From Caesar's denarius to Trump's meme coin, the message is always the same: "I am the state and you damn well better both fear me and pay me tribute!"
I'm amazed that it could take 927 pages to describe anyone's wealth, when most of us could summarize our estates on a postcard--on one side. I'm more astonished than sorry that so many people could be drawn into buying a thing of no value--both Trump and his meme coin.
My thoughts on all this crypto and other BS are that if I can't go to the bank and take it out of my account and hold it in my hand, it doesn't exist, and I want no part of it. As for anything with Trump and his family, they are all liars and cheats. If you are dumb enough to trust people with a record like that, you deserve what you get.
There is the dream that if you give money to Gawd, it will come back to you many-fold. My poor cousin gives money to Joel Osteen. She thinks she'll get rich. Better off buying lottery tickets.
Looks like TRump finally made it over his rainbow. Bet he thinks his bankruptcy days are over but is trying to figure out how to take it with him. We're not just speaking about the great beyond.
Donold has to be scoping-out bunkers, islands and foreign nations without extradition to here or the Hague. What would be really funny, if we can't claw back that money for the victims of his many crimes, is if someone in the investment or banking world steals it from him and the TRump Syndicate.
Great history lesson, Thom. We know exactly what to do with his image. See you in the streets.
While experience is the best teacher, history is definitely running a close second. These history lessons are invaluable and late in coming for so many of us. I am angry that so little history reaches students, and that students are not given the love and appreciation for history they would otherwise have because of the emphasis on academic trivia, inculcation into the rat race and the capitalistic competition, and the need to control thoughts and actions by authorities to maintain power. If we had more truthful and accurate history, we would not be reliant on pedantic civics lessons and lectures.
With Congress having handed POSOTUS the checkbook, and SCOTUS giving him essentially free reign, it’s hardly surprising he feels empowered to foul the currency with his revolting visage. We’ve paid for demolition of the East Wing, may soon be paying for its replacement with the Epstein Ballroom. We’ve paid to upgrade an illegally-received gift of a 747 he somehow is permitted to keep if he ever leaves the presidency. His glowering image can be unavoidably seen in photos large and small in building across D.C. and VA facilities everywhere. If you are an elected or appointed Repugnican, and your name isn’t Thomas Massie, you may thank yourself for this disgusting, alarming, anti-American turn of events.
So are the Republican members of Congress deaf, dumb and blind or just totally illiterate. or hoping that he will last long enough so that they can get in on the scam on the American people and rake some for themselves--why are their colleagues not calling them out in public?
Unfortunately a lot of his MAGA followers won't believe what he did. Or they will think he is, as he said when debating Clinton about paying little tax, a "Smart businessman". But just one clarification, the Trump gold coin does not yet exist, though there are fantasy pieces, appropriately in base metal. It takes time to design, engrave and mint a new issue. His illegible signature is appearing on new $100 bills though, and eventually that will be on other currency.
And just to preclude a little confusion, actually there is no law against putting a living person on a coin, though George Washington refused to have his on the dollar, saying it was what kings did. While they were alive half a dozen men and women have been on non-circulating commemorative issues. Some of these were half dollars in the 1920s and '30s, and Eunice Shriver and Nancy Reagan (though she died before it was released) on more recent and higher valued coins.
What is illegal is to do this on currency (bills) or federal securities, though I suspect Trump will try to get an exemption. But postage stamps are technically allowed. As I've mentioned here before, Hitler copyrighted his face and collected a little each time a Third Reich stamp with it was sold. If Trump stays in office it’s another scam we could well see. Putting your mark everywhere is what dogs do, and very insecure people.
Well, let's face it, the American Senate, where every (Republican) member is terrified of, and would never criticize or deny Trump, is very much like the Roman Senate, where almost every member who criticized or denied Caesar had to watch his back and was always scheming, with every other senator, to enhance his own position, and conspire with other members (seldom alone) to take out any leader who had achieved too much power. Caesar's slayer, Brutus, had always admired Caesar, who was his widowed mother's lover, but could not put up with the conqueror's king-like ways.
Well that is true, but in time the Senate became a bureaucracy bending to the emperor’s will. Augustus brought peace but took away their power, and with good reason they were later terrified of Caligula and Nero. The other early rulers were a bit more subtle and saner. As I’m sure you know, for two centuries the emperors pretended that they were merely the “First among equals” in the dead republic’s Senate, and things usually worked. But Trump seems to want to skip to the latter empire when the mask came off and the rulers modeled themselves on Persian and Egyptian despots. By that point nobody was talking about reestablishing anything like the republic. In fact, go forward to near the end of the empire in the 5th century and the few writers who pointed out how things were falling apart were at most politely applauded for their “creative” ideas. Nobody wanted to hear bad news, or had any idea how to turn things around, and the Senate was irrelevant.
The question is how, not when, do we begin gutting our Republican traitors; our only real weapon is the truth, which if applied often and continuously, and at the right times, might illuminate the dark recesses of some cobwebbed minds. We must raise our voices (and letters and contributions) to a raucous tumult that cannot be ignored.
With continued declining polling numbers it's abundantly clear that the Nazi Republicans are now just trying to mitigate a poor election outcome into becoming a massive tsunami disaster.
In every category which ever way one looks at it, giving $$ to the wealthy and increasing the wealth gap in this country meanwhile taking a sledgehammer to the social safety net, is not going to be a winning proposition for the Nazis.
WE the People are angry that policies not making average working American's lives better(BTW that's what the federal government is supposed to do) and being lied to by Der Fuhrer so he can destroy our government and stay out of jail, needs to have a electoral reckoning.
But WE need to mobilize and decimate this fascist movement. WE need to talk to our friends, neighbors, family, and to anyone who will listen to US that WE can begin to collectively take our country back in the upcoming midterms in November. If one wants to join like minded souls, join a local Indivisible group to lend more power to your voice. This is an all hands on deck moment.
November cannot come soon enough. Whatever it may tell us. We need to know if we are going to reclaim our heritage, or self-consign ourselves to the ash heap of history.
Only reigning monarchs have their own images on their money. Other countries use images of national features or former dead leaders, like we have done always. This use by Trump is blatantly monarchist. NO KINGS FOR THE U.S.A.!
This is a brilliant piece, Thom, and you paint a devastatingly accurate portrait of where we are right now as a country.
I personally am in a real quandary, because there’s also so much going on in the Democratic Party, in which I’ve been registered since I was 18, (and I’m turning 60 in two weeks), that frankly, disgusts me. It has to do with the increasingly anti-Israel, “Pro”-Palestinian wing of the party. I feel very lost right now, politically, and I feel like I don’t have a political home. So until the Democratic Party can assure me that I, an American Jew, am safe in the country of my birth, I honestly don’t know if I’m going to continue to be a registered Democrat. Certainly not while Israel is being vilified, and is seen as the sole cause of all of the troubles vis a vis Palestinians. Trump is repulsive, as are all his sick sycophants. But I’m utterly not thrilled by Mamdani either, and he’s increasingly becoming the face of the Democratic Party. This puts me in a quandary, and I know that I’m not the only one who feels this way.
Mitzi, you are not alone. There are many crazy loons. Too many to mention here, but immigrants and transgenders are not the only group under attack. Jews all over the world are now the main targets. Barely a week goes by without summations of record or near-record levels of antisemitism — attacks, incidents, rhetoric — in Germany, in Canada, Australia, the United States, Britain, France, Italy, Belgium… the list goes on. A banner stating ABOLISH ISRAEl has gone viral.
Eadie, I'm so grateful for your response to my post. I'm learning that I have to be honest and upfront with my feelings and beliefs. I will do everything I can to make sure that Trump's billionaire cronies do not take the reigns of power when (if?!?!?!?!?!????) he leaves office. But there's a lot of Dems I would not vote for at this point, either. I may change my party affiliation to Independent; I need to see what makes the most sense for someone like me, who lives in California. And if I'm going to make any changes to my voter registration, I want to do it sooner rather than later, and not wait until it's too close to the midterms in November.
Yeah, I would be almost 10 on the leftist scale (as Antifa as they come,) but am uncomfortable with a couple of Democratic positions, that of having women with mens' bodies competing against women, and Israel alone being held responsible for the problems in Gaza; Hamas and Hezbollah are both sworn (since the UN mandate of '47) to drive all Israeli Jews into the sea, while the Israelis have no such commitment, except to defend themselves. If Hamas and Hezbollah really want to save the lives (more than they want power) of their captive subjects - which is doubtful - they would unconditionally surrender, as did Japan and Germany in WW II...and see how prosperous they have been ever since.
Richard, I couldn't agree with you more on both these points. I have nothing against trans people, at all. I don't know if anyone has noticed this, but there is a WNBA, and an NBA. There are men's baseball teams, and women's baseball teams. The two don't intermingle. If a woman were to play on a men's football team, the likelihood is that she'd get killed, not because the men are trying to kill her (I hope!), but because her strength would in all likelihood not come close to that of the men's. If trans men want to form their own sports teams, and if trans women want to form their own sports teams, I'll buy tickets and come cheer them on, just like I do with the Dodgers. To me this is not about discrimination. This issue is about the fact that people born with men's bodies tend to be stronger than people born in women's bodies. Just because one identifies with a gender that doesn't match their body, that body will still tend to behave in the way it developed in utero - either as a male body, or as a female body.
Re: You're understanding of Israel alone being held responsible for the problems in Gaza, the West Bank, Southern Lebanon, etc.: YES. AMEN, BROTHER! Radical Islamic Jihadists have made no bones, long before Israel became a state in 1948, that they would do anything to get rid of this one swath of land that the Jews, from the beginning, were willing to share and partition into a Palestinian State and a Jewish State. The Arabs said NO every, single, time. Your final sentence is spot on: "If Hamas and Hezbollah really want to save the lives (more than they want power) of their captive subjects - which is doubtful - they would unconditionally surrender, as did Japan and Germany in WW II". I can't say it better than you.
I'm in the process of renewing my passport. I was sick thinking that Stinky's picture would be on it. Can't deface it. But I was glad to find out that that is a limited edition passport. Anybody who gets that will be branded for 10 years.
Hello everyone. Thank for your positive responses to my comment. Does anyone have any answers to my questions? I am at a complete loss to understand what is NOT going on! How can anyone wha cares about our country not be doing everything to put a halt to the damage already inflicted and sure to continue?
Congress is no longer a viable branch of government….mostly, how will the senators and representatives even live with themselves and what will they say to their grandchildren.
This is like living each day sleeping through a very bad nightmare. Truth is indeed stranger than fiction could ever be be….
I was listening to your radio program yesterday and you had a gentleman on talking about Trump's 40 year relationship with Russia, Putin and how the Russians bailed out Trump's bad business failures. Can you tell me the guest name and did he write a book about what he was talking about.
I'm amazed that it could take 927 pages to describe anyone's wealth, when most of us could summarize our estates on a postcard--on one side. I'm more astonished than sorry that so many people could be drawn into buying a thing of no value--both Trump and his meme coin.
I am amazed at citizens not gutting our enemies the republican traitors
My thoughts on all this crypto and other BS are that if I can't go to the bank and take it out of my account and hold it in my hand, it doesn't exist, and I want no part of it. As for anything with Trump and his family, they are all liars and cheats. If you are dumb enough to trust people with a record like that, you deserve what you get.
Good to remember PT Barnum.
There is the dream that if you give money to Gawd, it will come back to you many-fold. My poor cousin gives money to Joel Osteen. She thinks she'll get rich. Better off buying lottery tickets.
Looks like TRump finally made it over his rainbow. Bet he thinks his bankruptcy days are over but is trying to figure out how to take it with him. We're not just speaking about the great beyond.
Donold has to be scoping-out bunkers, islands and foreign nations without extradition to here or the Hague. What would be really funny, if we can't claw back that money for the victims of his many crimes, is if someone in the investment or banking world steals it from him and the TRump Syndicate.
Great history lesson, Thom. We know exactly what to do with his image. See you in the streets.
While experience is the best teacher, history is definitely running a close second. These history lessons are invaluable and late in coming for so many of us. I am angry that so little history reaches students, and that students are not given the love and appreciation for history they would otherwise have because of the emphasis on academic trivia, inculcation into the rat race and the capitalistic competition, and the need to control thoughts and actions by authorities to maintain power. If we had more truthful and accurate history, we would not be reliant on pedantic civics lessons and lectures.
With Congress having handed POSOTUS the checkbook, and SCOTUS giving him essentially free reign, it’s hardly surprising he feels empowered to foul the currency with his revolting visage. We’ve paid for demolition of the East Wing, may soon be paying for its replacement with the Epstein Ballroom. We’ve paid to upgrade an illegally-received gift of a 747 he somehow is permitted to keep if he ever leaves the presidency. His glowering image can be unavoidably seen in photos large and small in building across D.C. and VA facilities everywhere. If you are an elected or appointed Repugnican, and your name isn’t Thomas Massie, you may thank yourself for this disgusting, alarming, anti-American turn of events.
So are the Republican members of Congress deaf, dumb and blind or just totally illiterate. or hoping that he will last long enough so that they can get in on the scam on the American people and rake some for themselves--why are their colleagues not calling them out in public?
Is Rome, I mean washington, on fire yet!!?
Republicans are possessed, stuck in a doom loop of Reagan worship:
Reagan’s Eleventh Commandment, "Thou shalt not speak ill of any fellow Republican."
And they’ll do Anything to hold on to power, no matter how stupid or cruel.
“Fools’ names and fools’ faces are always found in public places”
An old proverb meaning "a foolish person reveals themselves by loudly, publicly, or unnecessarily displaying their name, face, or opinions."
Fools’ names — a fool writes their name everywhere: walls, posts, graffiti, signatures, attention‑seeking self‑promotion.
Fools’ faces — a fool shows their face everywhere: inserting themselves into situations, craving visibility, wanting to be seen.
Public places — anywhere visible to everyone: literal walls, figurative public forums, social spaces.
Public self‑branding without substance
Main character syndrome.
#VOTE these AssHoles OUT #SEND Lutnick's sons to Kyiv
So well said!
Unfortunately a lot of his MAGA followers won't believe what he did. Or they will think he is, as he said when debating Clinton about paying little tax, a "Smart businessman". But just one clarification, the Trump gold coin does not yet exist, though there are fantasy pieces, appropriately in base metal. It takes time to design, engrave and mint a new issue. His illegible signature is appearing on new $100 bills though, and eventually that will be on other currency.
And just to preclude a little confusion, actually there is no law against putting a living person on a coin, though George Washington refused to have his on the dollar, saying it was what kings did. While they were alive half a dozen men and women have been on non-circulating commemorative issues. Some of these were half dollars in the 1920s and '30s, and Eunice Shriver and Nancy Reagan (though she died before it was released) on more recent and higher valued coins.
What is illegal is to do this on currency (bills) or federal securities, though I suspect Trump will try to get an exemption. But postage stamps are technically allowed. As I've mentioned here before, Hitler copyrighted his face and collected a little each time a Third Reich stamp with it was sold. If Trump stays in office it’s another scam we could well see. Putting your mark everywhere is what dogs do, and very insecure people.
Well, let's face it, the American Senate, where every (Republican) member is terrified of, and would never criticize or deny Trump, is very much like the Roman Senate, where almost every member who criticized or denied Caesar had to watch his back and was always scheming, with every other senator, to enhance his own position, and conspire with other members (seldom alone) to take out any leader who had achieved too much power. Caesar's slayer, Brutus, had always admired Caesar, who was his widowed mother's lover, but could not put up with the conqueror's king-like ways.
Well that is true, but in time the Senate became a bureaucracy bending to the emperor’s will. Augustus brought peace but took away their power, and with good reason they were later terrified of Caligula and Nero. The other early rulers were a bit more subtle and saner. As I’m sure you know, for two centuries the emperors pretended that they were merely the “First among equals” in the dead republic’s Senate, and things usually worked. But Trump seems to want to skip to the latter empire when the mask came off and the rulers modeled themselves on Persian and Egyptian despots. By that point nobody was talking about reestablishing anything like the republic. In fact, go forward to near the end of the empire in the 5th century and the few writers who pointed out how things were falling apart were at most politely applauded for their “creative” ideas. Nobody wanted to hear bad news, or had any idea how to turn things around, and the Senate was irrelevant.
So when do we begin gutting our republican traitors? I am ready to fight for our country and take out our internal enemies
The question is how, not when, do we begin gutting our Republican traitors; our only real weapon is the truth, which if applied often and continuously, and at the right times, might illuminate the dark recesses of some cobwebbed minds. We must raise our voices (and letters and contributions) to a raucous tumult that cannot be ignored.
I’m gratefully restocking this!
Translating Public Outrage To Voter Turnout
With continued declining polling numbers it's abundantly clear that the Nazi Republicans are now just trying to mitigate a poor election outcome into becoming a massive tsunami disaster.
In every category which ever way one looks at it, giving $$ to the wealthy and increasing the wealth gap in this country meanwhile taking a sledgehammer to the social safety net, is not going to be a winning proposition for the Nazis.
WE the People are angry that policies not making average working American's lives better(BTW that's what the federal government is supposed to do) and being lied to by Der Fuhrer so he can destroy our government and stay out of jail, needs to have a electoral reckoning.
But WE need to mobilize and decimate this fascist movement. WE need to talk to our friends, neighbors, family, and to anyone who will listen to US that WE can begin to collectively take our country back in the upcoming midterms in November. If one wants to join like minded souls, join a local Indivisible group to lend more power to your voice. This is an all hands on deck moment.
I fear and I hope, and you help on both, Thom.
November cannot come soon enough. Whatever it may tell us. We need to know if we are going to reclaim our heritage, or self-consign ourselves to the ash heap of history.
Only reigning monarchs have their own images on their money. Other countries use images of national features or former dead leaders, like we have done always. This use by Trump is blatantly monarchist. NO KINGS FOR THE U.S.A.!
This is a brilliant piece, Thom, and you paint a devastatingly accurate portrait of where we are right now as a country.
I personally am in a real quandary, because there’s also so much going on in the Democratic Party, in which I’ve been registered since I was 18, (and I’m turning 60 in two weeks), that frankly, disgusts me. It has to do with the increasingly anti-Israel, “Pro”-Palestinian wing of the party. I feel very lost right now, politically, and I feel like I don’t have a political home. So until the Democratic Party can assure me that I, an American Jew, am safe in the country of my birth, I honestly don’t know if I’m going to continue to be a registered Democrat. Certainly not while Israel is being vilified, and is seen as the sole cause of all of the troubles vis a vis Palestinians. Trump is repulsive, as are all his sick sycophants. But I’m utterly not thrilled by Mamdani either, and he’s increasingly becoming the face of the Democratic Party. This puts me in a quandary, and I know that I’m not the only one who feels this way.
Mitzi, you are not alone. There are many crazy loons. Too many to mention here, but immigrants and transgenders are not the only group under attack. Jews all over the world are now the main targets. Barely a week goes by without summations of record or near-record levels of antisemitism — attacks, incidents, rhetoric — in Germany, in Canada, Australia, the United States, Britain, France, Italy, Belgium… the list goes on. A banner stating ABOLISH ISRAEl has gone viral.
Eadie, I'm so grateful for your response to my post. I'm learning that I have to be honest and upfront with my feelings and beliefs. I will do everything I can to make sure that Trump's billionaire cronies do not take the reigns of power when (if?!?!?!?!?!????) he leaves office. But there's a lot of Dems I would not vote for at this point, either. I may change my party affiliation to Independent; I need to see what makes the most sense for someone like me, who lives in California. And if I'm going to make any changes to my voter registration, I want to do it sooner rather than later, and not wait until it's too close to the midterms in November.
Yeah, I would be almost 10 on the leftist scale (as Antifa as they come,) but am uncomfortable with a couple of Democratic positions, that of having women with mens' bodies competing against women, and Israel alone being held responsible for the problems in Gaza; Hamas and Hezbollah are both sworn (since the UN mandate of '47) to drive all Israeli Jews into the sea, while the Israelis have no such commitment, except to defend themselves. If Hamas and Hezbollah really want to save the lives (more than they want power) of their captive subjects - which is doubtful - they would unconditionally surrender, as did Japan and Germany in WW II...and see how prosperous they have been ever since.
.
Richard, I couldn't agree with you more on both these points. I have nothing against trans people, at all. I don't know if anyone has noticed this, but there is a WNBA, and an NBA. There are men's baseball teams, and women's baseball teams. The two don't intermingle. If a woman were to play on a men's football team, the likelihood is that she'd get killed, not because the men are trying to kill her (I hope!), but because her strength would in all likelihood not come close to that of the men's. If trans men want to form their own sports teams, and if trans women want to form their own sports teams, I'll buy tickets and come cheer them on, just like I do with the Dodgers. To me this is not about discrimination. This issue is about the fact that people born with men's bodies tend to be stronger than people born in women's bodies. Just because one identifies with a gender that doesn't match their body, that body will still tend to behave in the way it developed in utero - either as a male body, or as a female body.
Re: You're understanding of Israel alone being held responsible for the problems in Gaza, the West Bank, Southern Lebanon, etc.: YES. AMEN, BROTHER! Radical Islamic Jihadists have made no bones, long before Israel became a state in 1948, that they would do anything to get rid of this one swath of land that the Jews, from the beginning, were willing to share and partition into a Palestinian State and a Jewish State. The Arabs said NO every, single, time. Your final sentence is spot on: "If Hamas and Hezbollah really want to save the lives (more than they want power) of their captive subjects - which is doubtful - they would unconditionally surrender, as did Japan and Germany in WW II". I can't say it better than you.
There are thousands of Israelis that feel the way we do.
Eisenkot launches election campaign, vows to unify after ‘chaos’ wrought by current government
I'm in the process of renewing my passport. I was sick thinking that Stinky's picture would be on it. Can't deface it. But I was glad to find out that that is a limited edition passport. Anybody who gets that will be branded for 10 years.
Hello everyone. Thank for your positive responses to my comment. Does anyone have any answers to my questions? I am at a complete loss to understand what is NOT going on! How can anyone wha cares about our country not be doing everything to put a halt to the damage already inflicted and sure to continue?
Congress is no longer a viable branch of government….mostly, how will the senators and representatives even live with themselves and what will they say to their grandchildren.
This is like living each day sleeping through a very bad nightmare. Truth is indeed stranger than fiction could ever be be….
I was listening to your radio program yesterday and you had a gentleman on talking about Trump's 40 year relationship with Russia, Putin and how the Russians bailed out Trump's bad business failures. Can you tell me the guest name and did he write a book about what he was talking about.