Another excellent summary, which begs the question - How was this savagely corrupt man elected as president of the United States.. again? How have so many Americans supported him? What does this say about the human mind/ soul?
Nance and several more, including former KGB agents, come to the same conclusion: Trump is either an agent or a willing idiot for Putin. They probably had his mental profile and effectuated psy ops.
Trump apparently married a Czech agent in 1977. His trip to the Soviet Union in 1987 was do do an illegal deal. Trump first visited Moscow in 1987 to explore potential real estate deals, even meeting with Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev.
He saw the Soviet Union as an "untapped market" and praised Gorbachev's "opening up the country" through reforms like perestroika.
No significant deals materialized from these early endeavors.
Reports suggest that Soviet intelligence may have taken an interest in Trump around this time, and his 1987 Moscow visit might have involved assistance from the KGB, though the extent and nature of this remain uncertain based on publicly available information.
Post-Soviet business and political ties
Over the years, Trump has had various business dealings with individuals and entities connected to Russia, including a sale of a Palm Beach mansion to a Russian billionaire in 2008 for a significant profit.
Some of his business ventures, like the Trump SoHo project, reportedly involved partners with ties to the former Soviet Union and raised questions about the origins of some funding, according to Foreign Policy.
During his 2016 presidential campaign, Trump adopted a friendly stance towards Russia and its leader, Vladimir Putin.
US intelligence agencies concluded that Russia actively interfered in the 2016 election to favor Trump's campaign, which Trump has often dismissed as a "Russia Hoax".
Trump himself publicly called on Russia to find emails from Hillary Clinton's campaign, an act that was followed by Russian attempts to spearphish email accounts used by Clinton's office, according to CNN.
Trump's presidency and relations with Russia
During his presidency, Trump continued to express a desire for better relations with Russia but also faced criticism for actions that seemed to align with Russian interests or undermine alliances, according to CNN.
His administration withdrew from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty, a Cold War-era pact with Russia aimed at limiting nuclear arms, citing Russian violations.
In the context of the war in Ukraine, Trump's stance on Russia and Putin has evolved, with recent statements shifting towards a more critical perspective and even issuing ultimatums for peace negotiations.
According to many sources Trump was identified as a candidate to be manipulated early on. Ivana's father reported to the Czech KGB. Google: Ivana Trump's father, Miloš Zelníček, was a "conspiratorial" informer for Czechoslovakia's communist intelligence service, the Státní bezpečnost (StB), which was often referred to as the Czech KGB. He provided information to the StB about his daughter and her then-husband, Donald Trump, specifically regarding Ivana's visits from the U.S. and Donald Trump's burgeoning career in New York. His relationship with the StB continued until the end of the communist regime in Czechoslovakia. While the StB spied on Donald and Ivana Trump, they would have funneled any significant intelligence gathered to the KGB, according to NPR.
The FBI “recommended a preliminary inquiry... on Ivana Trump” based on information received from a confidential source in 1989, according to 190 pages of classified documents. George I was president at the time. "Czechoslovakia ramped up spying on Trump in late 1980s, seeking US intel." Exclusive: aided by Ivana Trump’s father, intelligence service with KGB ties targeted high-level government information, files show. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/oct/29/trump-czechoslovakia-communism-spying
Julie, Daniel is right below when he says psyops, but it takes more than just psyops. It takes a personality receptive to psyops. And there has been a festering boil in the body politic probably from the outset.
I morbidly enjoy watching Dr Pimple Popper and from time to time she removes a cyst, the size of a football, but they always start as a small,innocuous bump, barely noticeable.
There is an element in the population that is full of fears, anger, angst and frustration, and has been since the first adventurers and indentured servants stepped foot on the swamp that became Jamestown.
As the franchise for what it was to become a partner in the endeavor, other than an indentured servant or slave, expanded so did the hysteria that this personality felt.
The first manifestation of this hysteria was South Carolina seceding from the Union, then followed more slave states, the civil war, the victory.
Reconstruction amped up the anger, angst, frustration, among some white males, who saw their power and control slipping away, only made worse by the 13th, 14th, 15th and 19th Amendments. Then Brown v Board of Education, Roe v Wade and Oberfell.
The message fell on them with a loud bang, you are no longer the ultimate power, no longer the master of the universe (or at least that little slice of it, that is your personal bubble)
On these people pysops was only the nudge it took to get them to leap off the cliff into dictatorship (their dictatorship as they imagine)
How he was elected is something investigator Greg Palast writes about. I hope everyone is reading what he reports.
Stay tuned, Julie, the Oversight Committee just voted to subpoena Ghislaine Maxwell. Wait till you see what they uncover about TRump. I would argue he has no human soul, and I am wondering about the psychos in his Administration as well as the MAGAs.
Here's another question to ask: Why is the MAGA base, especially the Christians In Name Only, showing no concern for hardworking undocumented immigrants, even legal ones, being ripped from their families and deported to torturous detention centers here and abroad, staying mum about prices on everything going up, and ignoring the dismantling of our health and educational systems, yet are in an unrelenting uproar about the release of the Epstein files? They could care less for the mental and physical safety of the victims and witnesses...all of this broohaha in hopes that a cabal of rich and powerful pedophiles, particularly democratic Hollywood types like Tom Hanks or George Clooney, will finally be brought to light....
I lived among these people as a young child and not until I was 18 did I escape. It took me a long time to really integrate my experience and the truth that they did not care beyond their own reality.
The sad part is the abusive situation was not entirely known/realized to me because it was all I knew. I just knew I wasn’t listened to - stop the abuse- and I felt different from the community.
I identified as college bound. Yet due to the abuse I also felt different from the others who were college bound and I had known them all my life.
No doubt. But as I've been sayin' IMHO he has been nutsy koo koo for a long time.
He acted out at least twice in open court in his NY trials and the judges should have at a minimum, enquired whether he was a harm to himself or others. By all appearances he still is -- if not worse.
Trump was made possible (and popular) by the aggressive carpet-bombing of right-wing propaganda bought by fascist billionaires. Koch, Murdoch, Sinclair, etc. begat Limbaugh, the Fox hosts, etc., who begat Gingrich, Bachman, Cruz, Greene, etc. It's a hydra of disinformation, and this is how the Republican party fights democracy.
I wish your rendition could be on billboards all across our nation, in constant TV and multimedia posts, news publications and flood all digital domains. All outlets should be referring to your columns and you should be our next President, please.
This essay should be required reading for every registered Voter in America. Thom's litany of Trump's crimes was both long and coherently described. Maybe awareness that America is neck-deep in political corruption would lead to change at the ballot box - assuming that Red states have not rigged their elections even more than the last one.
Trump is a bona fide racketeer just like all of his foreign cronies: Netanyahu, Bolsonaro, Orban, Xi, Jong-Il, Erdogan, and Putin. They are all dependent on staying in power to avoid criminal prosecutions or ending up like Mussolini.
These dictator criminals have one thing in common. Their citizens have ceded power to their bourgeoisie (aka billionaires). I am spending the summer in our house in Bulgaria - once a member of the USSR and still very agrarian. The majority of Bulgarians, like most US MAGAs, seem to have a "tell-me-what-to-do" worldview that makes them think that rule by their capitalist bourgeoisie minimizes the stress in their life. It also keeps them the poorest nation in the EU.
Agree, one exception.Marx's bourgeoisie was what we call the middle class, of the ruling class, Marx was mum, had nothing to say, perhaps because it was they that funded him (League of Just Men). The ruling class today are techbros, billionaires, Wall Street.
The ruling class has always hated and feared the middle class, as the middle class is a rung in the ladder by which people can move up and (oh horrors) move down.
The Powell memo is a warning and an attack on the bourgeoisie, the middle class.
In the 21st Century, the likes of Musk, Dimon, Pete Peterson, Zuckerberg et al are the ruling class, not the bourgeoisie.
You Tom, I and all of the rest that are readers of Hartmann are in fact the bourgeoisie, the middle class .
Mark Twain used to say: "There are lies, there are damnded lies, and then there are statistics." I took at least a half dozen graduate courses in statistics. Twain was/is right. What you said begs the question of statistical computation. Raised in a tiny 850 sqft house in Whiteflightburbia west of Chicago, my family was solid middle-class at about 50th percentile. Today, I am still middle-class but in the 99th percentile? In at least one sense, you are right because wealth is now so skewed today.
Ever watch the TV series Shameless, a patriarch, drunk , drugged and scamming, has a family raising itself on the West side of Chicago. Lower Middle class they are, that was my family until I left home, we lived in a project and were lower middle class.
I now own, mortgage free, a 5 acre spread with 5 structures, and last week my wife ordered the best hot tub you can find, and we paid for it cash.
Like you I am retired military, I am still middle class.
I was middle class when in 1962 I bought an 800 sq ft rancher with a carport, and a Chevy Corvair., but was an E-4 at the time.
When did I become part of the bourgeois, I don't know, because the concept is antiquated and early 19th Century, and the world has moved on since then, social structures and their definitions have changed.
As I see it now, the U.S. has a caste system, but unlike Indians, it is not hereditary or genetic,. money gives one fluidity and the ability to move between castes, and even live like the upper caste, but one's presence is tolerated.
As an example, the President of the United States, is not and will not be accepted as a Brahmin, and he knows that, and is in part responsible for his pent up anger and frustration. He sees the Nobel Peace Prize as a ticket to Brahmin status, and he is furious because a black man has achieved that which is beyond his grasp.
“Never forget, never forgive, never again.” You opened yesterday’s Subtsack with Da Vinci’s observation that “He who does not punish evil, commands it to be done”. That thought evaded Merrick Garland, and perhaps his boss, but it must be central to Democrats going forward, assuming we get a chance to act on it. And it must apply to not only donvict but to all others who were “just following orders”. Anything less would be massive dereliction, at incalculable cost.
It did not evade Garland, Tom Halstead, Garland was playing for the other team. Biden was unfit and unequipped to be President, but he was the only choice. In 2020 anyone could have beat Trump.
In 2024 it was a combination of factors, from Russia, Russia, Russia, and psyops, toTrump tapping in to the anger,angst and fears that came to be known as MAGA, to disinterest and Social Media, and young men feeling that they aren't ever going to get pussy, or a decent job and get out of their parents basement. and the reaction of the Muslim populations of WI, MI, and PA to Biden's support of Israel. A reaction that they seem to have tamped down, since Trump, whose policies and plans are even more anti Muslim and pro Israel than Biden's. And then Democratic messaging sucks, since they slop at the same trough as the Republicans.
Trump 2025 was a confluence of factors, which resulted in the resurrection of Zombie Trump
The scale and degree of mayhem caused by this one person is phenomenal. He seems to have become convinced that every indicator of progress since the founding of the country was in error and must be undone and destroyed in favor of its opposite. But I am much angrier at the enablers and opportunists who have used this useful idiot and have stupidly thought they could control him. There is an excellent piece in the Atlantic which details how John Roberts was the engineer of most of the legal latitude paving the way for a lot of the damage Trump has done. McConnell Johnson, and most of the Republican Senators would be found guilty of treason if we had a functional justice system. There are many others who have acted irresponsibly, and Murdoch should be given 48 hours to get out of the country. Unfortunately, ignorance among the people is also a huge factor. None of this would have been possible without the failure of the people to wake up and register their disapproval a decade ago and four decades ago.
The sane among us agree that TRump is the worst of the worst and much of the world does too. When have we ever seen demonstrations around the world in solidarity against our own President?
The Canadians just told the US to go to hell in the trade negotiations. Essentially, they think there will literally be no "going back". Damage from TRump and his Syndicate doesn't stop at the border.
The sexual bond between TRump and Epstein was a horror. More investigations will come. Meidas Touch Network found an interview with a member from the band 2 Live Crew's Luther Campbell. He was on Mark Thompson's radio show on Sirius. In the early 90's, he, Eddie Murphy, and Mike Tyson went to a TRump/Epstein party. Trump greeted them. No music, just booze, drugs and underage pageant girls in various rooms having sex he compared to the movie "Eyes Wide Shut". Luther left---he knew the danger.
All of this was orchestrated by TRump's sick psychopathic mind. He and his Administration of psychos deal in death, destruction, and despair. The books, recordings, and research will NEVER be erased. We must prosecute these criminals. It's going to be hard and take time---we need to show the world this is not who we are. See you in the streets.
I haven't seen that Meidastouch video, and Trump and Epstein may have been pals, but Trump also had his beauty pageants, his modelling agency, many other accusations, starting with Jane Doe v Trump, when a victim accused both Trump and Epstein. https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/3130729-DOE-V-TRUMP/.
"Jane Doe" also used the pseudonym "Katie Johnson".
Both Epstein and Trump had legions of lawyers. Yesterday, "Roy Black, one of the nation’s premier defense lawyers, die[d] in Coral Gables at 80 By Jay Weaver"
Black was one of Epstein's lawyers when Acosta gave Epstein the deal of the century and Trump got a get out of jail free card. His client is dead, so there is no attorney client privielege. His Epstein files may be interesting.
The Palm Beach Post identified dozens of potential witnesses. It's possible that some have reached deals that are not recorded anywhere. It takes good investigators to follow up. Trump has a history of paying off witnesses. When "Jane Doe" was filed, she was represented by Thomas Meagher of New Jersey. What does he say? Does he have a file? Did he send Trump/Epstein a demand letter prior to filing suit?
Meanwhile the DOJ files may/may not hold a treasure trove. If I were the judge in NY, faced with the motion to open the grand jury, I'd ask for an "in camera" secret review of the file to see that justice is not abused.
Judge, (in one sense of the word you still are one) I had to laugh about "justice is not abused". Justice is who Trump shot in the middle of 5th Avenue. "She" didn't see it coming.
The Oversight Committee just voted to subpoena Maxwell and it passed. Court be damned, people have no idea what could come out there and be read into the record for EVERYONE to see.
I think he and his regime puppeteers just took it to a whole new level. Our vast hypocrisy - our WAR & extraction economy, disaster capitalism, etc. led to their thinking “well, WE can be even better at gouging the citizenry”!
Perhaps the 'level' of disbelief that one human could act so corruptly and in such a deranged and demagogic fashion is TFG's only operative asset. It is no secret if one grew up in 'murka soon after WW2, you were exposed to both recovery from PTSD your parents were experiencing, and the soothing glow of the FDR socialized largesse of the New Deal. Kind of a La La Land placebo took over the now baby boom group, and their children, of whom my two kids are a part of.
The mafia types were seen as the most terrible of the terrible, and G Men were always hot on their trail, so the slick suits of Wall St., Las Vegas, LA, and Miami often slipped under the radar. Only Chicago, with its gritty immigrant feel, and Philly, every man's Angry Town, got the scrutiny of the more skeptical. This allowed the Nazi-indoctrinated and Roy Cohn-tutored TFG to skip Go and pocket many dollars and drill into its head the privileged misogyny that narcissism fosters.
Suffering from the PTSD of childhood neglect AND the OCPD/OCD of always being stricken by 'not quite all the best all the time' created a nasty 'grievance hunger' that combined the angst of Hitler with the taker mentality of Barnum and the icy fake charm of Dale Carnegie. In simple language it is called 'LYING ALL THE TIME' to take whatever you want.
And those now alive between the ages of 25 -85 are choking on the toxic smoke of wetiko, having been morphed over decades into weird doppelgangers of the TFG crowd of 'never enough.' Hence, the needed mirror of self-reflection for both maga-t folk and the neo-liberalism of the once blue collar D brand is cracked into a thousand pieces, and denial has become as unconscious as breathing. We are now so deep in our own shit it smells like Johnny Depp cologne, while the hungry wolves of neglect snap at our heels and bring many of us down. This raw fate is just too much for most, so terrified capitulation feels like balm in Gilead.
And here we are, choking to death on a dying planet of our own making, watching goof balls parade around like Kabuki puppets whose strings are pulled by syphilis-infected Mad Hatters and Oz Wizards. In 2001 a Nam refugee friend sat at morning coffee with many of us. He had jumped ship as a Navy recruit to avoid facing the Nam gore, and as W was being sworn in uttered 'we are so fucked.'
Nothing has changed, except for the worse. How to claw our way out? Look in the mirror and see if we can find a real being, and ask it what grandpa would have done during the Depression.
For America to survive, possibly we need to start focusing on our young, Make America Smart Again, is not just for the elite, and start pushing education and reading. Perhaps, even revamping how we educate our young, so they cease to loath going to school, would also be a good idea.
The people who voted for Trump and are glued to FOX are the ones who think about the US in relation only to their little world. They are not by-in-large capable of thinking about America as a whole country with divergent abilities and needs. They don’t see that loosing all the world’s respect and going back to hard labor is not who we are or want to be in our future as a whole. And having said that, I also don’t believe that the only thing the future has in store are AI or coding as career choices.
Hi, Thom, I would agree that he is the #1 criminal in the U.S. However, he is mostly smoke and mirrors distraction. IMHO. The most dangerous man is Peter Thiel and the Palantir group with their under cover ability to manipulate elections, followed by Russell Vought and Stephen Miller. I have heard so little mention of what these guys are up to these days (with the exception of Miller) that it is making me very nervous. The P2025 group and Thiel/Yarvin (him less so) are, to my mind, the nerve center of all this. They don't care if Trump dies. It would possibly be helpful if he were to. He would be replaced by Vance, who is Thiel's creation and puppet. I really want to know what's going on with them. Do you know? Thank you.
And now the spineless repubs have opted to go on vacation (they have emphasized the vacate in vacation) until September just to avoid hearings on the Epstein files. How disgusting is that? They are telling us that it’s ok to have a pedophile leading our country.
The delay is a fact, but it won't stop the torrent of info. Please look-up that interview I just mentioned. Thanks Chris, I always keep track of your comments, and I'm glad when you read mine.
KGB began grooming Trump in 1977. Russian mafia bailed him out of bankruptcy in the early 1990s, they've owned him ever since, he owes them everything. Of course he's a Russian agent, he's spent 4 years and 6 months of his presidencies acting in Russia's interests, against the interests of the US, NATO, the EU.
I figured out he was a Russian agent in 2016 before he was elected the first time, based on open source and circumstantial evidence, it was hiding there in plain sight but very few connected the dots for more than 8 years.
At some point when it is relevant to your analysis, could you please address the alleged strategy that something will “happen” and DT will be replaced swiftly with Vance this year?
Hear the same about early fall, Marta. We've went without a VP succession for 50 years, so I agree. People might like to know how that works, since so many people's jobs include "serving at the President's pleasure".
Another excellent summary, which begs the question - How was this savagely corrupt man elected as president of the United States.. again? How have so many Americans supported him? What does this say about the human mind/ soul?
Ans. Psy ops.
Yesterday, Tomonthebeach and I had a discussion. Here's some of it.
Isn't this what Putin wanted? Shades of the cold war.
We've been reading, watching Malcolm Nance, Black Spy, author of several NYT best sellers. https://www.amazon.com/stores/Malcolm-Vance/author/B001KMFU2U?ref=ap_rdr&isDramIntegrated=true&shoppingPortalEnabled=true&ccs_id=c22ef9b5-474b-47e2-8111-89291e629086
Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@MalcolmNanceMedia
Nance and several more, including former KGB agents, come to the same conclusion: Trump is either an agent or a willing idiot for Putin. They probably had his mental profile and effectuated psy ops.
Trump apparently married a Czech agent in 1977. His trip to the Soviet Union in 1987 was do do an illegal deal. Trump first visited Moscow in 1987 to explore potential real estate deals, even meeting with Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev.
He saw the Soviet Union as an "untapped market" and praised Gorbachev's "opening up the country" through reforms like perestroika.
No significant deals materialized from these early endeavors.
Reports suggest that Soviet intelligence may have taken an interest in Trump around this time, and his 1987 Moscow visit might have involved assistance from the KGB, though the extent and nature of this remain uncertain based on publicly available information.
Post-Soviet business and political ties
Over the years, Trump has had various business dealings with individuals and entities connected to Russia, including a sale of a Palm Beach mansion to a Russian billionaire in 2008 for a significant profit.
Some of his business ventures, like the Trump SoHo project, reportedly involved partners with ties to the former Soviet Union and raised questions about the origins of some funding, according to Foreign Policy.
During his 2016 presidential campaign, Trump adopted a friendly stance towards Russia and its leader, Vladimir Putin.
US intelligence agencies concluded that Russia actively interfered in the 2016 election to favor Trump's campaign, which Trump has often dismissed as a "Russia Hoax".
Trump himself publicly called on Russia to find emails from Hillary Clinton's campaign, an act that was followed by Russian attempts to spearphish email accounts used by Clinton's office, according to CNN.
Trump's presidency and relations with Russia
During his presidency, Trump continued to express a desire for better relations with Russia but also faced criticism for actions that seemed to align with Russian interests or undermine alliances, according to CNN.
His administration withdrew from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty, a Cold War-era pact with Russia aimed at limiting nuclear arms, citing Russian violations.
In the context of the war in Ukraine, Trump's stance on Russia and Putin has evolved, with recent statements shifting towards a more critical perspective and even issuing ultimatums for peace negotiations.
Despite his protestations, Mueller found that Russia acted to get him elected in 2016. He said "OK Russia if you're listening..." to undermine HRC. In 2024, the same. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_interference_in_the_2024_United_States_elections
According to many sources Trump was identified as a candidate to be manipulated early on. Ivana's father reported to the Czech KGB. Google: Ivana Trump's father, Miloš Zelníček, was a "conspiratorial" informer for Czechoslovakia's communist intelligence service, the Státní bezpečnost (StB), which was often referred to as the Czech KGB. He provided information to the StB about his daughter and her then-husband, Donald Trump, specifically regarding Ivana's visits from the U.S. and Donald Trump's burgeoning career in New York. His relationship with the StB continued until the end of the communist regime in Czechoslovakia. While the StB spied on Donald and Ivana Trump, they would have funneled any significant intelligence gathered to the KGB, according to NPR.
The FBI “recommended a preliminary inquiry... on Ivana Trump” based on information received from a confidential source in 1989, according to 190 pages of classified documents. George I was president at the time. "Czechoslovakia ramped up spying on Trump in late 1980s, seeking US intel." Exclusive: aided by Ivana Trump’s father, intelligence service with KGB ties targeted high-level government information, files show. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/oct/29/trump-czechoslovakia-communism-spying
Julie, Daniel is right below when he says psyops, but it takes more than just psyops. It takes a personality receptive to psyops. And there has been a festering boil in the body politic probably from the outset.
I morbidly enjoy watching Dr Pimple Popper and from time to time she removes a cyst, the size of a football, but they always start as a small,innocuous bump, barely noticeable.
There is an element in the population that is full of fears, anger, angst and frustration, and has been since the first adventurers and indentured servants stepped foot on the swamp that became Jamestown.
As the franchise for what it was to become a partner in the endeavor, other than an indentured servant or slave, expanded so did the hysteria that this personality felt.
The first manifestation of this hysteria was South Carolina seceding from the Union, then followed more slave states, the civil war, the victory.
Reconstruction amped up the anger, angst, frustration, among some white males, who saw their power and control slipping away, only made worse by the 13th, 14th, 15th and 19th Amendments. Then Brown v Board of Education, Roe v Wade and Oberfell.
The message fell on them with a loud bang, you are no longer the ultimate power, no longer the master of the universe (or at least that little slice of it, that is your personal bubble)
On these people pysops was only the nudge it took to get them to leap off the cliff into dictatorship (their dictatorship as they imagine)
How he was elected is something investigator Greg Palast writes about. I hope everyone is reading what he reports.
Stay tuned, Julie, the Oversight Committee just voted to subpoena Ghislaine Maxwell. Wait till you see what they uncover about TRump. I would argue he has no human soul, and I am wondering about the psychos in his Administration as well as the MAGAs.
Wait a minute. Ghislaine wants a Trump pardon so therefore they won’t get much out of her.
Hold that thought---she will be under oath. What if he is "gone", and they decide to prosecute her for lying.
If she is a psycho like the girls claimed she was, she may try to outsmart everyone. Psycho vs psycho. Any damn thing could happen.
Here's another question to ask: Why is the MAGA base, especially the Christians In Name Only, showing no concern for hardworking undocumented immigrants, even legal ones, being ripped from their families and deported to torturous detention centers here and abroad, staying mum about prices on everything going up, and ignoring the dismantling of our health and educational systems, yet are in an unrelenting uproar about the release of the Epstein files? They could care less for the mental and physical safety of the victims and witnesses...all of this broohaha in hopes that a cabal of rich and powerful pedophiles, particularly democratic Hollywood types like Tom Hanks or George Clooney, will finally be brought to light....
Hatred of the "other."
I lived among these people as a young child and not until I was 18 did I escape. It took me a long time to really integrate my experience and the truth that they did not care beyond their own reality.
I admire you for extricating yourself and for your courage to leave behind what didn't work for you....
Thank you Sophia,
The sad part is the abusive situation was not entirely known/realized to me because it was all I knew. I just knew I wasn’t listened to - stop the abuse- and I felt different from the community.
I identified as college bound. Yet due to the abuse I also felt different from the others who were college bound and I had known them all my life.
What do you mean democratic Hollywood types will be brought to light?
MAGA is fantasizing that liberal rich and powerful people are on the client list. They care about that than anything else....
Julie, by the numbers. They are simplified here. These assume no aggregate fraud.
Thirty percent voted for Trump.
Thirty percent voted for Harris.
Forty percent of the electorate didn't vote.
Small numbers may tell a flawed story. Huge numbers never lie.
About thirty percent of
No doubt. But as I've been sayin' IMHO he has been nutsy koo koo for a long time.
He acted out at least twice in open court in his NY trials and the judges should have at a minimum, enquired whether he was a harm to himself or others. By all appearances he still is -- if not worse.
I want this nation to say to this malignant human being who has wrecked our nation and our democracy : “YOU’RE FIRED!”
Trump was made possible (and popular) by the aggressive carpet-bombing of right-wing propaganda bought by fascist billionaires. Koch, Murdoch, Sinclair, etc. begat Limbaugh, the Fox hosts, etc., who begat Gingrich, Bachman, Cruz, Greene, etc. It's a hydra of disinformation, and this is how the Republican party fights democracy.
Jeffrey, you are absolutely correct. How would the public know anything remotely criminal about Trump if these guys weren’t in cahoots to squash it.
I wish your rendition could be on billboards all across our nation, in constant TV and multimedia posts, news publications and flood all digital domains. All outlets should be referring to your columns and you should be our next President, please.
This essay should be required reading for every registered Voter in America. Thom's litany of Trump's crimes was both long and coherently described. Maybe awareness that America is neck-deep in political corruption would lead to change at the ballot box - assuming that Red states have not rigged their elections even more than the last one.
Trump is a bona fide racketeer just like all of his foreign cronies: Netanyahu, Bolsonaro, Orban, Xi, Jong-Il, Erdogan, and Putin. They are all dependent on staying in power to avoid criminal prosecutions or ending up like Mussolini.
These dictator criminals have one thing in common. Their citizens have ceded power to their bourgeoisie (aka billionaires). I am spending the summer in our house in Bulgaria - once a member of the USSR and still very agrarian. The majority of Bulgarians, like most US MAGAs, seem to have a "tell-me-what-to-do" worldview that makes them think that rule by their capitalist bourgeoisie minimizes the stress in their life. It also keeps them the poorest nation in the EU.
Agree, one exception.Marx's bourgeoisie was what we call the middle class, of the ruling class, Marx was mum, had nothing to say, perhaps because it was they that funded him (League of Just Men). The ruling class today are techbros, billionaires, Wall Street.
The ruling class has always hated and feared the middle class, as the middle class is a rung in the ladder by which people can move up and (oh horrors) move down.
The Powell memo is a warning and an attack on the bourgeoisie, the middle class.
In the 21st Century, the likes of Musk, Dimon, Pete Peterson, Zuckerberg et al are the ruling class, not the bourgeoisie.
You Tom, I and all of the rest that are readers of Hartmann are in fact the bourgeoisie, the middle class .
Mark Twain used to say: "There are lies, there are damnded lies, and then there are statistics." I took at least a half dozen graduate courses in statistics. Twain was/is right. What you said begs the question of statistical computation. Raised in a tiny 850 sqft house in Whiteflightburbia west of Chicago, my family was solid middle-class at about 50th percentile. Today, I am still middle-class but in the 99th percentile? In at least one sense, you are right because wealth is now so skewed today.
Ever watch the TV series Shameless, a patriarch, drunk , drugged and scamming, has a family raising itself on the West side of Chicago. Lower Middle class they are, that was my family until I left home, we lived in a project and were lower middle class.
I now own, mortgage free, a 5 acre spread with 5 structures, and last week my wife ordered the best hot tub you can find, and we paid for it cash.
Like you I am retired military, I am still middle class.
I was middle class when in 1962 I bought an 800 sq ft rancher with a carport, and a Chevy Corvair., but was an E-4 at the time.
When did I become part of the bourgeois, I don't know, because the concept is antiquated and early 19th Century, and the world has moved on since then, social structures and their definitions have changed.
As I see it now, the U.S. has a caste system, but unlike Indians, it is not hereditary or genetic,. money gives one fluidity and the ability to move between castes, and even live like the upper caste, but one's presence is tolerated.
As an example, the President of the United States, is not and will not be accepted as a Brahmin, and he knows that, and is in part responsible for his pent up anger and frustration. He sees the Nobel Peace Prize as a ticket to Brahmin status, and he is furious because a black man has achieved that which is beyond his grasp.
“Never forget, never forgive, never again.” You opened yesterday’s Subtsack with Da Vinci’s observation that “He who does not punish evil, commands it to be done”. That thought evaded Merrick Garland, and perhaps his boss, but it must be central to Democrats going forward, assuming we get a chance to act on it. And it must apply to not only donvict but to all others who were “just following orders”. Anything less would be massive dereliction, at incalculable cost.
Duds. But SCOTUS issued him a get out of jail free card.
It did not evade Garland, Tom Halstead, Garland was playing for the other team. Biden was unfit and unequipped to be President, but he was the only choice. In 2020 anyone could have beat Trump.
In 2024 it was a combination of factors, from Russia, Russia, Russia, and psyops, toTrump tapping in to the anger,angst and fears that came to be known as MAGA, to disinterest and Social Media, and young men feeling that they aren't ever going to get pussy, or a decent job and get out of their parents basement. and the reaction of the Muslim populations of WI, MI, and PA to Biden's support of Israel. A reaction that they seem to have tamped down, since Trump, whose policies and plans are even more anti Muslim and pro Israel than Biden's. And then Democratic messaging sucks, since they slop at the same trough as the Republicans.
Trump 2025 was a confluence of factors, which resulted in the resurrection of Zombie Trump
The scale and degree of mayhem caused by this one person is phenomenal. He seems to have become convinced that every indicator of progress since the founding of the country was in error and must be undone and destroyed in favor of its opposite. But I am much angrier at the enablers and opportunists who have used this useful idiot and have stupidly thought they could control him. There is an excellent piece in the Atlantic which details how John Roberts was the engineer of most of the legal latitude paving the way for a lot of the damage Trump has done. McConnell Johnson, and most of the Republican Senators would be found guilty of treason if we had a functional justice system. There are many others who have acted irresponsibly, and Murdoch should be given 48 hours to get out of the country. Unfortunately, ignorance among the people is also a huge factor. None of this would have been possible without the failure of the people to wake up and register their disapproval a decade ago and four decades ago.
The sane among us agree that TRump is the worst of the worst and much of the world does too. When have we ever seen demonstrations around the world in solidarity against our own President?
The Canadians just told the US to go to hell in the trade negotiations. Essentially, they think there will literally be no "going back". Damage from TRump and his Syndicate doesn't stop at the border.
The sexual bond between TRump and Epstein was a horror. More investigations will come. Meidas Touch Network found an interview with a member from the band 2 Live Crew's Luther Campbell. He was on Mark Thompson's radio show on Sirius. In the early 90's, he, Eddie Murphy, and Mike Tyson went to a TRump/Epstein party. Trump greeted them. No music, just booze, drugs and underage pageant girls in various rooms having sex he compared to the movie "Eyes Wide Shut". Luther left---he knew the danger.
All of this was orchestrated by TRump's sick psychopathic mind. He and his Administration of psychos deal in death, destruction, and despair. The books, recordings, and research will NEVER be erased. We must prosecute these criminals. It's going to be hard and take time---we need to show the world this is not who we are. See you in the streets.
I haven't seen that Meidastouch video, and Trump and Epstein may have been pals, but Trump also had his beauty pageants, his modelling agency, many other accusations, starting with Jane Doe v Trump, when a victim accused both Trump and Epstein. https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/3130729-DOE-V-TRUMP/.
"Jane Doe" also used the pseudonym "Katie Johnson".
Both Epstein and Trump had legions of lawyers. Yesterday, "Roy Black, one of the nation’s premier defense lawyers, die[d] in Coral Gables at 80 By Jay Weaver"
Read more at: https://www.miamiherald.com/news/local/obituaries/article311144560.html#storylink=cpy
Black was one of Epstein's lawyers when Acosta gave Epstein the deal of the century and Trump got a get out of jail free card. His client is dead, so there is no attorney client privielege. His Epstein files may be interesting.
The Palm Beach Post identified dozens of potential witnesses. It's possible that some have reached deals that are not recorded anywhere. It takes good investigators to follow up. Trump has a history of paying off witnesses. When "Jane Doe" was filed, she was represented by Thomas Meagher of New Jersey. What does he say? Does he have a file? Did he send Trump/Epstein a demand letter prior to filing suit?
Meanwhile the DOJ files may/may not hold a treasure trove. If I were the judge in NY, faced with the motion to open the grand jury, I'd ask for an "in camera" secret review of the file to see that justice is not abused.
Judge, (in one sense of the word you still are one) I had to laugh about "justice is not abused". Justice is who Trump shot in the middle of 5th Avenue. "She" didn't see it coming.
The Oversight Committee just voted to subpoena Maxwell and it passed. Court be damned, people have no idea what could come out there and be read into the record for EVERYONE to see.
I just saw that video clip again of Epstein and rump being all buddy buddy, laughing and whispering sweet nothings in each other’s ear
It’s pretty obvious that rump is coked out to the max.
She has a pending perition for cert at SCOTUS and wants relief from Trump.
Better, get the DOJ file.
I thought Trump didn’t want booze or drugs around him? I guess just not in him.
I think he and his regime puppeteers just took it to a whole new level. Our vast hypocrisy - our WAR & extraction economy, disaster capitalism, etc. led to their thinking “well, WE can be even better at gouging the citizenry”!
Perhaps the 'level' of disbelief that one human could act so corruptly and in such a deranged and demagogic fashion is TFG's only operative asset. It is no secret if one grew up in 'murka soon after WW2, you were exposed to both recovery from PTSD your parents were experiencing, and the soothing glow of the FDR socialized largesse of the New Deal. Kind of a La La Land placebo took over the now baby boom group, and their children, of whom my two kids are a part of.
The mafia types were seen as the most terrible of the terrible, and G Men were always hot on their trail, so the slick suits of Wall St., Las Vegas, LA, and Miami often slipped under the radar. Only Chicago, with its gritty immigrant feel, and Philly, every man's Angry Town, got the scrutiny of the more skeptical. This allowed the Nazi-indoctrinated and Roy Cohn-tutored TFG to skip Go and pocket many dollars and drill into its head the privileged misogyny that narcissism fosters.
Suffering from the PTSD of childhood neglect AND the OCPD/OCD of always being stricken by 'not quite all the best all the time' created a nasty 'grievance hunger' that combined the angst of Hitler with the taker mentality of Barnum and the icy fake charm of Dale Carnegie. In simple language it is called 'LYING ALL THE TIME' to take whatever you want.
And those now alive between the ages of 25 -85 are choking on the toxic smoke of wetiko, having been morphed over decades into weird doppelgangers of the TFG crowd of 'never enough.' Hence, the needed mirror of self-reflection for both maga-t folk and the neo-liberalism of the once blue collar D brand is cracked into a thousand pieces, and denial has become as unconscious as breathing. We are now so deep in our own shit it smells like Johnny Depp cologne, while the hungry wolves of neglect snap at our heels and bring many of us down. This raw fate is just too much for most, so terrified capitulation feels like balm in Gilead.
And here we are, choking to death on a dying planet of our own making, watching goof balls parade around like Kabuki puppets whose strings are pulled by syphilis-infected Mad Hatters and Oz Wizards. In 2001 a Nam refugee friend sat at morning coffee with many of us. He had jumped ship as a Navy recruit to avoid facing the Nam gore, and as W was being sworn in uttered 'we are so fucked.'
Nothing has changed, except for the worse. How to claw our way out? Look in the mirror and see if we can find a real being, and ask it what grandpa would have done during the Depression.
For America to survive, possibly we need to start focusing on our young, Make America Smart Again, is not just for the elite, and start pushing education and reading. Perhaps, even revamping how we educate our young, so they cease to loath going to school, would also be a good idea.
The people who voted for Trump and are glued to FOX are the ones who think about the US in relation only to their little world. They are not by-in-large capable of thinking about America as a whole country with divergent abilities and needs. They don’t see that loosing all the world’s respect and going back to hard labor is not who we are or want to be in our future as a whole. And having said that, I also don’t believe that the only thing the future has in store are AI or coding as career choices.
Hi, Thom, I would agree that he is the #1 criminal in the U.S. However, he is mostly smoke and mirrors distraction. IMHO. The most dangerous man is Peter Thiel and the Palantir group with their under cover ability to manipulate elections, followed by Russell Vought and Stephen Miller. I have heard so little mention of what these guys are up to these days (with the exception of Miller) that it is making me very nervous. The P2025 group and Thiel/Yarvin (him less so) are, to my mind, the nerve center of all this. They don't care if Trump dies. It would possibly be helpful if he were to. He would be replaced by Vance, who is Thiel's creation and puppet. I really want to know what's going on with them. Do you know? Thank you.
Claire, exactly. That group is alive and well and in charge. And the press should be doing a better job keeping tabs and write about their activities.
And now the spineless repubs have opted to go on vacation (they have emphasized the vacate in vacation) until September just to avoid hearings on the Epstein files. How disgusting is that? They are telling us that it’s ok to have a pedophile leading our country.
The delay is a fact, but it won't stop the torrent of info. Please look-up that interview I just mentioned. Thanks Chris, I always keep track of your comments, and I'm glad when you read mine.
https://youtu.be/T-u4d6Zwdns
TRUMP IS A KGB AGENT
SASHA SOTKIN
VIDEO
https://youtu.be/T-u4d6Zwdns
KGB began grooming Trump in 1977. Russian mafia bailed him out of bankruptcy in the early 1990s, they've owned him ever since, he owes them everything. Of course he's a Russian agent, he's spent 4 years and 6 months of his presidencies acting in Russia's interests, against the interests of the US, NATO, the EU.
I figured out he was a Russian agent in 2016 before he was elected the first time, based on open source and circumstantial evidence, it was hiding there in plain sight but very few connected the dots for more than 8 years.
At some point when it is relevant to your analysis, could you please address the alleged strategy that something will “happen” and DT will be replaced swiftly with Vance this year?
Hear the same about early fall, Marta. We've went without a VP succession for 50 years, so I agree. People might like to know how that works, since so many people's jobs include "serving at the President's pleasure".