election, The Washington Post and the Los Angeles Times were harshly criticized for shelving their planned endorsements of Harris for president. 

After the election, ABC agreed to pay $15 million as part of a legal settlement with Trump and put to bed a dispute that centered on an interview in which, Trump alleged, anchor George Stephanopoulos defamed him. 

On Jan. 31, the Defense Department announced that it was instituting a new “annual media rotation program” and dislodged several news outlets, including NBC News, from their Pentagon office spaces.

We are on the way to a dictatorship.