Nixon at least understood the people had a right to know. This crowd has decided the people have no rights the president needs to respect & they’ll keep believing that exactly as long as we let them…
The Nixon comparison cuts deeper than it might appear on first read. Nixon lied about being a crook... but the lie required him to acknowledge that being a crook would disqualify him. That accountability premise is what's completely gone now. The current posture isn't "I'm not a crook." It's "so what if I am." That's not a difference of degree. It's a different theory of power entirely... and it's the one worth debating here.
This feels like a trial balloon. If he can get away with being on both sides of a “settlement” of this amount, what’s to stop him from doing the same thing, to the benefit of himself and his cronies, for $2 trillion? His lackeys in Congress and on SCOTUS surely will not object.
Why bother with money? If he gets away with this it doubles down on the idea that his royal family and its toadies are immune to all controls. Then short of public beheadings (or maybe those will be the opening acts for cage fights) every kind of crime is open to them. I hope that the average American says being excused from the IRS is a bridge too far, but it doesn't look like that now.
"House and Senate Democrats should be holding shadow hearings right now, on the record, with witnesses named and a documentary record being built in real time, so that the day the gavel changes hands there is no two-year Merrick Garland-style delay while everyone studies their shoes.
British Democracy does indeed always have a "shadow cabinet" - to be prepared for any change in government.
I agree: WE need it now..... come on democracts..... let's go NOW
The detail about the honest taxpayer wondering if he's been a sucker his whole life is the most important paragraph in this piece... and probably the least discussed. Corruption at the top doesn't just steal money. It licenses cynicism all the way down the chain. Once enough people conclude that only chumps follow the rules, the civic compact that makes self-governance possible starts to dissolve. That's not hyperbole. That's how it actually works.
How is it that DOJ memos have acquired the status of law? Because of some note dashed off by Mister Unelected Presidential Appointee, The President is safe forever from being indicted or audited. The White House is simply declaring its own authority separate from and above the law.
The way I see it is that everyone knows that Trump is crook, however MAGA could care less, because of him they own the libs, segregation is coming back, transgender is being criminalized, and America is headed to a theocracy. So what do they care if he is a crook , a hypocrite, a pedophile, they are achieving their hearts desire, They couldn't be happier.
And those that aren't MAGA have been warned or bought.
There is also talk of dismantling the International Criminal Court that currently has arrest orders in place for Putin and Netanyahu. TRump and Hegseth should have one for the murder of the "drug dealers" and fishermen off the coast of South America.
The hearings on the slush fund got a start yesterday. They can be found on C-Span and YouTube. Just key-in Todd Blanche.Senate hearing.
TRump's real message to MAGA is that if you overturn the election this fall, I will pardon you and I will PAY YOU. Good instructions from Thom on what to do. We also need a NO KINGS NO CORRUPTION event and we need it NOW. See you in the streets.
I’m so grateful to Mary Trump, who introduced your substack to me. I love the way you lay out the whole situation here. And there’s no hand wringing in this piece, just action items. Thank you.
As long as Donald openly hates on women, minorities, and others, the majority race will continue to lie on the ground at election time so that he can kick them in the teeth for 4 years.
The man's an abject loser/dumbass whose not-so-secret sauce is decades old, ghost pepper-infused, Misogyny and Race Hate.
After all, where was Obama born? And why are my teeth dangling, sanguinarily, from my gums?
Where's my golden Trump phone? I gotta call a dentist who takes food stamps.
#VOTE #Send his 3 sons to Iran
PS Vile Roberts and his 5 Monsters will soon fashion a "007 Licence to KILL" for the ignoramus.
Yesterday, I read that Brian Morrissey, the Treasury Dept general counsel, quit just hours after he was to oversee Trump's slush fund settlement scam. That suggested to me that the USS Trumptanic is sinking in a sea of corruption, and at least some administration crew members are bailing to avoid going down with the ship of state.
One does not need a Harvard law degree to see that the majority of Trump's administration have committed crimes of corruption while in office - violating their oath of office, misappropriating public funds, and/or weaponizing government to harm political opponents or silence public employees who were trying to live up to their oath of office to prevent criminal abuses by Trump.
The likely reason corruption in the administration is so rampant is that it is staffed almost entirely by billionaires and Nepos, totally unqualified for their roles. They are not used to being held accountable for anything, not even cheating on prep school tests or speeding tickets. So it is likely that many do not even see their larceny as criminal. Everybody in their circle does it.
Finally, Thom is on target by reminding us that Trump is tearing down the entire global structure that has maintained global peace since WWII. He has supplied arms to enable genocide in the Middle East, invaded a neutral country, insulted all US allies, undermined defense against Russia's invasion of Ukraine, and he continues to tear down treaties like NATO. Trump is destroying the entire global economy with his demented tariffs - including America's own economy- and has invited a clueless billionaire to take a chainsaw to our federal infrastructure, firing nearly every competent senior member of the civil service and the military, while undermining our 2 civil service acts to enable political corruption on a scale not seen since the 1880s.
I have always thought that there would never be any consequences. Ever. By the time there could even be that possibility there will be THE meteor, or tsunami, or tornado or the mother of all earthquakes, maybe even the bomb. And everyone will be in survival mode and Trump consequences will be a distant background noise to the needs of the day. The same for the Epstein Files...the who files?
Anyone with the least bit a sense of reality would know that the Epstein files will never be of consequence. First off, the base either doesn't care, and by that I mean MAGAt, or that there are so many rich and powerful in the files, that the whole socio-economic-poltiical structure will be upended.
Look at the identifies of the few that have suffered any consequences. Inconsequential throwaways.
HR 4505 is the Epstein files bill. A big deal was made because the House unanimously voted to pas it, and suckers that we (not me) are, jumped up and down in celebration.
Is there no common sense, no intelligence on the left?
The only reason it was passed, because when Aelita Grijalva was sworn in, the discharge petition had enough votes, and if it went to a floor vote straight off, those who voted nay would become politically vulnerable, but while congress was not in session, a strategy was hammered out.
All Republicans would vote for it, however the DOJ, would obfuscate, stall, and defy congress with impunity, and sure enough she has. as has Trumps defense attorney, posing as attorney general.
In plain sight, in full view of the world, a demented old man, a thief, a pedo, a rapist, a grifter, a conman. Is destroying America, openly involved in theft and grift. and getting away with, and at the most suffering the wit of late night comedians, and some talking heads, tsk, tsking on MSNOW
If there is not at least a 90% turnout in the next two elections we are screwed, and I worry then, won't be enough as the instruments of oppression, the judiciary and police power of he state are under his control.
Even the military has bent a knee, and will commit any international and I fear national crime,he wants.
The already have, Venezuela and Iran, Cuba is next, then onto Greenland.
Talking of Greenland, there was a poster in Greenland, NATO yes, PEDO no.
You and I have observed a history of subsequent administrations putting crooks in jail. Biden put most of the Jan 6 thugs in the cooler. What might slow the process is Musk DOGEing DOJ. The names you mentioned have likely never been held accountable for any transgression in their lives. That surely blinds them to the fact that their enabling of Trump could lead to a prison sentence in the future.
It would be salving to think that the reason that they act that way is that never in their life they have had to face the consequences of their action, but that would mean that applies to 100% of his cabinet, staff and advisory picks.
I stand bymy assessment that they act the way they do, because they know with clear eyed certainity that the only punishment they will receive is from Trump if they don't kiss his ass and do his bidding.
And as I said that is scary..
Considering all that the Republicans have put in place, prior to the elections, the only chance that we have is for a never seen before turnout by the anti MAGAts.'
I'm predicting that there will be some surprises in the recently gerrymander and even old time Republican strong holds, like Iowa, at least I am hoping so.
In addition to every measure you’ve described the EU justice system should charge, try and surely find Trump, and his cronies, guilty on all points of foreign criminalities of subversion, espionage, cowardice, treason, murder, and Genocide providing for his arrest and prosecution under the Interpol authorities. We need all the help we can get, not to lessen Americans taking care of this themselves.
Be sure to check your voter registration status no earlier than 8/3/26* in preparation for the November 3rd elections when registered voters can no longer be purged from the rolls. For more information, visit www.vote.org.
*The National Voter Registration Act of 1993 (NVRA) prohibits states from conducting systematic list maintenance (voter purge) activities within 90 days of a federal election.
It is clear that the criminals running this country now know they will never be held accountable for their crimes, past, present, and as long as they are in power, by our Constitution or the rule of law or those annoying, trivial “election” things. Anyone with a pulse knows they will never only remedy available to stop them. And it means the end of this country. The good among us don’t deserve that. The apathetic and the MAGAts do. But all of us will be going down on the U.S.S. Trumptanic.
I’m always wing told to call my senators or representatives. Well I live in Florida and I have tried to call them but they never answer the phone and their messages are always full so what’s the use of trying? They only answer to themselves and Trump apparently. The voters no longer count in their safe gerrymandered districts. It’s very distressing.
The Nixon comparison cuts deeper than it might appear on first read. Nixon lied about being a crook... but the lie required him to acknowledge that being a crook would disqualify him. That accountability premise is what's completely gone now. The current posture isn't "I'm not a crook." It's "so what if I am." That's not a difference of degree. It's a different theory of power entirely... and it's the one worth debating here.
This feels like a trial balloon. If he can get away with being on both sides of a “settlement” of this amount, what’s to stop him from doing the same thing, to the benefit of himself and his cronies, for $2 trillion? His lackeys in Congress and on SCOTUS surely will not object.
Why bother with money? If he gets away with this it doubles down on the idea that his royal family and its toadies are immune to all controls. Then short of public beheadings (or maybe those will be the opening acts for cage fights) every kind of crime is open to them. I hope that the average American says being excused from the IRS is a bridge too far, but it doesn't look like that now.
"House and Senate Democrats should be holding shadow hearings right now, on the record, with witnesses named and a documentary record being built in real time, so that the day the gavel changes hands there is no two-year Merrick Garland-style delay while everyone studies their shoes.
British Democracy does indeed always have a "shadow cabinet" - to be prepared for any change in government.
I agree: WE need it now..... come on democracts..... let's go NOW
The detail about the honest taxpayer wondering if he's been a sucker his whole life is the most important paragraph in this piece... and probably the least discussed. Corruption at the top doesn't just steal money. It licenses cynicism all the way down the chain. Once enough people conclude that only chumps follow the rules, the civic compact that makes self-governance possible starts to dissolve. That's not hyperbole. That's how it actually works.
How is it that DOJ memos have acquired the status of law? Because of some note dashed off by Mister Unelected Presidential Appointee, The President is safe forever from being indicted or audited. The White House is simply declaring its own authority separate from and above the law.
The way I see it is that everyone knows that Trump is crook, however MAGA could care less, because of him they own the libs, segregation is coming back, transgender is being criminalized, and America is headed to a theocracy. So what do they care if he is a crook , a hypocrite, a pedophile, they are achieving their hearts desire, They couldn't be happier.
And those that aren't MAGA have been warned or bought.
The message is: We are accountable to no one!
There is also talk of dismantling the International Criminal Court that currently has arrest orders in place for Putin and Netanyahu. TRump and Hegseth should have one for the murder of the "drug dealers" and fishermen off the coast of South America.
The hearings on the slush fund got a start yesterday. They can be found on C-Span and YouTube. Just key-in Todd Blanche.Senate hearing.
TRump's real message to MAGA is that if you overturn the election this fall, I will pardon you and I will PAY YOU. Good instructions from Thom on what to do. We also need a NO KINGS NO CORRUPTION event and we need it NOW. See you in the streets.
Very insightful! That is exactly what he is doing.
I’m so grateful to Mary Trump, who introduced your substack to me. I love the way you lay out the whole situation here. And there’s no hand wringing in this piece, just action items. Thank you.
As long as Donald openly hates on women, minorities, and others, the majority race will continue to lie on the ground at election time so that he can kick them in the teeth for 4 years.
The man's an abject loser/dumbass whose not-so-secret sauce is decades old, ghost pepper-infused, Misogyny and Race Hate.
After all, where was Obama born? And why are my teeth dangling, sanguinarily, from my gums?
Where's my golden Trump phone? I gotta call a dentist who takes food stamps.
#VOTE #Send his 3 sons to Iran
PS Vile Roberts and his 5 Monsters will soon fashion a "007 Licence to KILL" for the ignoramus.
What if we all followed the leader and stopped paying taxes?
Yesterday, I read that Brian Morrissey, the Treasury Dept general counsel, quit just hours after he was to oversee Trump's slush fund settlement scam. That suggested to me that the USS Trumptanic is sinking in a sea of corruption, and at least some administration crew members are bailing to avoid going down with the ship of state.
One does not need a Harvard law degree to see that the majority of Trump's administration have committed crimes of corruption while in office - violating their oath of office, misappropriating public funds, and/or weaponizing government to harm political opponents or silence public employees who were trying to live up to their oath of office to prevent criminal abuses by Trump.
The likely reason corruption in the administration is so rampant is that it is staffed almost entirely by billionaires and Nepos, totally unqualified for their roles. They are not used to being held accountable for anything, not even cheating on prep school tests or speeding tickets. So it is likely that many do not even see their larceny as criminal. Everybody in their circle does it.
Finally, Thom is on target by reminding us that Trump is tearing down the entire global structure that has maintained global peace since WWII. He has supplied arms to enable genocide in the Middle East, invaded a neutral country, insulted all US allies, undermined defense against Russia's invasion of Ukraine, and he continues to tear down treaties like NATO. Trump is destroying the entire global economy with his demented tariffs - including America's own economy- and has invited a clueless billionaire to take a chainsaw to our federal infrastructure, firing nearly every competent senior member of the civil service and the military, while undermining our 2 civil service acts to enable political corruption on a scale not seen since the 1880s.
Here is the scary part Tom. Watch the behavior and responses of his cabinet in front of the senate,be it Pam Bondi, Todd Blanche, RFK jr, Kristi Noem.
They are disdainful, abusive, insulting, argumentative disrespectful, down right nasty.
Do you think that they would act like that, if there was a cance in three years or four that there would be consequences? Do you?
I don't. They act that way because they are very assured that there will never be consequences, and That alone should scare all of us
I have always thought that there would never be any consequences. Ever. By the time there could even be that possibility there will be THE meteor, or tsunami, or tornado or the mother of all earthquakes, maybe even the bomb. And everyone will be in survival mode and Trump consequences will be a distant background noise to the needs of the day. The same for the Epstein Files...the who files?
Anyone with the least bit a sense of reality would know that the Epstein files will never be of consequence. First off, the base either doesn't care, and by that I mean MAGAt, or that there are so many rich and powerful in the files, that the whole socio-economic-poltiical structure will be upended.
Look at the identifies of the few that have suffered any consequences. Inconsequential throwaways.
HR 4505 is the Epstein files bill. A big deal was made because the House unanimously voted to pas it, and suckers that we (not me) are, jumped up and down in celebration.
Is there no common sense, no intelligence on the left?
The only reason it was passed, because when Aelita Grijalva was sworn in, the discharge petition had enough votes, and if it went to a floor vote straight off, those who voted nay would become politically vulnerable, but while congress was not in session, a strategy was hammered out.
All Republicans would vote for it, however the DOJ, would obfuscate, stall, and defy congress with impunity, and sure enough she has. as has Trumps defense attorney, posing as attorney general.
In plain sight, in full view of the world, a demented old man, a thief, a pedo, a rapist, a grifter, a conman. Is destroying America, openly involved in theft and grift. and getting away with, and at the most suffering the wit of late night comedians, and some talking heads, tsk, tsking on MSNOW
If there is not at least a 90% turnout in the next two elections we are screwed, and I worry then, won't be enough as the instruments of oppression, the judiciary and police power of he state are under his control.
Even the military has bent a knee, and will commit any international and I fear national crime,he wants.
The already have, Venezuela and Iran, Cuba is next, then onto Greenland.
Talking of Greenland, there was a poster in Greenland, NATO yes, PEDO no.
You and I have observed a history of subsequent administrations putting crooks in jail. Biden put most of the Jan 6 thugs in the cooler. What might slow the process is Musk DOGEing DOJ. The names you mentioned have likely never been held accountable for any transgression in their lives. That surely blinds them to the fact that their enabling of Trump could lead to a prison sentence in the future.
It would be salving to think that the reason that they act that way is that never in their life they have had to face the consequences of their action, but that would mean that applies to 100% of his cabinet, staff and advisory picks.
I stand bymy assessment that they act the way they do, because they know with clear eyed certainity that the only punishment they will receive is from Trump if they don't kiss his ass and do his bidding.
And as I said that is scary..
Considering all that the Republicans have put in place, prior to the elections, the only chance that we have is for a never seen before turnout by the anti MAGAts.'
I'm predicting that there will be some surprises in the recently gerrymander and even old time Republican strong holds, like Iowa, at least I am hoping so.
In addition to every measure you’ve described the EU justice system should charge, try and surely find Trump, and his cronies, guilty on all points of foreign criminalities of subversion, espionage, cowardice, treason, murder, and Genocide providing for his arrest and prosecution under the Interpol authorities. We need all the help we can get, not to lessen Americans taking care of this themselves.
IMPORTANT REMINDER:
Be sure to check your voter registration status no earlier than 8/3/26* in preparation for the November 3rd elections when registered voters can no longer be purged from the rolls. For more information, visit www.vote.org.
*The National Voter Registration Act of 1993 (NVRA) prohibits states from conducting systematic list maintenance (voter purge) activities within 90 days of a federal election.
SInce Trump is indicting94-year-old Castro, he won't obejct to being indicted himself in his old age, will he?
It is clear that the criminals running this country now know they will never be held accountable for their crimes, past, present, and as long as they are in power, by our Constitution or the rule of law or those annoying, trivial “election” things. Anyone with a pulse knows they will never only remedy available to stop them. And it means the end of this country. The good among us don’t deserve that. The apathetic and the MAGAts do. But all of us will be going down on the U.S.S. Trumptanic.
I’m always wing told to call my senators or representatives. Well I live in Florida and I have tried to call them but they never answer the phone and their messages are always full so what’s the use of trying? They only answer to themselves and Trump apparently. The voters no longer count in their safe gerrymandered districts. It’s very distressing.