September 4, 2025

I walked into a bar (which sounds like the beginning of a joke,) and plopped down on a stool. I ordered my usual, Chivas Regal on the rocks, which I have been ordering for decades. It’s not a single malt, I know, but this was just another day. The gentleman next to me was drinking a Bud Light. By the way, why is drinking Bud Light like making love in a canoe? (My editor deleted the punch line.) I noticed that he had the letters T-R-U-M-P tattooed on his knuckles so I was trying to avoid any conversation. However, after two lip-loosening cocktails for me and four Bud Lights for him, we started talking.

“What’s up with the tattoos?”, I said. He responded, “They are there just to piss off guys like you.” “It’s working,” I said, “but why would you want to do that?” “It’s just a game I play, and you take the bait every time. Let me give you an example. After the recent mass shooting in Minneapolis, Pope Leo XIV called for an end to the “pandemic of arms, large and small.” I immediately blamed it on transgender, drug addicts. The “thoughts and prayers” and the “only a good guy with a gun can stop a bad guy with a gun” slogans were getting tired. I know that mental illness is not the issue. I know that too many guns in the hands of too many people is the root cause of these mass shootings, but I love my guns, and I am not willing to give them up. Mass shootings are just collateral damage to my love affair with guns. It’s unfortunate, but, as the President said, it is what it is. Listen, I would rather give up my wife and my children than give up my guns. You might as well ask me to give up my dog.”

“I appreciate your candor,” I said. “Why don’t more MAGA types like you just come right out and say it.” He replied “We enjoy watching you guys spin yourselves into rhetorical knots trying to explain to us why we are wrong.

We know we are wrong. We just don’t care. Let me give you another example. Steven Miller says that the Democratic Party is a domestic, terror organization and that all Democrats are Communists. That’s crazy talk. No one believes that. No one believes that Mexicans are rapists. We know that crime in DC has actually gotten better, but you are missing the point. We are not fighting crime. We are fighting against people who don’t look like us. The fact of the matter is that I just don’t like black and brown people. This is a white, Christian nation, and that’s the way I like it. I don’t want these people voting; I don’t want them collecting Medicaid or SNAP benefits; I don’t want them practicing family planning; I don’t want them living where I live; and I don’t want to acknowledge their history. I don’t want them serving on the board of the Federal Reserve; I don’t want them in Congress; and I certainly don’t want them as Attorneys General and prosecutors. They are some of the worst mayors in the worst cities. God forbid another one becomes President. I think you get the point. If that makes me the “R” word, so be it.”

“Wow! That is really refreshing. You don’t mince words. Do other people like you feel the same way?” “They do,” he said. “When we get together, in private, we tell it like it is, but, when we are in public, we whitewash these arguments so we can claim plausible deniability. It’s a pain, but sometimes you have to do what you have to do.”

“Is there anything else I need to know?,” I said. “Well,” he replied, “of course you know that no one is above the law.” “Now there is something that we can both agree on,” I said. “You are so gullible,” he responded. “What we agree on is that the law applies to you. What we don’t agree on is that the law applies to me. We can do anything, and Trump will give us a get out of jail card, literally. Storm the Capitol, and try to overturn an election. No problem. Rig elections…kids stuff. FBI Director Kash Patel and Federal Housing Director Bill Pulte among others have used that line to justify launching investigations into Trump’s opponents. Have you heard enough?”

“Yes, more than enough, thank you. I have to say that you are the first, honest Republican I have met in years. Drinks are on me.”

August 25, 2025

A friend of mine recently gave me a book to read, “The South End Syndicate” by Anthony Arillotta as told to Joe Bradley. It is about how the author took over the Springfield arm of the Genovese crime family after the murder of Al Bruno. The author was famously charged with that murder. As I was reading the book, so much of what I was reading was reminiscent of what is going on today in Washington D.C.

Trump is not the head of a traditional organized crime syndicate, but there are striking similarities in style, rhetoric, and tactics that echo mob boss behavior. This is not to imply that he is doing anything illegal, but he is certainly pushing the envelope, and one has to ask what is going on here?

Mafia bosses demand absolute loyalty from their “soldiers” and punish betrayal harshly. Dissent or criticism often results in being labeled a “traitor,” a “RINO,” or an “enemy.” The home of former National Security Advisor, John Bolton, was raided by the FBI recently after he made negative comments about how Trump handled his talks with Putin. Who can forget the embarrassing exercise of Trump’s cabinet members and others sitting around a conference table, and, one by one, pledging fealty to the Dear Leader? Trump demands loyalty over expertise.

Mob leaders frame the world in terms of insiders (la cosa nostra,) and outsiders. In Trump’s case, the outsiders would be political rivals, the Deep State, Democrats, etc. The media, at least the ones he doesn’t like, are the “enemy of the people.” He has initiated financial shakedowns of ABC, CBS and Paramount, and threatened to pull the broadcast licenses of many other outlets.

Mafia bosses maintain power through fear and threats. Trump uses public humiliation, name-calling (Crooked Hillary, Little Marco, and Low Energy Jeb to name a few), lawsuits, and political retaliation to keep his allies in line and intimidate his critics.

The mafia often runs protection rackets. “Support us, or bad things might happen to you.” Last week, the Trump administration announced that the government was taking a ten percent interest in Intel. The Wall Street Journal reported that this was more of a protection racket than a business deal. The announcement came after the president demanded that Intel’s CEO, Lip-Bu Tan, resign over past business dealings with the Chinese military. The stake was “bought” with $8.9 billion already promised to Intel as grants under a 2022 law passed by Congress.

Mob families demand financial kickbacks or loyalty tributes from their associates. Trump’s business and political fundraising often blur the lines between personal enrichment and organizational support. His PAC’s have funneled large sums to his businesses or legal defenses, which is reminiscent of a boss expecting his soldiers to help cover “family costs.”

Mafia bosses speak in coded, transactional, and often menacing language. “I just want to find 11,780 votes.” “I would like you to do us a favor though.” Trump threatens revenge and retribution, but always leaves himself some wiggle room. He cultivates an image of toughness, dominance, and defiance of the law.

Mafia families keep power within the family. Trump has placed his children and in-laws in positions of major influence, treating politics as a family affair.

Mob bosses portray themselves as victims of unfair law enforcement, always claiming innocence. They are infallible like the Pope. Trump consistently casts legal investigations as “witch hunts,” portraying prosecutors as corrupt.

The mob usually has many operations going at the same time whether it be gambling, drugs, prostitution, protection, running numbers, etc. Trump, in a similar vein, is using his office to promote Cryptocurrency, NFT’s, watches, sneakers, bibles, club memberships, golf courses, a media outlet, and more.

In short, Trump resembles a mafia boss in style, worldview, and methods of maintaining power through loyalty demands, intimidation, transactional politics, family-centered control, and the framing of legal accountability as persecution.

It is bewildering to many of us how decent and reasonable Republicans can support such a person. Before the 1884 presidential election, Mark Twain abandoned the Republican Party, and joined the Mugwumps. The rift was provoked by Twain’s disdain for the Republican nominee, James G. Blaine, who, despite a reputation for corruption, had “very devoted followers within the party who would not believe any of the charges brought against him.” According to Ron Chernow in his book “Mark Twain,” “Twain was staggered that upright Republican friends prostituted themselves for such an unsavory candidate.” Twain said, “Isn’t human nature the most consummate sham and lie that was ever invented? Isn’t man a creature to be ashamed of in pretty much all his aspects?”

August 15, 2025

As we suffer through our fifth heat wave of the season, the issues of climate change and global warming have apparently not gone away unless you are a MAGA Republican. In the words of Buster Poindexter, it’s “Hot, Hot, Hot.”

Excerpt from “Abundance” by Ezra Klein. “You open your eyes at dawn and turn in the cool bedsheets. A few feet above your head, affixed to the top of the roof, a layer of solar panels blinks in the morning sun. Their power mixes with electricity pulled from several clean energy sources—towering wind turbines to the east, small nuclear power plants to the north, deep geothermal wells to the south. Forty years ago, your parents cooled their bedrooms with joules dredged out of coal mines and oil pits. They mined rocks and burned them, coating their lungs in the byproducts. They encased their world—your world—in a chemical heat trap. Today, that seems barbaric. You live in a cocoon of energy so clean it barely leaves a carbon trace and so cheap you can scarcely find it on your monthly bill. The year is 2050.”

According to a recent Washington Post editorial, “The U.S. economy desperately needs more electricity. Demand is projected to outstrip supply in the coming years, largely due to data centers powering artificial intelligence. That leaves the government no choice: To avoid an energy crisis, it needs to supersize the nation’s electrical grid.”

With the Inflation Reduction Act, the U.S. passed the largest clean energy bill in its history, with record investments in electric vehicles, batteries, solar and wind manufacturing. However, Donald Trump is intent on overturning all of the clean energy initiatives from the Biden and Obama administrations in the same way that Ronald Reagan undid Jimmy Carter’s energy-saving initiatives. Reagan famously removed solar panels from the roof of the White House, making room for Donald Trump’s grand ballroom. The Trump administration has long argued that climate change is a hoax. It has been busy erasing the studies done by the U.S. government that suggest that climate change is real. However, the facts are stubborn and irrefutable. According to the blog curated by Professor Emeritus from Mt. Holyoke, Vincent Ferraro, the position taken by the Trump Administration is clearly an outlier. The overwhelming evidence does not support the Trump position. According to Copernicus, the European climate agency, the data are straightforward:

◾ The global average was 1.3 degrees above the 1991-2020 global average and .21 degrees above 2023, the previous warmest year on record.

◾ The temperature was 2.9 degrees above the estimated temperature between 1850-1900, often referred to as the preindustrial era.

◾ Each of the past 10 years has been one of the warmest 10 on record.

◾ A new record-high daily global average temperature was reached on July 22, at 30.8 degrees.

◾ Every month since July 2023, except for July 2024, was above the 2.7 degrees Fahrenheit (1.5 C) threshold

The Energy Department recently canceled a $4.9 billion loan guarantee for a major transmission project designed to deliver wind energy generated in Kansas to power more than three million homes in the region. Trump signed an executive order to stop offshore wind developments. The Interior Department is paralyzing solar and wind projects by drowning them in a tsunami of red tape. Congress, in its reconciliation package, restricted access to tax credits for wind and solar projects. Europe is far ahead of us in their embrace of alternative and renewable energy sources. China’s investments in solar and wind already put the U.S. to shame. And, after rolling back a slew of regulations aimed at reversing climate change, and pulling funding for the scientists who monitor it, the Trump administration is now taking its boldest action yet. It’s eliminating the scientific finding at the heart of the government’s ability to fight climate change in the first place.

Again, from Ezra Klein, “…we are stuck between a progressive movement that is too afraid of growth and a conservative movement that is allergic to government intervention.” Democrats need to reduce the bureaucratic impediments and overly restrictive regulations that prevent big things from getting done, and getting done quickly. Republicans need to recognize that government is a necessary partner, and not the enemy. They decry the government picking winners and losers, but that is exactly what they are doing now. They want to make solar and wind energy losers. That will not make America great again. It will just make us hotter and dirtier.

August 4, 2025

Donald Trump is seemingly at war with the very government he was elected to run. Most recently, he fired the administrator who had the audacity to report weak employment numbers. DOGE was created to reduce or eliminate programs that Congress had authorized. Goodbye, PBS. Trump has put people in place that make a mockery of the very departments they are tasked with running. His motivations are obvious. Project 2025 was designed as a playbook for wrecking government, and concentrating power in the hands of the chief executive. Trump wants to make America great again, and so it worth taking a look at what our government used to be, and its relationship with the private sector.

In the late 50’s and early 60’s, economist John Kenneth Galbraith developed theories about the role of government and the private sector. He was skeptical of unregulated capitalism, and believed it was the government’s job to balance the power of large corporations to ensure stability and social welfare. Large corporations had significant economic power that could distort markets. Labor unions, government regulation, and consumer organizations could level the playing field. He argued that public goods and services, like infrastructure, education, and health care, were underfunded, and that government needed to make greater investments in these areas to match the country’s economic capabilities. He was a strong advocate for government intervention in the economy. He believed that Keynesian concepts like deficit spending and sound fiscal policy were essential for managing demand and avoiding recession. He saw regulation and social spending as tools to protect the public from excesses of the market.

The key to the phenomenal economic growth of the 1960s was the willingness of private enterprise to allow itself to be taxed sufficiently so that things such as the interstate highway system could be built.  There was a sense in the country that the public good was worth paying for.  That changed in the 1980’s under Reagan, who famously declared that “government was the problem.” Republicans wanted to privatize everything, which culminated in George Bush’s attempt to privatize social security. This remains a stated goal of the current administration.

When the government and the private sector worked together, they could be effective partners, and great things could happen. These partnerships leveraged the government’s regulatory and funding power with the efficiency, innovation, and investment of the private sector. Infrastructure initiatives, like highways, are a good example. During the COVID crisis, the government partnered with private pharmaceutical companies to accelerate vaccine development and distribution. The government provides tax credits to developers to build affordable housing. Renewable energy projects developed by private firms have been made economically viable through government incentives and support. Google has worked with local governments to bring Wi-Fi to underserved communities. There are countless other examples demonstrating the ability of government and the private sector to work together in mutually beneficial arrangements. But, in the same way that MAGA wants to withdraw from the international community, MAGA also wants to withdraw from the government’s historic partnership with the private sector.

The federal government has always enjoyed a healthy relationship with our universities, and has worked with them on major R&D projects. Now Trump is aggressively attacking them, having initiated legal actions against Columbia, Harvard, Brown, and Duke among others. The federal government has created incentives for the private sector to pursue solar, wind, and other renewable energy options in pursuit of a cleaner and healthier environment. Not only is Trump unwinding this partnership, but he is also curtailing the Environmental Protection Agency, and the Environmental Protection Act. He is destroying the partnership between the National Oceanic Atmospheric and (NOAA) and private weather forecasting services. He wants to privatize the the NOAA. Trump doesn’t believe that the federal government has a role to play in education. I can’t think of any, major program that Trump has initiated that involves partnering with the private sector other than Elon Musk’s SpaceX.

History has shown us that government and the private sector do not need to be mortal enemies. Governments around the world frequently partner with the private sector to fund, build, or manage infrastructure, deliver public services, or spur innovation. The UK funded the construction and maintenance of hospitals with private capital, and leased them back to the NHS. Canada uses Private Public Partnerships to build roads, hospitals and transit. China partners with private companies to develop solar energy and electric vehicles. The Netherlands partners to build airports. Brazil partnered with private companies to build its transit system as did Australia.

Because of the distrust built into our politics, we seem to be incapable of projects that require the federal government and the private sector to work together. Hopefully, that productive relationship can return, but it is going to take patience, sacrifice, and an election.

July 20, 2025

Elissa Slotkin, the junior Senator from Michigan, says Democrats should not be scared. Franklin Delano Roosevelt says “All we have to fear is fear itself.” I am going to beg to differ with those Democrats. I think we have a lot to be scared of.

The Defense Department is being run by a part-time, Fox TV host, Pete Hegseth, who has been credibly accused of sexual harassment and drunkenness. He has absolutely no experience in running a huge bureaucracy. Hegseth had an insecure internet line in his office so he could use the Signal app, where he posted sensitive details about a military airstrike in two chats that each had more than a dozen people. He suspended arms sales to Ukraine without Presidential approval. He fired many of the top-ranking generals at the Pentagon. Imagine if we ever got into a real war with this clown at the head of the Defense Department.

FEMA is being dismantled at the same time that climate change is getting worse. There may not be a straight line between FEMA and the Texas flooding catastrophe, but it is only a matter of time when we have a national emergency, and all fingers will point directly back to the White House. FEMA itself is being run by an individual with absolutely no experience in disaster relief and recovery. And he reports to the head of Homeland Security, puppy killer Kristi Noem, the former Governor of South Dakota with a population of 924,000, who also has no experience in handling disasters. At the same time, the government is disavowing climate change, rescinding tax credits for renewable energies, and promoting coal, oil, and gas.

The Justice Department, which is run by blonde Trump sycophant, Pam Bondi, now says that there is no Epstein client list after she said there was a list. The Epstein client list conspiracy theory was promoted by none other than the head of the FBI, Kash Patel, and his underling, Dan Bongino. This doesn’t give me a lot of confidence in either organization, which are the two most important departments of government for dealing with domestic crime. Apparently, the only crimes they are truly interested in pursuing are those committed by the Biden Crime Family, which, in their minds, rivals the Genovese, Gambino, Lucchesi, Bonanno and Colombo families.

Patel called the FBI “an existential threat to our republican form of government.” He described FBI employees as “political jackals” who tried to “suffocate the truth” in order to rig the 2020 election for Biden. Bongino, not to be outdone, said the FBI used confidential informants to stir up the January 6th riot at the Capitol. It goes without saying that there is absolute no evidence to support any of this hogwash. Patel and Bongino have forced out many career FBI agents with the expertise and experience to prevent real crime, political corruption, and foreign espionage.

Tulsi Gabbard is the Director of National Intelligence. Her experience in intelligence prior to her being nominated for the position by Trump was zero. In addition to her lack of experience in intelligence, Gabbard had made flattering statements about autocratic leaders, such as Syria’s ousted President Bashar al-Assad and Russian President Vladimir Putin. She defended Edward Snowden, who leaked NSA secrets in 2013. Gabbard, rather than being laser focused on present day threats to our country, said she was releasing a series of reports that showed a “treasonous conspiracy in 2016” by top Obama administration officials designed to harm Mr. Trump.

You probably know the story of Department of Health and Human Services, which is being run by Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. The HHS is responsible for the CDC, the FDA, the NIH, and Medicare and Medicaid among other agencies. As of July 15, 2025, a total of 1,309 confirmed measles cases had been reported as compared to almost none in 2020.

The FAA faces several challenges, including an air traffic controller shortage, aging technology, and a decline in public confidence in aviation safety. These issues have been compounded by recent incidents and near misses, raising concerns about the agency’s ability to maintain safe and efficient air travel. The head of the FAA reports to theSecretary of Transportation, Sean Duffy, who has no obvious qualifications for the job other than being married to a Fox & Friends weekend host.

Trump wants to fire the head of the Federal Reserve so the next guy will lower interest rates. Anyone who knows anything about economics, which Trump obviously doesn’t even though he spent two years at Wharton, knows that you don’t create huge deficits and lower interest rates when the economy is “the greatest economy of all time.” We will be throwing gasoline on a fire. I usually don’t make predictions, but I predict a major market reversal if and when Trump dumps Powell.

There is a lot more to be scared about. I haven’t even mentioned Bitcoin, but you get the idea. If you are okay with all of this dangerous nonsense, sleep well. If not, give me a call. I am up.

July 3, 2025

Call me crazy (I beat you to it), but I don’t believe that black people from the inner cities or white hillbillies from Appalachia wake up in the morning and say to themselves, “This is going to be a great day to be poor.” The lifestyles of the rich and famous have nothing over the lifestyles, if you can call it that, of the poor and ignored. What a life. You start your day trying to figure out how you can cheat the federal government and the American taxpayers. Talk about waste, fraud and abuse. You grab your food stamps, and rush down to the liquor store to pick up a six pack of malt liquor. You send your six to eight children off to school for a free lunch. SNAP. If they or you get assaulted or worse, Medicaid will pay for trips to the emergency room. Sweet. Who needs the internet when you can just yell out the window of your stifling hot or freezing cold, rat and cockroach-infested apartment to your neighbors. That’s the Life of Riley.

But the wacky, wadical White wing of the Wepublican Party wants to change all that because they can’t stand seeing people prospering with the help of government. How can we run a country effectively when everyone has their hand out? These people don’t want to be Queens for a Day (that’s the second old TV show reference,) they say. They want to be welfare queens forever, and we can’t have that.

Apparently it’s okay for Elon Musk to get subsidies for his EV’s that White-Wingers say they are being forced to buy. I have actually heard that a couple of times, which leads me to believe that it is a Fox talking point. Oil companies get depletion allowances. Trump hands out special deals to special interests like its Christmas everyday. Thank god we can say Christmas again. The government subsidizes your home ownership by letting you deduct your home mortgage interest. Ghettos don’t get to deduct nothing. Companies pay for your medical insurance allowing you to ignore paying taxes on income. The rulers of the universe don’t have to pay ordinary income taxes on the income they generate from their ordinary businesses because of the carried interest loophole. I am sure that the new, big, beautiful, budget-busting bill that is making its way through Congress is chock full of gewgaw for all sorts of entities that pledged allegiance to Donald Trump, or at least took out a tax-deductible, $1,000,000 membership to Mar-a-Lago.

As the White wing proceeds to throw millions of people off of Medicaid, and strip down SNAP (food stamps,) I think it is fair to ask what does the White Wing have against poor people? Do poor people make them feel uncomfortable? Maybe you can’t feel quite as comfortable with your own success if even some small part of that came at the expense of others. Poor people certainly don’t provide good optics, like handicapped veterans, which is very important to our reality TV President. Is it because many of them are black or brown, which doesn’t quite fit into their color wheels? White is appropriate for summer. Black is not. Maybe they just don’t know any poor people. These people don’t show up at town hall meetings, or volunteer to stuff envelopes. They are too busy grifting off the government. Maybe some White Wingers actually grew up poor, and don’t want to revisit what was a horrible experience? The 800 pound gorilla in the room is that maybe, just maybe, some of these White Wingers just don’t like people of color? I am not saying that. I am just asking the question.

It’s uncomfortably laughable that the White Wing is dead set on protecting us from the abuses and shenanigans that we suffer at the hands of poor people while Trump continues to use his position to enhance his wealth. It has been reported that he has increased his personal net worth, which was in dire straits, handsomely while in office the second time. He just rolled out a new line of perfumes and toiletries, which really stinks. This comes after he announced his new telecommunications venture, which requires FCC approval. I hope he gets it.

For the White Wing, it’s okay for the haves to have more, and it’s also okay for the have-nots to have nothing.

June 14, 2025

In honor of the President’s birthday, the 250th anniversary of the U.S. Army, and Flag Day, I thought I would discuss the creeping, and often creepy, authoritarianism that is affecting our politics and our nation. After the killings in Minnesota of two Democratic politicians, some would say that authoritarianism is no longer creeping, but galloping. Democrats have been accused of lacking a coherent message that people can easily understand and digest. One of the reasons cited is that they use big words like authoritarianism, autocracy, oligarchy, and kleptocracy that only they understand. In fairness, Republicans use words like Communism and Socialism that they do not understand. I actually put the blame for not knowing these concepts on the educational system that has obviously let us down, but what do you expect when you put the Department of Education in the hands of Linda McMahon, who previously was a professional wrestling promoter? Professional wrestling is fake, like The Apprentice, and is where monosyllabic words go to die. She is currently using Elon Musk’s chainsaw to destroy the department before students learn what words like authoritarianism, autocracy, oligarchy, and kleptocracy mean, not to mention democracy. Here is a step-by-step process for creating an authoritarian regime.

Step One: Undermine Democratic Institutions. Trump frequently criticizes judges, who rule against him, calling them “so-called judges” and questioning their legitimacy. He discredits election results when they don’t suit him. He repeatedly makes false claims of widespread voter fraud, especially after losing the 2020 election, and he attempted to overturn the results with armed resistance. He challenges the rule of law. He often criticizes or attempts to influence the Department of Justice for personal or political gain, including pressuring DOJ officials to investigate his political opponents. He appointed a loyal sycophant, Pam Biondi, to run the DOJ after alleged pedophile, Matt Gaetz, couldn’t get approved.

Step Two: Undermine the press. He labels the press the “enemy of the people, calling unfavorable coverage “fake news,” and labeling journalists as enemies, a phrase often associated with authoritarian regimes. He restricts access and revokes credentials to news outlets, who refuse to obey him, the most obvious example being the punishment of the AP for refusing to call the Gulf of Mexico the Gulf of America.

Step Three: Use government for personal gain. Trump was impeached (first time) for soliciting foreign interference in the 2020 election by pressuring Ukraine to investigate Joe Biden and his son. He abuses the presidential pardon power to benefit political allies and loyalists, undermining the appearance of impartial justice, and demands political contributions and personal gifts in return. He grifts off of the public with an endless number of financial schemes.

Step Four: Use violence and intimidation. On January 6, 2011, Trump encouraged his supporters to go to the Capitol and “fight like hell” to overturn the election results, leading to a violent insurrection. He tolerates and encourages extremist groups. He refuses to explicitly condemn far-right or white supremacist groups, at times offering ambiguous or even supportive comments e.g., “Proud Boys, stand back and stand by,” and inviting White Nationalists to dine with him in the White House.

Step Five: Disregard democratic norms. Trump refuses to concede the 2020 election and falsely claims it was stolen, breaking with the peaceful transfer of power norm. He regularly prioritizes personal loyalty over institutional expertise in appointments, leading to purges of officials who contradicted him. He fired nearly 20 Inspectors General.

Step Six: Censor and Retaliate. He attempts to punish dissenting companies. He uses regulatory power and authority to punish companies that criticize or fact-check him e.g. Amazon. He retaliates against whistleblowers. He removed or publicly attacked whistleblowers and inspectors general who reported misconduct. He goes after educational institutions like Harvard, who refused his demands. He brought several law firms to their knees.

Step Seven: Militarize the Response to Civil Unrest. In June 2020, federal forces used tear gas to clear peaceful protesters from Lafayette Square for a Trump photo op at a church. Trump has sent unidentified federal agents into U.S. cities to suppress protests, raising alarm about accountability and overreach. Most recently, he sent in the National Guard and the Marines to quell a protest that was totally controllable by local law enforcement.

Step Eight: Detain Democratic Officials. There have been several disturbing incidents recently where Democratic officials have been detained for exercising their responsibilities as elected officials. Senator Padilla of California was detained for questioning Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem. The Democratic Mayor of Newark was arrested for “trespassing” at an ICE facility. Trump threatened to arrest Gov. Gavin Newsom of California. He has refused to call Democratic Governor of Minnesota, Tim Walz, to express his regrets over the recent shootings. He made fun of Nancy Pelosi’s husband, who was almost bludgeoned to death.

I could go on. The question is, “Can the country go on?”

June 9, 2025

Everyone, whoever they are, say that this President is purely transactional. It’s probably the same people that Trump evokes every time he uses the word “everyone,” which always means he is exaggerating, per The Washington Post. Anyway, everyone knows Trump has no moral compass or scruples. He has no ethics. He just wants to know what is in it for him politically or financially or both. He is always ready to do a deal as long as he gets his beak wet. The Trump family has been reported to have multiple projects underway in the Middle East, including a possible Trump golf resort in Qatar. And Trump gets a $400,000,000 jet from Qatar. Trump is hawking personal access just as he hawked Trump Steaks, Trump University, Trump Bibles, Trump sneakers, Trump watches, Trump cards, and Trump bitcoins. He sells pardons to anyone for the right price. Marriage is not a commitment. It’s a transaction.

Thus, it’s worth taking a look at what psychotherapists call Transactional Analysis, TA for short. TA is a form of psychotherapy developed by Eric Berne that focuses on understanding personality and social interactions. TA suggests that we have three ego states: Parent (reflecting external authority figures), Adult (rational and objective), and Child (representing childhood thoughts and feelings). TA identifies repetitive social patterns (games) that can lead to negative outcomes.

To put it simply, we need to ask if Trump is operating as a Parent, Adult, or Child, and what games is he playing, either consciously or subconsciously. A perfect and current example is Trump’s response to the civil unrest in Los Angeles. A “rational and objective” Adult would analyze the situation, discuss various reasonable responses, and develop a plan of action that would not escalate the situation, which is what Governor Gavin Newsom has tried to do. Newsom is focused on dealing with the protestors as fellow Adults, who are trying to express a point of view. On the other hand, you have the President of the United States, who is not focused on solving the problem. He is approaching the situation as a Parent would with an unruly child. The goal is not to solve the problem, but rather to exert control of the Child. In the words of The Atlantic, “Under Donald Trump, the federal government is like a bad parent: never there when you need him but eager to stick his nose in your business when you don’t want him to.”

On the other hand, when it comes Trump’s dealings with world leaders, especially the authoritarian ones like Putin, Orban, Xi, and the Arab sheiks, Trump is all too happy to play the role of a Child, which models his interactions with his own, domineering father. Rather than oppose the Adults, Trump reverts to being the obedient Child. Helsinki is the perfect example. When it came time for Trump to choose between Putin (Parent) and his own intelligence agencies (Adults), Trump did not have the courage to stand up to the Parent, and question his authority. The Child-Parent dynamic explains why Trump fawns over Putin and other autocrats, which he calls strongmen. Going up against them would be the same as going up against his own Parent. Trump is never happier when world leaders, especially from the Middle East, are fawning all over him like a Child. He enjoys making his Parents happy. Unfortunately, the world has figured out that it only takes a little Child psychology to get what you want from Trump.

One of the TA “games” that Trump is expert in is a game called “kick me.” In his first administration, Trump was bedeviled by the Adults in the room, who told him he couldn’t do certain things. He was told by the Secretary of Defense that he could not use the U.S. military against his own citizens. He eventually got rid of all of the Adults because they opposed his game of “kick me.” In his second term, he has staffed the entire government with Children aka loyalists, who are wearing signs that say “Please Don’t Kick Me,” and are surprised when they keep getting kicked. Trumps loves to kick these people when they get out of line. Similarly, when Columbia University acted like a Child in settling with Trump, and asked Trump to please stop kicking them, Trump took the opportunity to keep on kicking. He has no respect for any individuals or institutions that act like Children because he enjoys kicking them.

The media keeps reporting on Trump’s activities as if he were an Adult. In order for them to truly grasp what is going on, they need to think about Trump as the angry Parent, or Trump as the compliant Child. Pretending that he is an Adult is just setting themselves up for a game of “kick me.”

May 28, 2025

Last night, over 4,000 Harvard alumnae came together on a “Call to Arms” Zoom call to discuss what the Trump administration is trying to do to Harvard and higher education, and what you can do about it. The guiding philosophy of the Trump administration is “ yes, we know, but what are you going to do about it?” Harvard has taken a stand on behalf of itself, it’s alumnae, it’s faculty, it’s researchers, it’s international students, and it’s employees. As President Alan Garber said in his second Commencement Address, “The best way to acknowledge Harvard — and what this time has meant to you — is to advocate for education. Everything we might achieve — morally, scientifically, technologically, and even economically — is grounded in knowledge. Where else are you more likely to find a path to knowledge and all that it unlocks for humanity than in education?”

Harvard has had to endure an endless and mindless barrage of attacks from the federal government. Research grants have been rescinded, international students have been threatened, federal contracts have been terminated all under the guise of fighting anti-semitism. The potential harm to Harvard is in the billions of dollars. As many speakers pointed out, this has absolutely nothing to do with dealing with anti-semitism on campus. Harvard, like many educational institutions, started taking steps over a year ago to correct flaws in the system. Rather, this has everything to do with trying to destroy an institution that would not kowtow to Trump’s baseless claims and demands. If Trump were truly interested in fighting anti-semitism, this is not how one would go about it. Anti-semitism is a Trojan horse for controlling free speech and intellectual curiosity to make way for a radically conservative, Project 2025 agenda, whose aim it is to control thought and speech.

The call was moderated by noted syndicated columnist, a son of Fall River, and Harvard alumnus, E.J. Dionne. He made the point that Harvard should be flattered and honored that Trump has decided to make Harvard an example. Autocrats attempt to take down the lead dog in an industry, whether it be in education, the media, the law and so on as they wage their fake wars, believing that, if they can get the top entity to acquiesce, it would only be a matter of time before every other entity took a knee. Harvard is literally taking one for the higher education team. Legal experts on the call believed that the attacks on Harvard are baseless, frivolous, and without legal merit and will be turned aside by the courts, but damage will have been done, and that is the point. Endless lawsuits are a drain on time and financial resources.

However, if you feel that you don’t have a dog in this fight, or worse, you are quietly happy that those snarky, snot-nosed people at Harvard had it coming, think again. Maura Healy, Governor of Massachusetts and Harvard alumna, discussed the impact that the Trump attacks will have on the state of Massachusetts. For starters, Harvard is the fourth largest employer in the state. As Harvard goes, so goes the state. Federal cuts could set off a wave of unemployment that goes well beyond Harvard. Cuts could blow a hole in the Massachusetts economy that would have to be made up in other ways, be it higher taxes, reduced services, and less funding to local communities. The state would see its unemployment expenses rise. Unemployment affects housing. If demand is reduced, prices go down, and houses remain empty. Restaurants go out of business. Fenway Park is half full.

Harvard is the greatest intellectual engine in the world. People come here from all over the world to study, do research, and start companies. Companies hire people, and pay taxes. There are already signs that many of these students are making plans to study overseas, and take their creative and entrepreneurial talents with them because they no longer feel comfortable here. Who could blame them as ICE agents scoop up international students? Without this engine of intellectual growth, Massachusetts becomes, I dare say, Florida.

Harvard alumnae have been asked to open their wallets. Many alumnae, who felt Harvard already had too much money and/or didn’t agree with some of its policies, are giving for the first time in years. I have spoken to non-alumnae who have made contributions because they believe this battle for the soul of higher education is that important. Alumnae and other others need to make themselves heard either through peaceful protest, contacting their elected representatives, writing letters to the editor, voting, and writing opinion pieces for local newspapers. Trump may have poked the bear.

May 22, 2025

The phrase “Let them eat cake” is a well-known quote attributed to Marie Antoinette. It’s said to have been her response when informed that the starving French peasantry had no bread. The phrase is often used to illustrate a privileged individual’s indifference to the struggles of ordinary people. The phrase emerged during a period of significant famine and social unrest in France leading up to the French Revolution. According to the story, Marie Antoinette was told that the poor were starving and could not afford bread. Her response, according to the legend, was to suggest they eat cake. The phrase became a symbol of Marie Antoinette’s perceived callous disregard for the suffering of her subjects, and contributed to the growing resentment against the monarchy. 

I thought the most callous thing I would ever see from an American politician was Donald Trump’s throwing of rolls of paper towels at Puerto Ricans, who had just suffered the immensely destructive force of Hurricane Maria in 2017. Hurricane Maria created a huge humanitarian crisis on the island, and caused $90B in damage. And Puerto Rico is a U.S. commonwealth. Puerto Ricans are not the enemy. Now we have Trump’s instantly, infamous quote about letting them eat dolls. To be exact, at a cabinet meeting, Trump said, “Maybe the children will have two dolls instead of 30 dolls, you know? And maybe the two dolls will cost a couple of bucks more than they would normally.” Trump effectively shot 28 dolls on Fifth Avenue, and no one made a peep as he suggested. These are the same people who were ready to impeach Joe Biden over a dozen eggs. This was just before the announcement that Trump had agreed to accept a $400,000,000 airplane as a gift from the country of Qatar. Trump’s supporters have been twisting themselves in verbal knots to justify what is happening. The excuses being made to justify the plane are embarrassing. I would like to believe that even people who don’t follow politics will easily understand graft and corruption, which sounds a whole lot worse to me than the holy trinity of waste, fraud and abuse.

Trump justified his actions by quoting the famous golfer Sam Snead, which I objected to not as a patriotic American, but as a golf rules official. According to Trump, Sam Snead’s motto was, “When they give you a putt, you pick up your ball, say ‘thank you very much’ and walk to the next hole. A lot of people are stupid. They say ‘no, no, I insist on putting it.’ Then they putt it, they miss it.” I don’t know if Sam Snead ever said that, but I do know, according to the rules of golf, that a putt once conceded cannot be refused. You don’t have the option of being stupid. If you are going to use an inane and insane analogy, Mr. Trump, at least know the rules. However, what else would you expect from the person some have dubbed the “Commander in Cheat?”

Many people have said that cruelty is the point. Why else would you separate families at the border, and deport alleged criminals to foreign prisons without any evidence and due process? The right makes the argument that these episodes are just collateral damage in the war against illegal immigration. I don’t recall Congress authorizing us to go to war. Illegal migration has dropped, but is this how we want to be remembered? Are the benefits we gain enough to compensate us for the loss of our dignity and our souls? As it is with many things in Trump world these days, the Trumpists know that what they are doing is illegal and unconstitutional. But, in the vernacular of the playground, they say “what are you going to do about it.” Given the current imbalance of power, there is not much anyone can do about it. However, what goes around comes around. Hopefully, Madame Defarge is keeping up with her knitting.